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So Frostysauce and I have had multiple calls going over this and as of right now we have a lot working, and a lot not working.
First an update, as far as I can tell the cables melted before I had a chance to do any damage. How do I know? Well because I remember I had a spair IAM Module that I took apart for car hacking, that has the same ribbon cable. So I used that. After catching up with Frosty I was able to get the screen working on the Merry way unit.
Now what's working?
Back up camera
Display
Touch screen
'mode' button
MY AUDIO IS WORKING, however, Frosty's is not
radio and Bluetooth for me
Also we discovered we have two different harneses, so we need some clarification on that.
What's not working?
Parking sensor button
The video pass through from the original IAM Module that allows us access to the original menu
Things we are working out?
I have a theory on how the audio works and the screen works. I think it's basically like in control where video is displayed and audio is bluetooth
Screen grab to Merry way unit and audio back to IAM Module.
Frosty is having the same issue with video passthrough and he is having audio issues.
What's next?
I am out of commission until I can source a 4th cable and check OEM unit. I think honestly the boards are fine, but want to confirm.
Merry way is working on getting us with an engineer. Outside of time difference they have been very helpful, especially considering we are the first customers on these, they will probably take our feedback and improve for the group buy.
My thoughts so far are that most of this is expected for me, I do a lot of R&D at work and am not unfamiliar with failures.
Some interesting notes, the head unit has an audio out runction.... This is great because if it supports stereo out, we can bypass the factory amp! This is huge for me as I am not a fan of our amp and the factory EQ settings.
I am off to bed since I have my last day at work tomorrow and also am presenting remotely at conference on Security. Have a good night! Factory unit, Cambo can you confirm? Awesome OEM screen! Also I changed it to english Backup camera with 360 option Video pass through my only issue left for the most part
I wouldn't get too excited just yet Dom as I suspect they don't do a RHD version and it's unlikely they would ever get enough demand to justify doing one.
One example - I have been looking for a RHD dashmat for the F-Type for well over two years now, and still no such animal.
I’m a bit confused here. The OEM screen appears to be square on in the car. Are you sayings it’s angled differently for left and right hand drive? Sorry if I am being dumb here.
Rick covered it pretty well above. I am also now a victim of burnt ribbon cables and have exhausted my supply - so I should be getting about 10 more tomorrow. I was able to plug my factory unit back in, and everything worked etc. So I attempted to use the factory ribbon cable on the Merryway unit, and I must have plugged it in upsidedown because I fried that one. I then used the Merryway cable with the OEM unit and that cable fried as well.
One thing I noticed is that the OEM unit, the fiber optic connection on the back of the headunit lights up as soon as power is applied, however with the Merryway unit I was getting no send/receive signal on the fiber optic connection when power was applied. I think this is the root of most of our issues such as not being able to get to the factory menus, so on and so forth.
Rick covered it pretty well above. I am also now a victim of burnt ribbon cables and have exhausted my supply - so I should be getting about 10 more tomorrow. I was able to plug my factory unit back in, and everything worked etc. So I attempted to use the factory ribbon cable on the Merryway unit, and I must have plugged it in upsidedown because I fried that one. I then used the Merryway cable with the OEM unit and that cable fried as well.
One thing I noticed is that the OEM unit, the fiber optic connection on the back of the headunit lights up as soon as power is applied, however with the Merryway unit I was getting no send/receive signal on the fiber optic connection when power was applied. I think this is the root of most of our issues such as not being able to get to the factory menus, so on and so forth.
Yours was working (kinda). How long did it take for the ribbon cable to burn? I'm slowly losing faith in this being a definitive and reliable upgrade.
Did you disconnect and reconnect? I thought you had powered it up without issue?
Yes, I was constantly checking the connection between the main screen and the boards that house the fiber optics, accessories, etc - one of the configurations I tried had me trying the cable out inverted/twisted - that one burnt up, I then tried the regular merryway cable on the OEM board, that one also burnt up - I am not clear why that one burnt up though. OEM cable + OEM screen worked fine, and Merryway unit + OEM guts worked fine, except we could not get the video feed from the cars IAM module (dynamic screen, climate control, etc etc). Neither of us has gotten that bit to work yet.
With the OEM unit, the only thing you need to connect is the main power harness and the fiber optic connection, and everything pretty much works - we spent a lot of time plugging stuff in and trying out different combinations because the Merryway harness has so many connections on it, but I think most of that is superfluous to getting the fiber optic connection working. Needless to say, some direction on what connectors go where would have been super helpful. I have a feeling though, since it should really only require the two connections, that we are either missing something for the factory IAM integration, or it will just not work at all.
Actually Amazon over-delivered and I got 10 new ribbon cables in on the same day I ordered them (thanks NYC)
This morning I went ahead and swapped the cables again, took photos of each step for Jenny, showed all of the plug ins on the car and what I had them connected to, and took some video of the unit booting up, navigating the screens, etc. However, I still am unable to get a video feed from the cars IAM, meaning I cannot control the radio, or use climate control, etc. The backup camera however DOES work, and I did take a video of that and send it to her.
Jenny is arranging an engineer to talk to us on Monday morning (Sunday evening my time) - however I can't really see what good that will do. Clearly the rear boards of the unit (the OEM ones connected to the merryway screen via the ribbon cable) are able to communicate with the screen, otherwise the backup camera wouldn't display anything on the screen. There is either a software issue, or there is an issue with one of the relays in the harness that trips the IAM module to turn on or something. Rick mentioned that on his car (2017) the bluetooth module is still functioning even with the stock screen removed, however mine does not. If I plug in the OEM screen, my bluetooth connectivity is back and everything is functioning normally. This leads me to believe that for some reason the IAM module might not be getting an 'on' signal. If that is not the case, I'm sort of at a loss, other than that maybe the EU/Asian models of the F-Types electronics are different than that of ours in the US and they do not use the same type of signal or something.
Keep in mind, I was able to get all of this to function as described above even before I burned through two ribbon cables, so I am omitting that from being a factor here.
Edit 2: Jenny had sent over images of them connecting the unit up in a car last night, and all of my connections are connected in the same manner.
Last edited by frostysauce; 12-01-2018 at 09:22 AM.
Did some more work and took step by step pictures on every single thing and sent it off to Merryway, unit still does not work with the factory system. I believe I have isolated it purely to the connection between the backboard and the screen. I made a guess earlier that we were getting connection through the board because the backup camera was functional, but after further testing you don't even need to connect the backup camera to the backboard for it to work, all it requires is the component video and it works, and the component video goes directly to the screen, bypassing the backboard. There is nothing you need to plug into the backboard to get the screen to power up and the reverse camera to work.
I burnt through 8 aftermarket ribbon cables trying to connect the backboard and the OEM screen together. There is some issue there - I am not clear what it is, but the OEM unit only seems to work with the OEM ribbon cable, even though I am using 50 pin FFC cables and they are 100% connected correctly. I did some investigating and noticed the UL style number of the FFC cable was different, and that the merryway cable had copper connections whereas the OEM one has silver ones (I am assuming aluminum?). Not sure if that would make a difference, but I found some matching cables online with the same style code and pin# so hopefully I will be able to try that out.
At least in my scenario, I believe that unless we can prove the backboard and the front board are making a connection via the FFC cable, this unit will not work.
I've done all I can do and I don't believe there is any configuration I have not tried, so hopefully Rick when he gets his spare cables in can make some more progress. I am down to 1 ribbon cable so I will need to wait until I get 10 more.
So I guess we have to assume that the F-Type that was used for demo in Hong-Kong is different in some way to ours. Because no company would knowingly send defective units for testing to a potential group buy.
In any event, thank you very much for those many hours of hard work. Your dedication is commendable
So I guess we have to assume that the F-Type that was used for demo in Hong-Kong is different in some way to ours. Because no company would knowingly send defective units for testing to a potential group buy.
In any event, thank you very much for those many hours of hard work. Your dedication is commendable
Possibly, it turns out I actually do not have a resistive touch screen, but a capacitive screen, which is the same unit as Rick is testing now. It seems the 'Bosch/Harman' descriptor to determine which unit you have doesn't seem sufficient. Apparently, there are capacitive screens that are also Bosch units, which is exactly what I have. So, for others in the future, be warned - always take your touchscreen trim off to get a look at the screen before placing an order. It's really a 5 minute job!
In other news, Rick and I have been chatting and he is going to try a few more ideas. In the meantime, I have sent the Merryway unit back and should be getting a replacement, hopefully this unit will work without issues. However, I am assuming I will run into the same scenario that Rick is in right now, at least his sound is working! Jenny and Merryway have been very helpful and have been attempting to help us resolve our issues, so hopefully we can get this ironed out.
Possibly, it turns out I actually do not have a resistive touch screen, but a capacitive screen, which is the same unit as Rick is testing now. It seems the 'Bosch/Harman' descriptor to determine which unit you have doesn't seem sufficient. Apparently, there are capacitive screens that are also Bosch units, which is exactly what I have. So, for others in the future, be warned - always take your touchscreen trim off to get a look at the screen before placing an order. It's really a 5 minute job!
In other news, Rick and I have been chatting and he is going to try a few more ideas. In the meantime, I have sent the Merryway unit back and should be getting a replacement, hopefully this unit will work without issues. However, I am assuming I will run into the same scenario that Rick is in right now, at least his sound is working! Jenny and Merryway have been very helpful and have been attempting to help us resolve our issues, so hopefully we can get this ironed out.
Isn't the ultimate test of capacitive vs resistive panels simply being able to select something with non-conductive objects? In other words, if you can select an option with the eraser side of a pencil, then you have a resistive panel.
Not at the moment. Jenny is sending me a new unit but hasn't gotten me any tracking info for it, so as far as I'm aware it should come in sometime this week. Hopefully we will have some success there but until then in a holding pattern.
Quick rundown, Frostysauce found out he got the wrong unit, there was a miscommunication between resistive and capacitive touch, so he is getting a new unit. Unfortunately it is stuck in customs(?).
Myself, I have one more attempt before I send it back for a new unit.
My problem is that I burnt through several ribbon cables that marry the connection. I ordered more cables and still could not get the connection going. So I tried to go back OEM to see if it was an issue with the Retrofit. During the transition back... My display showed lines, which indicates either the OEM display is bad, or the back board is bad... since I had no way to validate... I talked to Cambo and he helped confirm what unit I could buy to put in. I sourced it on eBay, and it came in Saturday. Right now, the new OEM unit works, but the New BACK board and Merry way are still not syncing... As such, it was confirmed I have an issue with the Merry way unit. We are going to try one more thing, before I have to send the unit back and put this on Pause until I move my wife to Philly.
what we are hoping for is I tripped a physical switch that I can reset as a last ditch effort.
Lesson learned... If you install this make sure to disconnect the battery.... Due to possible electrical overload....
11-29-2018, 10:48 PM
