Apple CarPlay/Android Auto Retrofit

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by Fooksdaddy

For those having the camera issue (not popping up or signal intermittent).

Initially I wired the camera power to the black/blue reverse light power (not enough juice to keep the camera on)

Then, I was going to use the 4 plug 12v switch but couldn't figure a good power source in the trunk other than directly to battery -- overkill for a reverse camera.

So, I tapped both reverse light wires (black/blue & black/purple) into a single power for the camera and it works......i'm guessing the one light didn't have enough juice.

I don't have the Pinouts but this sounds like a bad idea. It's documented the reverse lights on this car are under 12v, something like 11.6v and that causes issues with a lot of cameras. But the Carsara box provides switched 12v so why are you wiring the two cables in series?

Did you test those two wires to see the voltage you are getting off of them?

Wiring a relay the normal way to get 12v off the battery wouldn't be hard or overkill, it would give you a stable voltage but all the cameras I tried had a 12v cable with the RCA cord so the wiring is already done for you.

Am I missing something?

[CTMike]

Originally Posted by smithl3

I recently installed Bimmer-Tech's MMI Prime in my 2011 e93 M3 as well as their backup camera. I took my time, and it was the better part of a day to get everything zip tied nicely out of the way, and routed from the back of the car up, and then installing the box in the center stack. I watched the youtube video's about six times before I committed to this, mainly because it involves taking the dash apart and getting access to the trunk area. Everything came apart and went back together fine though, so the instructions were good.

I have only had a few weeks of operation with it, but so far it has been working great! The backup camera is a very nice addition to this car, all the sensors are already there, and the camera gives me confidence I am not going to bump into anything stupid.

I got the Black Friday pricing so it was a little less than the website shows, but worth it! https://www.bimmer-tech.net/products...i-cic-retrofit

It's nice to bring a 10 year old car up to todays standards if not better since it is wireless! I loved the car before, and now I love it even more.

I'd love to hear more about your experience wiring up the rear camera. I just read through the instructions and all I keep thinking is hooooly moly I have to take apart most of the interior to do all this.

The actual MMI box, I'm not super concerned with wiring up.

Instructions are very clear in terms of using armrest AUX IN but I do want to try coding it for head unit AUX.

[CTMike]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

Want to unscrew your box and take some pictures of the circuit board before you install it? For science of course.

Thinking about it... for science.

[icanturn]

Originally Posted by Iyzmi

What do you think of the video quality? Any flickering issues?

Video quality is pretty good. My only gripe is that the camera is pointed slightly too far down. Other than that its awesome, especially in the daytime. At night it works too, but not as clear obviously as there is no IR that would help with illumination.

After a few days driving the car I can say I could not be more pleased for $230 all in. The UI works perfectly. It connects to my phone and holds the connection until I get out. Siri functionality is great. It just...works.

Audio quality is also pretty good. I dont have factory bluetooth so my only reference is the tune 2 air dongle. It did take some drastic changes to the EQ on the carsara side but I think im getting close to where I like it. It sounds better the louder the music is, but I think thats an AUX volume adjustment. I'll have to mess with it. I only turned it up a little.

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by CTMike

I'd love to hear more about your experience wiring up the rear camera. I just read through the instructions and all I keep thinking is hooooly moly I have to take apart most of the interior to do all this.

The actual MMI box, I'm not super concerned with wiring up.

Instructions are very clear in terms of using armrest AUX IN but I do want to try coding it for head unit AUX.

Not sure which trim you have but on my E90 the rear camera really was not a big deal. The YouTube videos do a great job of showing what you are working with. Snaking the wire from the trunk, under the back seats and down along the door trim just requires a good trim tool kit and a little patience.

Wiring for the MMI prime rear camera should be the same as the carsara box. As long as the RCA cable has a traveler wire for power the those wires both go to the same place in one cable and you can easily get to ground.

Splicing into the rear view light is way harder because you won't get the right voltage. That's an old method used by people who are using emulators that don't deliver 12v power it seems.

[CTMike]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

Not sure which trim you have but on my E90 the rear camera really was not a big deal. The YouTube videos do a great job of showing what you are working with. Snaking the wire from the trunk, under the back seats and down along the door trim just requires a good trim tool kit and a little patience.

Wiring for the MMI prime rear camera should be the same as the carsara box. As long as the RCA cable has a traveler wire for power the those wires both go to the same place in one cable and you can easily get to ground.

Splicing into the rear view light is way harder because you won't get the right voltage. That's an old method used by people who are using emulators that don't deliver 12v power it seems.

E93... first read through the instructions from Bimmertech had the top in a halfway unfolded position... doesn't seem to be totally necessary though based on their E93 backup camera video though. The video talked me off the ledge a bit.

[Fooksdaddy]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

I don't have the Pinouts but this sounds like a bad idea. It's documented the reverse lights on this car are under 12v, something like 11.6v and that causes issues with a lot of cameras. But the Carsara box provides switched 12v so why are you wiring the two cables in series?

Did you test those two wires to see the voltage you are getting off of them?

Wiring a relay the normal way to get 12v off the battery wouldn't be hard or overkill, it would give you a stable voltage but all the cameras I tried had a 12v cable with the RCA cord so the wiring is already done for you.

Am I missing something?

I'll have to draw up a diagram of the cable and camera I have, maybe you can help me make the best connections.

[Iyzmi]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

Splicing into the rear view light is way harder because you won't get the right voltage. That's an old method used by people who are using emulators that don't deliver 12v power it seems.

Splicing into the reverse lights and running a relay off the battery is still necessary for 6MT cars, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by Fooksdaddy

I'll have to draw up a diagram of the cable and camera I have, maybe you can help me make the best connections.

Is your car DCT or 6MT?

[Fooksdaddy]

Originally Posted by Iyzmi

Splicing into the reverse lights and running a relay off the battery is still necessary for 6MT cars, unfortunately.

Is your car DCT or 6MT?

DCT, forgive my drawing skills.

[Iyzmi]

Originally Posted by Fooksdaddy

DCT, forgive my drawing skills.

For DCT, you should be connecting the camera's red wire to the Carsara yellow wire. Then you won't need to tap into the reverse lights at all. The purple wire is used for 6MT, in which case you do have to tap into reverse lights and run a relay (not pictured below).

[Fooksdaddy]

Originally Posted by Iyzmi

For DCT, you should be connecting the camera's red wire to the Carsara yellow wire. Then you won't need to tap into the reverse lights at all. The purple wire is used for 6MT, in which case you do have to tap into reverse lights and run a relay (not pictured below).

Okay, so terminate all the wires minus the video and red wire to the yellow Carsara wire. I still ground as normal.

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by Fooksdaddy

Okay, so terminate all the wires minus the video and red wire to the yellow Carsara wire. I still ground as normal.

Yes, in your diagram:

-Yellow Pin on Carsara Box (12v Reverse Out)->Red Wire on camera
-RCA->RCA
-Black cable on wire->Ground (suggest extending and going down to the chassis to minimize risk of flicker).
-Remaining red wire should be OK to leave disconnected in this case, this is most likely an additional 12v unswitched power. (The easiest way to check if you have a meter is to just measure the continuity across the 4 pins and that wire, or from the other red wire that is going to the carsara box if that makes sense).

[Fooksdaddy]

Originally Posted by Cyberdemon

Yes, in your diagram:

-Yellow Pin on Carsara Box (12v Reverse Out)->Red Wire on camera
-RCA->RCA
-Black cable on wire->Ground (suggest extending and going down to the chassis to minimize risk of flicker).
-Remaining red wire should be OK to leave disconnected in this case, this is most likely an additional 12v unswitched power. (The easiest way to check if you have a meter is to just measure the continuity across the 4 pins and that wire, or from the other red wire that is going to the carsara box if that makes sense).

Thank you, I'll give it a try and report back.

[CTMike]

For science! :d

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by CTMike

For science! :d

Thanks! Looks largely similar and likely uses the same GPLink reference design. But not exactly identical. Probably no specific differences in the audio based on that.

[CTMike]

It's like a "spot the differences" game now... I haven't compared chips in detail, but the half of the boards nearest the video connectors seem to have some very different components?

[GTiceman]

Originally Posted by CTMike

For science! :d

So I scanned the QR code and it took me to a page under construction haha

[Cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by CTMike

It's like a "spot the differences" game now... I haven't compared chips in detail, but the half of the boards nearest the video connectors seem to have some very different components?

Yeah. On the MMI prime there are 4 power relays. One of the chips on the carsara board is a 1000w audio amplifier circuit. So the audio components may have a different circuit. The carsara has an 8/2020 revision while the MMI shows 4/2020.

The QR coded chip is the Bluetooth radio.

Will dig in more later.

[Cyberdemon]

Digging into this a bit more with my best guess as "I spent a lot of time building mobile electronics but I'm still not an electrical engineer".

Both of these were definitely made based on the same initial reference design, so more than likely by the same manufacturer.

The MMI Prime main board layout is almost identical, the chips on the right side near the power connectors are laid out differently though. Typically this happens either because there is a revision, or they have new components which swap in to replace something else.

The MMI Prime board is only using 6 dip switches vs 8 on the Carsara, so if I had my guess - the Carsara board probably supports a few different cars that the MMI Prime doesn't and required those additional permutations, even though you can see the MMI board has the pins and solder through holes in the layouts.

That one chip that came up as an audio amplifier in the description actually looks like it's tied to the video output circuitry. (Only documentation I found was below):



So if I had to guess, all of that circuitry and the different dip switch configurations allow it to support more variants of displays. Carsara claims this box supports CIC and NBT configurations across a lot of SKU's, so the boards may be the same and they just include a different connector rather than an entirely different PCB.

Based on this, I suspect the GPLink processor itself is doing 100% of the audio signal processing and none of that is happening on a discrete chip like Kremersino claimed for their unit, so that would likely mean the audio (as well as the ability to Code the MMI prime to use AUX through the rear input) to be identical, though that still might depend on the firmware of the device itself, but could certainly be tried if you were interested.

[Fooksdaddy]

Thank you Cyberdemon! It works perfect now, almost went down a rabbit hole but remembered to turn off the grid lines for the camera in the Carsara options and boom it works!

[Iyzmi]

Originally Posted by icanturn

Video quality is pretty good. My only gripe is that the camera is pointed slightly too far down. Other than that its awesome, especially in the daytime. At night it works too, but not as clear obviously as there is no IR that would help with illumination.

After a few days driving the car I can say I could not be more pleased for $230 all in. The UI works perfectly. It connects to my phone and holds the connection until I get out. Siri functionality is great. It just...works.

Audio quality is also pretty good. I dont have factory bluetooth so my only reference is the tune 2 air dongle. It did take some drastic changes to the EQ on the carsara side but I think im getting close to where I like it. It sounds better the louder the music is, but I think thats an AUX volume adjustment. I'll have to mess with it. I only turned it up a little.

Did you leave the parking line wires on the camera disconnected? If so, do you find the parking lines helpful?

The instructions say to connect the wires to disable parking lines, which is something I think I want to do if they are not accurately lined up with the wheels.

[Tommysalami]

Just got this installed and everything went reasonably well. But how on earth do you get the A pillar trim back on? The front tab at the bottom is at the wrong angle to go back into the slot