Don't be afraid to dive into the CANBUS. It's not scary. It's a simple system (once you understand it). You can 'flood' the bus with the 'messages' that you want with an Arduino. You might have the most experience with fabbing these. Curious, do you think the OEM buttons are ABS? Or PP? I like your new buttons but I think they stray away from the OEM design language a little bit. Anyway, good work!

 

Thanks, for the confidence on the CANBUS.
The only thing right now I want the CANBUS to do is talk happily between the Distronic, ESP/ABS and the m271ME! Ha!

A few people have mentioned an emulator or working with an audrino...

Honestly. For this project...I haven’t installed cooled seats, and have been told not even CLK seats would fit physically. Haven’t needed the inverter or animal alert either...and the footwell lighting (while heavily criticized here) also hasn’t been needed...(but I am working on ambient lighting now that I have kids, the love it.)

Aesthetically, I tried making these icons very w203. From the ESP to the front and rear bumpers. From there I tried to modernize the icons a bit, integrate the arrows as found all over the other controls, and simplify the alarms. As no one I know really knew what was meant by the car being towed or upside down WiFi...

While I can’t say exactly what the material is, it’s certainly not propylene. Closer to ABS and it certainly could be their tried and true ABS/PC blend. It is translucent. Usually, well other car brands, use clear, MB is using white.

Any input or further criticism would be appreciated...

 

I think you should keep your buttons consistent - and part of that is handling negation - for example; I see two types of switches: Booleans, and increments.

Mercedes booleans are occasionally negated (such as ESP OFF) because the negation is itself a negation of the _default_ behavior.

[img]blob:https://mbworld.org/14d0f092-4460-4d03-868e-8307b5dededf[/img]
If we put your buttons on a grid, starting at [0,0] (top left) - buttons [0,1] [0,2] [0,3] and [1,0] [1,1]
[1,2] and [1,3] are all booleans (I'm actually not sure about [1,1]). If you look at the shade button- you'll see the existing iconography has both an up and down arrow, it negates its current state when you press it.

The other buttons I mentioned can all be booleans, and negate their default state.

The design language isn't that strict though, I actually like the separate LOCK and UNLOCK buttons.

I'm assuming [1,6] is to disable the internal occupancy sensor?

 

1,6 (or 1,7) would be my attempt at redrawing the interior motion, or open window alarm. The current OEM design looks like WiFi.

I totally agree on the on/off, negation and increments. It seems to me MB OEM wasn’t consistent and the facelift threw them off more...originally the w203 had heated seat up and down, blind up and down, but lock just a key...I think they also learned about the red indicator light confusion for consumers with the swift update the the HVAC A/C “off” change.

That being said, I really designed these (selfishly) for me, as the primary driver operator to clean the panel up visually.

I greatly appreciate your responses and input.

 

How do you plan on making the buttons?

This is amazing by the way. I'm jumping through the pages so I haven't gotten the full gist of it yet but wow. Great work.

 

I’m not sure what you mean by “making” these more than I already have.

I cast 1:1 replica parts in translucent white resin, hand finished them all the way to laser etching my custom logos into them.

How can I help further?

 

That was great to read each message in this conversation, Appreciate it!

Is there is any updates?) Have you added led lights to the newly added buttons? Any functions activated using codding tool?

 

All of the LEDs illuminate from the start. I had some great help from another forum member to ensure they lit up.

I soldered in missing LEDs and the needed resistors.

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I have never took up the added project to add “missing features” such as road alerts, cooled seats, other. I did not (and still don’t) feel comfortable playing in the CAN system “just incase”…

The only time I’ve added to the CAN was when I added Distronic. And that was still an “OEM” add-on.