There are some things I wanted to add to my Steering wheel but I cannot figure out how to wire it so it can turn. I cannot us a normal slip ring because there is not enough clearance. I need somthing more like how the horn is setup.

Anyone got any ideas? There had got to be somthing.... all the new cars have stuff on the wheel.

thanks

You could try wraping the wires around the inside space. Leave it loose enough so it can tighten in one direction and loosen in the other.

I'm working on a chip that can decode however many buttons you want to add to the wheel, using just the horn wire. A "short" to Ground (stock horn switch) will still operate the horn, as a fail safe. Other resistances to Ground will set the outputs of the chip, which can in turn drive relays, either momentary or latched on/off. How many switches did you want to add? I think I can do up to like 16. Just gotta make sure it works with the possibly dirty horn conact. Hope to get it done soon, but not sure just how long it will take. Could be useful though! (I'm making it so I can use a modern cruise control switch on the wheel to control the stock cruise control...)

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Bob Williams
Multi-colored '87 Mutt, a work in progress! (3800SC installation in super-super-ssuuppeerr-slow-motion progress... Done for Kansas? Riiiiiiiight....)

It is really a pretty simple modification. I used the upper shaft, wheel, and slip ring from a '95 Grand Am for my modification. I installed a '97 Grand Prix radio in my '86GT and wanted to connect the radio controls. Here are some pics.

All that is needed is the replacement of the original shaft with the longer shaft, the adding of the ring, and running the wires. It took me about 2 hours.

Go here and look for "Pioneer Radio"

http://www.lonestarfieros.org/%7Enewboy/momndad.html

[This message has been edited by texasfiero (edited 09-01-2004).]

[minor hijack]Hey, how do you "pop" that part back into the shaft? (the "U" joint)?[/minor hijack]

Actually... mine was not going to be so much a switch as a light. I just did not want to bunch up the wire.

Would it be that difficult to use the horn's slip ring? or would I lose the use of the horn?

Once you get enough of the shaft exposed, just swivel it to 90 degrees and the two shafts will separate.

Woah, that's cool. Never seen that far into the column, had no idea you could even do that! You could possibly still use just the horn wire to power a light, but it would turn off when you hit the horn... (not that big a deal I guess) Just have to wire in a resistor in series with the light, so the horn switch wouldn't directly short the 12v to GND when pressed. Pushing the horn will short the resistor to GND, so you have to use a fairly large one, which means not a very high powered light... (LED?) If you can do the Clockspring and shaft modification, that would probably work better. And there'd be more wires to add even more stuff.. (I'm planning on passing some video signals up one of them....... )

IR remote encode/decoder chip. Two emitters on the steering wheel and a receiver on the cluster. 8-16 channels of control.

The radio is controlled by a resistor net that simply stacks the resistors to control the radio functions. The harness from the Grand Am is compatible with the radio from the '97. Here is the wiring diag. of a '99 Bonneville. The slip ring contains a 4-wire ribbon which carries the radio sig. and the air bag harness is a two wire. I just clipped those wires off as I didn't plan to connect the air bag but they could also be used.

That steering column mod is on my list of things to do. TexasFiero makes it look so easy.

Interestingly enough the steering wheel controls are all through a single wire in the slip ring. It decodes which button you pushed through a set of resistances nearly identical to what Ricerburner98 wants to build.

There is also a wire to the air bag that you could use for video or whatever. Given that it was designed for an airbag I wuld expect it to be a pretty noise free connection.

- Jonathan

Edit - TexasFiero posted that drawing while I was typing...he confirmed what I was saying about the wires.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 08-31-2004).]

LOL... Exactly what I was thinking Jonathan, basically I want to use the stock cruise switch (and probably the resistor-based radio controls if I can re-label them) from the 3000GT wheel I'm using. Also the air bag wires - good call.. I'll be using them for video. Anyone know how much current you can pass up the clockspring? Depending on what kind of light Pyric wants to use, the clockspring may or may not work.. The slipring would provide for more power, but how much power do we need? (enough for an LCD screen? lol )

OH, NOW HE'S GOING TO PUT GPS ON HIS STEERING WHEEL

quote Originally posted by texasfiero: OH, NOW HE'S GOING TO PUT GPS ON HIS STEERING WHEEL

I told you that would look good sitting in the steering wheel!

Well, I guess I'll give in and tell you... I was trying to get it to work before I spilled the beans. I had some left over EL glo material from my gauges and was trying to get the emblem to glow like I saw in another thread.... but the wiring has to be hooked to the headlight switch.

I got the gauges in, and I got the emblem all set... it's just stopping the steering wheel from eating up the wire that is the problem.

Should not require too much power.... the original wiring calls for 12v, but that was for everything.

So, has anyone wired anything directly to the existing slip ring? or better yet, have any pictures of it?

GPS, who said that? lol... And with the 7" touchscreen monitor, it'll be easy to control too. I hope. Anyway, here's a quick diagram of something that should work for sending 12v up the slip ring, to the wheel. By changing the value of the resistor you can draw more current, just have to increase the wattage so it won't burn up the thing. I was trying to figure it with a diode, but my brain's not firing on all cylinders at the moment, and I didn't see how to do that. This way should work, anyone have an opinion? Could be the worst idea ever, but I can't see a reason why it wouldn't work....

edit: now that I look at it again, I think a diode would be needed after the resistor, before the slip ring, to keep power from going through the horn relay and into the headlight circuit while the headlights are off. That would be a wierd problem to find..

[This message has been edited by Riceburner98 (edited 09-01-2004).]

I was about to add that you need diodes to isolate the two power sources then I see that you added that. The other thing is to carefully choose your resistor such that you have enough current to pull in the horn relay and also power your lights in the steering wheel. I'm sure it can be done, but I think I prefer the mechanincal solution of the steering wheel controls slip ring.

I think you might have a problem with too much current flowing through the light and the horn relay is going to pull in and you won't be able to syop your horn from honking. The only way to know for sure is to try it. Let us know how it works out.

- Jonathan

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 09-02-2004).]

What about volume control on the steering wheel?

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For volume control you definitely need the new clockspring and shaft.. Mostly because you need the factory volume control and the factory radio. Or, an aftermarket radio with an infrared remote attached to the wheel.

IR-DX8 chip. Encode and decode. Output pulls trans down and loads the GM radio remotee lines with correct R's. Two transmitters. One receiver. Simple.

LOL... For some of us... Many people here aren't into building circuit boards. You'd still need a GM factory radio with remote input capability, and either a power wire up the column, or battery power, and to know the GM resistances.. I agree IR is definitely a solution though.. I believe that Mitsubishi actually sends IR encoded data down a wire (!) to their radios, instead of resistances. Or used to anyway.. I should be pulling another 3000GT column on Saturday, this one has the controls in the wheel, so I'll find out. Woo! As for the light circuit driving the horn relay all the time, I *think* the relay resistance is around 400 ohms, so as long as you stay below that with the power resistor, I think you'd be OK.. I too would prefer the newer clockspring. No intermittant connections there either, it's all 1 continuous wire unlike the dirty horn ring. (speaking of horns honking - the first time I really had to nail the horn in my Neon, the pressure pad in the airbag bent where the Dodge emblem hit it inside, causing the thing to stay on! I had to pull over and yank the fuse... Then the dealer had to replace the $$$ airbag because the (easily removable btw) pressure pad wasn't an orderable part.... LOL Go Dodge!) BTW TK- that looks like a very useful IR chip! Very simple, yet effective.

[This message has been edited by Riceburner98 (edited 09-02-2004).]

I didn't want to have to run any wires in the column although I guess I could use the IR pair inside to do that. I have a new steering wheel center and a 6000 center with the control buttons. I'm only putting a couple of the key buttons in. Everything will fit in the steering wheel. Then I can put the small receiver in the dash and down to the radio.

Yeah, the radio doesn't support remote control it makes it a tad more difficult!

Hmm... Just thought of something... If I want to run GPS in the wheel, I need a 9pin serial cable, and a 15pin VGA cable along with power.... How the heck am I going to do that??? LOL Anyone?