Here's a quick look at the Navdy HUD customized icons and boot screen. I excluded the map displays for obvious reasons. If anyone is running a navdy and wants the fresh icons, let me know.

 

Aaaaaaand a video of the whole ambient lighting project in action.

 

Watch me drag myself all over the floor and hardwire a dash cam.


Next up is thermal camera. I will interface with the instrument cluster and switch between NightView assist and thermal, as needed.

 

Amazing! I vote this DIY thread of the century!

 

So now that I am vastly informed on what it would take to interface with the IC...and the HUD...I see that it would take about the same amount of work. What do you guys think...thermal on the instrument cluster (IC) or on the HUD? That would allow for night vision on the IC and thermal on the HUD at the same time...Or...night vision on the IC, thermal on the headunit...and nothing on the HUD? Too many choices.

Interface with the CAN bus is complete. Decoded night vision status signals, buttons etc. If anyone needs this here's a short version:

Frame ID DLC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Function Cycle
187 8 80 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Night View BTN Press Momentary
187 8 0 0 11 0 0 0 0 0 Headlght Auto Constant
187 8 0 0 80 0 0 0 0 0 Side Markers Constant
187 8 0 0 98 0 0 0 0 0 Headlight Constant
187 8 0 0 B8 0 0 0 0 0 Fogs Constant
187 8 0 0 F8 0 0 0 0 0 Rear Fogs Constant
3ED 8 2 FE 0 0 0 0 0 0 NV Status On Constant
3ED 8 0 FE 0 0 0 0 0 0 NV Status OFF Constant



Also if anyone is ever looking for this obscure info...The original Comand display and the IC display are the same. The Comand display takes TTL data directly from Comand. The IC display has a graphics chip combined with a CPU and also connects to the IC CPU. Video input (night vision) is achieved by running RGB656 (I think) from the night vision camera via LVDS to the graphics chip of the IC which in turn runs the display directly. Using one of the available video input interfaces for the original Comand won't work as all that does is spit LVDS TTL to the deserializer on the Comand display. An interface to convert from TTL to RGB656 is necessary. Also, the graphics chip on the CPU will lock if a CLK is applied to it and then paused (aka input switching) and a complete reset is necessary. You will get a "night view assist inoperative message" until power cycling the car.

 

 

I can't even.. this is too good. Im jealous and envy your skill

 

I think it's too large to 3D print. I think you would have to go the custom route if anything. I don't think it would be cost effective, even if you did find a company that could handle large sizes like that.

 

Thanks! Lots of hard work.

 

ive seen this car in person, its even more amazing up close. thanks for all your help!

 

First video of how to make the ambient lighting RGB on the W216 is up. More to come...Not 100% detailed but it should give you guys a good idea of what's involved.

 

ive wanted this since the very first time i was in my CL and saw how dim the factory ambient lighting was. this looks great bro

 

Part 2 of the ambient lighting project is up. Deals with dashboard lighting, foot wells and door wiring.

 

Just outstanding work. Just...

 

So it's been a while but between summer vacations and generally taking a break from things, I have managed not to fully take a break from my next project. The project was displaying an additional video feed from a FLIR thermal camera in place of the standard night vision feed on the instrument cluster. Switching between cams would happen from the stock night vision paddle/switch thing. This has proved to be a little more difficult then I anticipated but progress has been made and an end is in sight.

Here's the reverse engineering that's been done so far:

- All chips handling video from the NV camera identified on the instrument cluster board. Obtaining some of these data sheets is not easy!
- All wires handling video have been mapped, all connectors mapped.
- All video protocols identified between camera-camera control module and camera control module-instrument cluster.
- All video timing identified in order to be able to replicate the exact format and signals.

If anyone is interested in an overview, the camera sends a feed to the camera control module. The camera control module does its thing (formats picture etc) and shoots video via LVDS to the instrument cluster. The instrument cluster has a video chip (in addition to the HP (processor)) that handles the display and does all necessary graphics like blending etc. So you get a background video feed with speed and other info overlaid on top of it. The bad news is that this is infinitely more complicated than say getting video on the COMAND/GPS screen but the good news is that the video processor has a dedicated external video feed input...so we can definitely mess with that if we get the protocols right.

Next up was picking hardware. Siwtching video will happen via CAN bus and I already have that in place. Video decoding/encoding would have to happen on the fly. Essentially we would get the FLIR feed, do all necessary calculations to it and spit it back out in the same format as the stock night vision feed. The only way I could think of doing this was with an FPGA. I also had to make a total of 3 cables with the specific Mercedes LVDS connector on one end (that you can't buy) and my own connectors on the other end. eBay was helpful here...so I bought some stock cables and cut them up.

I decided to make a custom board for the FPGA header that would handle the Serdes setup to free up processing in the FPGA. Thank god for China. 2 weeks from design start to the product being in my hand. Ordered the same chips that the instrument cluster uses to keep things as stock as possible. I know you guys like that. I will also be using the IPOD interface case...that happens to perfectly fit the FPGA...so even more stock!!!



The FPGA tends to run hot so had to custom install a fan along with a heat sink setup.



All this happened on sacrificial camera/camera control module/instrument cluster. Some chips had to be removed from the board to see what was what.



Aaaaand...decoded/deserialized video feed from the camera control module




Next up working on the actual code part of the FPGA that will switch video feeds without upsetting the video chip in the instrument cluster.

 

 

More updates. Testing color and resolution. Yes, I can now display video on the instrument cluster and switch seamlessly between Night View Assist and any other video input.

If anyone was wondering what the instrument cluster looks like here it is



Taking some measurements with the oscilloscope



Yet another sacrificial instrument cluster. That makes 3.





Original Night View Assist



.....And running some screen tests. Here I was driving an all red screen on purpose. Works. Nice.

 

amazing what you can do !

 

Thanks! This one might actually be easy to produce. If anyone else has a need for it I might make it available so you can hook up anything imaginable to your 216/221 instrument cluster.

 

im so glad you decided not to abandon this project! id love to hear some of the ideas you have of what could be hooked up to the nightvision screen! very intrigued. im curious if thats the oem screen or something custom

 

Hey hey i don't abandon projects...indefinitely that is haha.

Yeah it's the OEM screen. The whole point of the project is to work with the stock cluster. AMG or not. Fun fact the instrument cluster screen and the navigation screen are the exact same display. They work very differently though.

I will be using it for my FLIR project but I'll leave it to you guys to figure out other stuff to hook up to the screen. I guess you could hook up your phone and run Google maps on it or something...or go a step further and have one of those Android car interfaces hooked up to it so you don't use a phone. I dunno...ideas are endless. You could always watch YouTube or something. Should be nice and safe.

 

 

really crazy ! fabulous !

dis you look at a option mixing IR image with Thermal image into one image with a soft or hardware videomixer ?

 

I can't say it didn't cross my mind. There would be issues with aligning video feeds as the cameras would have different FOVs and mounting points but you know...where there's a will there's a way. Once I get everything running 100% I will definitely look into this.

Next up I get into framebuffers aligning video feeds. After that comes switching from the CAN bus from the other computer I have running in the car. The end is in sight though

 

great ! : you never stop , like me and a friend
I would see the IR in green, then the Thermal in red, then set high contrast to the Thermal and mix
that might do the job