Un-dummying / Stealth buttons on shifter panel for MT vehicles.
 

http://www.canadianautoreview.ca/ima...-vsc-sport.JPG

As anyone with a MT twin will know, the center button that is normally used on the automatic version of the car for sport and snow modes is blanked out on the MT and cannot even be pressed.

That doesn't mean however that it cannot be used! here's how to enable it and use it for your own custom projects.

Keep in mind that this is a momentary switch, not a toggle so it acts the act same way as a computer keyboard, a rubber membrane over pcb has a series of button mounds on it and the plastic buttons depress these, completing a circuit on the pcb only while the button is held down.
Additionally, its actually TWO buttons because like the AT version it functions on a rocker, all of the hardware is actually there for the MT version to work, including the rocket mount itself, they just add in some extra plastic and leave out an insert under the button, to keep it disabled.

in my own personal project I linked my up button to a discreet HDMI switch hidden in the dash that switches between a chromecast and a raspberry pi.
So without further ado, here we go.

http://i.imgur.com/fbPURGx.jpg

First dismantle the removed unit (four clips, two each side hold the light grey plastic piece in), once the light grey plastic piece is removed, you can take out the rubber membrane, from here you can access the plastic tabs for the center rocker that hold it in place, push both sides in gently and only about 1mm inwards each and you should be able to slide the button out.

Once its out, dremel or file down the plastic as shown, do not file below the point at which the plastic pins that hold the rocker switch in place are located, for best results aim to file down to the pin holes on the outer edges and leave the centers at their original height, as shown.

http://i.imgur.com/jmRqVu0.jpg

Next up, flip over the removed button and dremel or file off a section about as much as shown, you can file off more if you want but again do it at an angle from the center to the edge, leaving the center basically its orginal height.

http://i.imgur.com/QdvOuAd.jpg

Now we need to tackle the external edges of the button, on the AT toggle switch there is a gap to allow the toggle switch to rock back and forth when used, the ledge that the MT button has prevent this from working correctly, so you essentially need to carefully sand/file/dremel the plastic ledge to about half the width it is by default (marked in pink in this picture), if you sand side on when the buttons installed in the car it will look completely stock, try and get the edge you sand to retain the original curve for best results.
Again you want to get the ledge to about 50% of its original size on the front facing and back facing sides only, you do not need to sand any other side.

http://i.imgur.com/xwyHvvx.jpg

From here modify the PCB as shown and run some wires (gauge depends on your application, but i'd recommend 12v maximum) down channels cut in to the pcb and plastic where i show in the above picture, I only wanted to use the up key for my modification so I only did the required adjustment for that.

http://i.imgur.com/2CtAbjd.jpg

Heres the pain in the butt bit, you will need to 3d print this piece, either on your own 3d printer, a friends, or using a service such as shapeways, the model i made for this modification can be downloaded here - http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php...79233924259747 or viewed online here - http://www.3dfile.io/ZIvO51

http://i.imgur.com/5AvclYh.jpg

Once re-assembled youre basically ready to go, hook up the wires to any device you want to trigger with the momentary button and you have yourself a nice stealthy button
Will add in a video of my modified panel working to switch HDMI sources tomorrow morning, its a little too dark out right now.

This is much better than my idea to try to drill a hole to put toggle switch there. Kudos.

If you want to use them as a toggle its possible but you would need to link the momentary buttons to a latching circuit, JK flip flop or relay to handle the toggle state of the circuit you want to control!
Something like this would work well for this - http://www.electronics-lab.com/proje...on-off-switch/

Quick wuestion. Are you gonna be using your pi with the oem or an aftermarket hu? I was planning to build a cheapo 7 inch touch screen with an actual pc to support it. With windows 10 coming out software issues should be solve for me.

I wish I had the know-how to do any kind of project with this information, since it would look cleaner than other buttons.

I have a Pioneer SPH-DA09 (Sold outside of japan as a SPH-DA201 I believe?). The chromecast device and pi are connected to a cheap unpowered hdmi switch then to the hdmi port on the HU.
I tapped the lines from the hdmi switch "selector" push button and ran it to the switch outlined in this guide, now when I use the car I can select HDMI/Android mode on the HU then use the up button to switch between PI and Chromecast, allowing me to cast google maps to the screen and easilly switch between that and whatever I want to run on the pi (which is currently just emulators for games! but will eventually be some engine monitoring stuff using the canbus over GPIO port)

You could run a cheap 7 inch touchscreen it would just be a case of working with the screen to get it mounted in a position where putting the original surround back on covers it nicely, assuming you went with a particular sized screen it would be feasible to mount the panel directly to the detachable dash surround piece, with small shims to give you a slight gap between screen and surround (so theres no touchscreen interferance).

Personally i'd go with an 8 inch monitor so it slightly overshoots the frame, build it into the actual surround (buy a spare surround from a dealership to play around with), you can always use powerstrip to create a custom resolution that uses only the viewable portion of the screen, as for the touch panel once the custom resolutions set it would just be a case of running calibration again.

As for the screen its pretty easy to mount, it would be just like installing a nexus 7. The hard part is wiring everything up and making sure it wont overheat during the summer. Any LED touch screen you would recommend?

I don:t have much familiarity with touchscreens i'm afraid, but so long as its a respectable resolution, the correct size and can accept the video signal you plan on using you shouldnt really have a problem.
If you didn't care for touchscreen you could go with a super nice resolution and use an ipad retina 7.9" lcd through displayport connection on a Abusemark ipad mini retina displayport adapter pcb
For keeping it cool, you can buy heat sinks and fans for the PI and Pi2, as for the display it shouldn't need it but if you want to cool that too, i'd suggest mounting a PC hdd bay cooler on the back of the display unit.
http://www.sunbeamtech.com/PRODUCTS/...d-cooler-5.jpg

As for the promised video!
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1tg90IYIz4"]GT86 Shifter console button mod (HDMI Switching) - YouTube[/ame]

This is amazing bet it will come in handy for future project.

Nice

Nice project. I was thinking of just swapping the buttons out with the AT version, which gives me two toggle switches to wire to whatever I want, but I haven't figured out what to use it for yet.

Didn't know that the MT version even has the rocker mechanism. Looks good!

If you do use an AT unit you will need to modify the pcb if using the AT pcb too (middle two buttons are wired to pins and has LEDs for the center button too), pcb will need to be modded to break the signal as they share lines with other buttons and carry power/grounding if left as is.
You CAN add a LED to the MT pcb board but it requires bridging the empty trace connectors marked R2 with a 162 SMT resistor to provide the power to it.

I bought an AT switch unit when getting ready for this Mod but after stripping both down I found it easier to mod the MT unit!

If you do fiddle with an AT unit feel free to let us know with pics!

Ping
 

Any chance that someone has the stl files from the original post?

Links are dead and I am preparing to attempt this mod on a spare set of buttons I got my hands on!

If you get the AT version, you'll have backlit buttons, no need for anything else