I have almost completed my in-car computer system and have a few obstacles to overcome. One of which, are the factory steering wheel controls. I'd like to retain functionality and understand how they work, but I have no idea how to interpret the signals for my computer.

I believe the project should be pretty simple. The controls use a single wire and have different sized resistors in-line on the controls so different resistance values are read for each control (Vol +/-, Track up, Track down).

Anyways, I was wondering how I can take the readings from that wire and send a representative piece of data for each function. I can do the programming on computer to make use of the data received - I just need help getting it there.

Hope I was clear enough lol Thanks everyone!

 

do you have a circuit diagram, or something to go off from?

B. Morse

 

I have nothing, honestly. Unless you are talking about the diagram of the stock steering wheel controls.

However, I believe I am just going to use an Arduino to handle this along with a few other truck-to-computer functions I have in mind. I am new to all of this and the Arduino seems like a good place to start.

 

Why not just use the parallel port?

 

I have nothing, honestly. Unless you are talking about the diagram of the stock steering wheel controls.

The stock steering controls diagram would be a very good start....

B. Morse

 

I suspect those switches are being read by an ADC (analog to digital convertor). Different switch presses will present a different resistor divider value to the ADC.

Probably easy enough to read the switches with the ADC module in a microcontroller but not sure how you could present the same resistor divider value to the original circuit from the microcontroller.

Regards, Mike