Demystifying NTG5S1 ambient lighting => converting from w212 w218 w166 3 colour to w246 12 colour retrofit

Hello everybody,

I want to retrofit 12 colour ambient lighting in a w212 which already has 3 colour ambient lighting using all original parts from w246 12 colour ambient lighting (not aftermarket chinese)

Regarding the ambient lighting from what I understood, they are two different types.

Type A (hardwired without llinbus dedicated ambient lighting control module), 3 colours 8 colours 12 colours
Type B (intelligent software controlled type with linbus dedicated ambient lighting control module) 3 colours 8 colours 12 colours 64 colours etc

Cars with NTG5S1 comand units use Type A

Type A 3 colours uses 3 wires for ambient lighting (or 4 wires for footwell combined ambient with entrance lights)
Type A 12 colours uses 4 wires for ambient lighting (or 5 wires for footwell combined ambient with entrance lights)

Can you please tell me
colours of the wires and where wire1, wire2, wire3, wire4 go in type A 3 colours ambient lighting in the doors and where in the main body.
colours of the wires and where wire1, wire2, wire3, wire4, wire5 go in type A 12 colours ambient lighting in the doors and where in the main body.

I do not want chinese ambient. I am trying to compare w212/w218/w166 original 3 colour ambient with w246 original 12 colour ambient.
There should be a workaround that I am trying to figure out but to find out the workaround we should find the similarities and differences between the two systems.
The only reason I mentioned the chinese before is that they reverse engineered and figured out the differences between 3 colours and 12 colours. If we find this missing part of the puzzle we will find a way to adapt 12 colours ambient lighting with original parts.

There are w212/w218/w166 cars that have retrofitted 12 colour ambient lighting controlled via NTG5S1 comand (irrespective of original or aftermarket the fact remains that they are w212/w218/w166 cars with w212/w218/w166 front sams and door control modules with NTG5S1 comands) so there must be a way around if they managed to control 12 lights from NTG5S1 comand.)


I am prety sure that NTG5S1 comand can be coded for 3 or 12 colours which is one task (if you know how please mention and explain), however the second and most important task is where the ambient wires go in the Type A 3 colours as opposed in the Type A 12 colours as I mentioned above.


Please help!!!

 

Any thoughts please?

 

I would appreciate any responses. Please help

 

you can find the wiring diagrams in WIS, just make sure you know what option codes the car has so you get the right diagrams. WIS takes awhile to figure out how to find stuff in, as its massively huge and fairly convoluted.

 

at least on my wife's 2016 E350 4matic wagon, which has the 3 color ambiance, it appears each door has its own control module, the front chassis SAM talks to the door modules via LIN bus, and the door modules have 3 wires to the ambient light strips embedded in the trim, brown/green/yellow on the left door... brown is ground, yellow and green are each +, and I'm guessing its one, the other, or both for the 3 tones, and varying levels of voltage or current or pulse width modulation for the intensity setting. same wire colors on the right front door (and I'm too lazy to pull the rear doors up).

so changing to a different system will likely require a different door control module which may or may not be compatible with the rest of the car and likely require coding options on multiple modules. ours has been set for fairly dim 'warm' since about 10 minutes after I found the menu to set them the first time we drove after dark.

here's the left door module, my wife's car uses U417 (3 color ambience).

 

Thank you for the response. Can you send me please as well the wis diagrams for the front left door control module for the following two models to compare with the w212?
166
246

both w166 (3colour) and w246 (12colour) use exactly the same front door control module,

 

can you provide either a 6 digit car code (like my wife's wagon is a 212.288, if you have the world (not USA) VIN, its the first 6 digits), or the whole VINs of two representative cars ? otherwise, I can't even start to search WIS.

btw, I'm going to be offline for almost a week after tomorrow, so be patient. WIS is something I can really only use when I'm in my home office, on my main desktop, its beyond painful to try and use via remote access.

 

246.212
166.075

 

k. first attachment is wiring diagram for /both/ front doors on the B180 CDI (thats what WIS tells me a 246.212 is)
2nd attachment is for the 166.075 (GLE63S)

 

Okay, my questions are the following

My w212 has a NTG5S1 comand which theoretically can be programmed to control 12 colours ambient lighting

I have the following door control modules in hand:
1) w212 full optioned DCM set (no missing pins) which accepts 3 colour ambient light instruction (possibly 12 colour instruction?)
FL A2129009128 FR A2129009328 RL A2129001227 RR A2129001327
2) w166 full optioned DCM set (no missing pins) which accepts 3 colour and 12 colour ambient light instruction as front dcm are used as well by w246/117/156/176/242
FL A1669000318 FR A1669000618 RL A1669006307 RR A1669006507

Lets focus on the front left DCM (see attched photo)
According to wis diagrams 12 colour ambient alighting requires 4 wires which come from sockets/connectors 6 and 8.
In specific:
connector c6(cTB1)
connector c8

for 12 colour Left front door door handle illumination are used c6pin5, c6pin9, c6pin10, c8pin6
c6=>5GNGY(_YE)-9BRN-10GYWH(_RD)
c8=>7BUYE(_BU)


for 12 colour Left front door ambiance illumination are used c6pin5, c6pin10, c8pin6, c8pin7
c6=>5GNGY(_YE)-10GYWH(_RD)
c8=>6BRN-7BUYE(_BU)

How does the 12 colour instruction from the comand reaches the front left door control module? Can you explain the path/process?
Is there a way that the comand 12 colour ambient lighting instruction reaches directly the the front left door control module?
(Mosts chinese kits do not use the door control module but receive the 12 colour instruction from NTG5s1 comand throught their own control box)
Can't we find we find a similar way for the front left DCM to receive the 12 colour instruction from NTG5s1 comand?

 

presumably, the COMAND module communicates with the DCMs via CANbus B. CAN only specifies the signaling and basic message format, it does NOT specify the contents of the messages. all messages on a given CAN bus are 'broadcast', they contain the source ID/address of the sender of the message, and they contain a message body, both these addresses and message bodies are totally up to the manufacturer to define, and I've *never* seen them documented. you could probably hook up a CAN 'sniffer' to a car that has the 12 color ambient lighting, play with the settings and see what messages are sent and try and reverse engineer them. Its also possible the COMAND module communicates to the SAM, and the SAM in turn communicates with the DCMs, I do not know. Undoubtedly, the COMAND would need to be recoded with the codes for a 12 color system.

btw, 3 wires only gets you 8 colors including off, 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111, but since these are dimmable, maybe the other 4 colors are uneven combinations, like 100% red and 50% green, would give you a sort of orange rather than the yellow of 100% red + 100% green..

 

 

So theoretically a reprogrammed from 3 to 12 colour ambient w212 NTG5s1 comand can send the instruction directly to front left door control module by CAN B(ody) without intervention of the SAM. And the door control module will give 12 colours if a 12 colour led (A2469069800) is connected to the correct pins of the door control module as per my previously attached photo with pinout of the front left door control module.
So basically it should work, correct?

Or still SAM172 (of w212) is a limitation and CBC Bolero unit (of w246/117/156/176/242) is a requirement?

So the million dollar question is: for ambient lighting does NTG5s1 COMAND communicate directly with the DCMs OR NTG5s1 COMAND communicates to the SAM, and the SAM in turn communicates with the DCMs? If it is direct Comand-to-DCM communication it should work fine, otherwise is there a workaround to bypass the SAM somehow in a similar way like aftermarket 12 colour ambient lighting chinese boxes(modules) that communicate with NTG5S1 comand which controls the 12 colours? Or to reprogram SAM172 (of w212) to do 12 colour can b signal from comand to sam and from sam to dcm?

 

I understand that for the ambient lighting LEDs in front the dashboard and the center console and footwell are controlled by sam172, cbc bolero unit etc.
However for the door ambient lighting, the Door Control Units are connected to the leds (not the sam or cbc bolero unit etc). Aren't DCMs connected to CAN B? Can't the DCMs (that door ambient LEDs are connected to) get the data from the NTG5S1 head unit from CAN B and transmit to the DCM connected LEDs? Provided you have DCM that support 12 colour ambient lighting? So can't the DCMs that support 12 colour ambient lighting have the ability to act the same way like chinese aftermarket control boxes?
Please experts, do throw some light to this.

 

yes, the DCMs are on CAN B. and yes, at least in theory, the COMAND module could broadcast ambient lighting settings on CAN B and both DCMs and the Front SAM could be listening to these and adjust the lighting accordingly. without someone tapping into CAN B with a monitor and tracking whats going on, we can only guess how it works. There's a ton of other traffic on CAN B so you'd need to figure out what specifically is the ambient lighting stuff on the stock 3 color W212 and again on a car with the 12 color stuff.

me, I like the dim warm white I set oura too, and don't give a damn about 12 color. my wife would HATE anything fancier.

 

Also there is a russian company that claims that they converted a w166 gle from 3colour to 12colour ambient lighting using original parts.
Could somebody that speaks russian contact them and figure out if this is accurate and they did not use aftermarket chinese control boxes?

https://dasmb.ru/71-w166-dorabotka-shtat...hting.html

 

I would appreciate some more responses from the experts of this forum. Please help!

 

Pictures in that PDF don't look as clean because you can still see the orange ambient lighting (that stays the same even if you switch to blue or white). I did a 12 colour ambient lighting install in my CLS. I had to replace all wires in each door, the dash, and footwells. I had the original 3 colours just like that GLE, and this generation E class. https://mbworld.org/forums/cls-coupe...-lighting.html

 

Do you know a troucble free CAN sniffer hardware and software for mercedes cars?

I found this link but I am confused if something here works 100%:

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...-you-need.html
https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...-you-need.html

 

there's a thread here in the 212 forum by s-prihadi (sp?), who found that their first CAN scanner couldn't keep up with the message rate of the 212's CAN B bus, and found another that worked, and they showed some sample captures.

ah, here it is! https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...-you-need.html

 

Hello again my fellow forum members!
A few questions

1) What is the procedure set the NTG5S1 comand head unit to extended 12 colour ambient lighting mode? Is there a hidden menu? Does it need to be programmed and what exactly is needed. In HU5s1 : 2.VCD_Car_Functions_Coding - Ambient Light On, Color Ambient Light extended)

2) Can the instrument cluster control 12 colours as well? Can it be set as well to extended 12 colour ambient lighting mode?

3) Does the front door control module DCM receive directly from the NTG5S1 comand head unit via CAN B without intervention of the SAM? If yes, does the NTG5S1 comand ambient control information reach the door control module via CAN B as long as you set the NTG5S1 comand to 12 colour ambient light or needs to manually set the CAN B signals?

4) If CAN B signals need to be set manually does anyone know the configuration? Or CAN B sniffer is needed?

5) If CAN B sniffer is needed which one is good for mercedes w212, w166, w246 etc?

6) I noticed that some people still control 12 colours ambient lighting from 3 colour NTG5S1 comand or 3 colour instrument cluster. All colours change just the comand and instrument cluster displays show 3 colour animation istead of 12 colour. Does this mean that even without setting the NTG5S1 comand or instrument cluster to 12 colours ambient lighting mode, if using the correct pins from the dcm does the 12 colour ambient lighting still work?

 

you keep asking the same questions, and are the ONLY person I know who's tried to install 12 color ambient on a 212 that came with 3 color, so you are entirely on your own. I linked a thread with a discussion of CAN bus scanners.

 

I have a full set of full optioned w212 DCU (the full optioned ones that have socket 6 and socket 8 extra pins like the w166 DCU which I suspect they might be capable like the w166 for 12 colour since they have identical pinout)
A2129009128
A2129009328
A2129001227
A2129001327
And
I have a full set of full optioned w166 DCU
A1669000318
A1669000618
A1669006307
A1669006507
And
I have a full optioned NTG5S1 comand head unit
And
I have a full set of 12 colour LED footwell ambient lights
A0009064304 and also
A0009065107
And
I have a full set of 12 colour ambient lights for dash, center console and door cards
A2469069800
And I have prewired to the LEDs extra wiring for 12 colours (one extra wire going to the LED connectors totaling 5 wires for footwell LEDs and 4 wires for dash, center console and door card LEDs.

So what is the next step?

 

Hi Left Coast Geek,
Can you send me please the following WIS diagrams?


W212 Wiring diagram for right front door control unit
W212 Wiring diagram for left rear door control unit
W212 Wiring diagram for right rear door control unit

166.075-Wiring diagram for right front door control unit
166.075-Wiring diagram for left rear door control unit
166.075-Wiring diagram for right rear door control unit