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How to connect "SM" - Remote Unit to original CL in Felicia 11-1998


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Good evening to all !

 

I bought my 98-Felly about a half year ago, and it has been a reliable mate at least this far. But now that the summer is almost over, one has to think about the horrors of the next winter and all the difficulties that a car-owner can face while there is half a meter snow and the temperature is below freezing point.

 

So, as I bought this car, there was already existing the problem with the original central locking.

The problem was only in the driver´s door, which means the left front door here in Finland. It was possible to open that door (and at the same time all the others, because it was the master) with the key, but not lock the door (and the others). To the closing direction the lock felt like an empty one, no resistance at all.

On the other hand; the other master lock in the right front door did work well to the both directions. During this half year I used to unlock the CL from the left door and lock it from the right door. I wish I would have been satisfied with that system!

 

Six days ago I decided: Something must be done to make this Central Locking system to work better before the winter comes. So I opened the upholstery and did not find any evident fault in the locking system. After that I put the upholstery back to its place again, and thought: Right now I´m not able to fix it.

But after that little operation the left front door refuses to lock, mostly. If I turn the right front door key to lock all the doors, that button in the left front door goes down, but bumps up immediately.

 

So, I suppose the basic fault is in the left front door locks micro switch, and seems to be rather expensive to repair; some people have bought all the new locks, and still the problem continues to exist.

 

My attempt to solve the problem was to try to bypass the micro switch and buy a cheap remote central locking system without door motors and try to connect that unit to the existing central locking box located behind the instrument cluster. Or to find that "famous" 10-pin  accessory electrical connector mentioned for example in the

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/172084-felicia-remote-central-locking-guide/  written by Robin SLXi in the year 2010, it means six years ago.

With only the exception that this official Skoda accessory BKA 093 015 with AEV 4201 decoder  seems not to be obtainable anywhere...

 

When my Felicia was on the conveyor belt, there seemed to be a lack of wires, because the CL-box and all the connectors near it are located in a very compact and little area behind the instrument cluster, including that 10-pin connector. So, making joints to it seems rather impossible to me.

 

There was a man on our local AlfaRomeo- site, that told he had managed to solve a similar problem with buying a "SteelMate" remote central locking kit and installing it beside the original CL-box. And then on local VW- site there were many guys that said: the remote kit can be connected to the door connector; it doesn´t have to be there in a cramped place near the original CL-box.

 

So, my question is: As I have now got a remote central locking unit with wires and remote switches, might it be able to be connected for example to a 5-pin connector located in the left front door (the pic is from there) or to the similar connector in the right front door (it has also the master function motor) ???

 

And if yes, how should I connect the wires of the remote unit to the wires of the 5-pin connector in the door ? Any help is welcome, because now the door locking is very unsure and gives a possibility to a thief. Thank God, the car is almost 18y.o. So, it is not so attractive here in Finland :D

 

Here I send two pics that might help to find out at least the colors of the wires, if nothing else :)

 

First quite a large pic of that Chinese "SteelMate"-system

 

A75lBrk.jpg?1

 

 

And then a smaller pic of that 5-pin connector located in the left front door, that is the driver´s door here in Finland. It is the reason why the micro switch is so worn out in the left door, I suppose

 

2wldp0O.jpg?1bm 

 

 

 

 

With Best Regards ! JussiG7 from Finland                                                                                                                                                                                      

 

 

(now that Putin is not allowed to join G7, hope some day G8 again, if he comes to his senses :)  )

Edited by JussiG7
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Let's try a simple test. Disable central locking by removing fuse 16. Check how all doors lock/unlock manually, both from the outside with the key and from the inside using the locking knobs.

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Hi Ricardo!

 

I disabled the central locking by removing fuse 16. And then I checked all the doors and their behavior manually. And the result was:

 

The right front door works perfectly with the key from outside and with the locking knob from inside. No problems with locking or unlocking the door. It is like a new one.

 

The rear doors also work well, but naturally they can be locked or unlocked only with the locking knobs. No problems with them either.

 

The left front door is the one that has the problems.

 

I must say that earlier this day I did some testing with the basic locking system: It means, I extended and shortened the short stick that leads from the lock casing to the actual lock device . Though I had not touched it before, I thought that a little change might help to the symptoms (knob bumping up, or the locked door sliding open when the handle is raised for the seventh time, as a thief might do). Well, I did not have a clear success. The length of that stick seemed to be as optional as possible.  

 

And now, in the evening the situation without the central locking system seemed to be about the same:

 

1. If the door happens to stay in the locked position, it can be unlocked with the key, but never locked again, no matter how many times I try to do it with a key. Nothing happens.

 

2. The left front door can be locked from the left rear door by pushing the knob down, but at least, as I try to open the door for the seventh time from the outside - raising the handle, not using the key - the knob jumps up and the door opens.

 

3. As I sit inside of the car and push the locking knob down, it cannot be opened from the inside handle even with the 10th attempt.

 

That was the result of this test. In my 96-Felicia I never had any problems with the locking though it was older and had more miles swallowed (and it had no central locking at all).

 

I admit that every time man should at first do a lot of investigations to make a good diagnosis. And after that go shopping if necessary :) And usually the local Felicia- owners have not had so much difficulties with their Skodas as for example VW Passat, - Golf and Polo people have. Talking about those VW- cars from 1990 to 2000 the locking systems seem to be some kind of problem to almost everybody. And many of them have ended up to purchase a remote locking system being fed up with the key problems in winter. And so did I :)

 

Best Regards, JussiG7

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Well, at least we know now that Putin is to blame for your central locking not working :) For global warming too. For Brexit. And most alarming for building Russian military bases in Mexico and Canada having the USA surrounded with missiles.

 

Now, the test w/out CL (central locking) was meant to assess the proper mechanical operation of door locks. That is a mandatory prerequisite for testing the CL. Generally speaking, Felicia is a reliable car after 15-20 years. After so many years it is to expect some mechanical faults, mostly due to dirt, grime, and rust. The interior of the doors is far from being a clean environment. You follow where I'm going? Cleaning and greasing all joints. Moreover, having the front right door locking mechanism working perfectly, we'll use it as visual inspection reference (mirrored, of course).

 

So here is the plan:

 

1. Repair front left door locking mechanism

1.1 Unscrew the CL actuator to unhook its rod from the door lock mechanism

1.2 Inspect all parts of door lock mechanism for wear, bends, cleanliness, lubrication

1.3 Repeat previous test with CL disabled.

1.4 Repair / replace / adjust / clean / lubricate faulty parts

2. Repair front left door actuator

2.1 Inspect for mechanical faults (slide the plunger up/down)

2.2 Inspect its 5-pin connector for corrosion

2.3 Measure with an ohmmeter as follows:

  • between brown and blue wires (motor winding) => a few Ohms
  • between white and yellow wires (plunger pulled up) => continuity, open when plunger pushed in
  • between white and black wires (plunger pulled up) => open, continuity when plunger pushed in

Report and we'll go on from there.

 

pPYNLrZ.jpg

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Thanks about that accurate and detailed advice, and the sharp photo, too !

 

Just came home from the Baltic Sea and shall spend the next two days at my brother´s summer cottage, where there is enough room and peace to do all those things that you mentioned. The main job there is to cut and split a lot of firewood for the next winter, but I suppose I have also time to disassemble and clean and lubricate all the parts of that front left door.

 

So, I shall be back on Monday or at least on Tuesday to report about the results of that job.

 

Now it´s two o´clock on Saturday night and time to go to bed.

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It is an advantage you are very thorough and methodical with tests and observations. In fact I wish more people are like  you when asking for solutions. The more info (observations, history of the fault, suspicions, etc.) the quicker and more accurate the solution will be.

 

One note: I hope that point 1.3 was clear enough in the sense that the test should be carried out with driver's door lock actuator removed and both door panels removed to see all inside and isolate the problem. Visual comparison between left and right door locks during test is the key to solve the fault.

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Yes, the point 1.3 was clear enough :)

 

But the firewood job was bigger than I expected, and now it´s gonna rain at least two days all the time, so the investigations and all the other jobs shall be postponed at least to Wednesday. This summer the weather forecasts have been especially unreliable :(

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No worries. If you will do a reliable job on restoring door locks functionality and the driver's door actuator measures OK. there are chances to have a CL as new. The installation of SteelMate will be a bonus.

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Today, it means on Tuesday, I was finally able to begin the investigations and repairing jobs as the rain paused at 16.00

 

But I did not do it as you told me to. As I have mentioned before, I do have an older Felicia 1996 on countryside as a spare part car. And because of some kind of hurry caused by the autumn (everybody seems to need help with all kind of things concerning the next winter and also the harvest time) I decided to try the simplest thing at first.

I drove to my older Felicia and opened its upholstery and tried to find out, why its lock works so well and this newer not... 

I found out that the basic problem was and had been the key and the lock core device itself (I don´t know the exact word for it). But, however, in my old Felicia the the basic part was ok, and in this newer not. So, I removed the key lock from my old fellow and installed it in the new one.

 

Here´s a pic, if I happen to use wrong words:

IYaDRsR.jpg t

 

Then I tried to install the other parts (without CL-motor) from my old car to this newer one, but had some difficulties. I thought: "OK, let´s clean and lubricate these newer parts and try to reinstall them to their original places".

So, I managed to reinstall them (no visible faults in the parts), and suddenly everything began to work perfectly also in the left front door with or without the central locking (using a different key, of course) !

But the sun went down, so I had no time to measure the ohms from that 5-pin connector. Upholstery quickly back to its place a quick test: Everything seems to work well :)

 

My diagnosis: The basic problem was the broken locking cylinder and the momentary problem may have been caused by dirt or something else that made the knob jump up.

 

And right now the only problem that is left is mentioned in the title of this topic: "How-to-connect-sm-remote-unit-to-original-cl-in-Felicia-11-1998"

 

In your words: "The installation of SteelMate will be a bonus."   But, how to install that bonus, is still a mystery to me ???

 

With Best Regards, JussiG7, almost asleep :zzz:

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We're getting there, Jussi. All I need now is to do the remaining measurements on the driver's actuator. If it proves to be good, install it and verify CL operation again. Maybe spray some WD-40 along the slider of the actuator. If the slider doesn't move smoothly and it jams, the locking knob will pop up.

Edited by RicardoM
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In case the microswitch in the actuator is faulty, ypu can bypass it as follows:

  • SMU lock wire to CLU  pin 2 (yellow wire)
  • SMU unlock wire to CLU  pin 1 (black wire)

SMU = STEELMATE Unit

CLU = Central Locking Unit (behind dashboard)

 

I couldn't see what wire colour on SMU is for lock and unlock respectively, but it's the brown or the white wires. If it locks the doors when you push the unlock button of the remote and vice versa, switch brown and white wires.
 Red wire goes to battery, black wire to ground. Isolate green and violet wires.

 

As for the fitting location for SMU, I recommend under the tray of the glove box. The doors are not a suitable place. Dust and moisture are not good for electronics. Moreover, the command connections need to be at CLU, not at actuator.

 

2RLt1PM.jpg

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Jussi

On the SteelMate photo posted by you, blue and violet wires are identified wrong as being for lock/unlock. Those two wires feed power to all motors in actuators. The signals for lock/unlock are short pulses to ground. Lock/unlock wires are brown and white in SteelMate diagram.

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Hi again!

I´ve been so extraordinary busy the whole week, that the only thing I could do was to take that older locking cylinder and install it to this 98-Fellow.

And to clean and oil that locking system that was the original in this newer one.

Since that I havn´t had any kind of difficulties with the Central Locking :)

Now it´s gonna rain on Sunday all the time, so maybe on Monday I´ll have time and weather good enough to start that SM- remote job.

 

Thanks about many advices concerning the wire colors and the location of that SMU. Only one correction: There is no violet wire anywhere, those you mean are blue and green, but I´m gonna isolate them, however.

 

And one thing more: I myself supposed, that there might be a micro switch that could be bypassed with this remote system. It was because I had read about a huge number of CL- problems in VW- cars (especially Jetta/Golf- cars) being about the same age as my Felicia (1997 - 2001). And mostly the fault had been in micro switches, or actually in cold joints  or broken circuit boards. But, however, I assumed that there are some kind of separate devices also in Felicia. Thank God, there are not !!!

But I must ask: Are there any kind of micro switches in the locking motors, or how does the car know, when it is locked or unlocked?

 

Just came home from a guitar gig, very tired. Sorry, if there are wrong words etc.

 

I´ll be back on Monday, I suppose

 

Good night! JussiG7

Edited by JussiG7
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Since that I havn´t had any kind of difficulties with the Central Locking :)

Told you.

 

Thanks about many advices concerning the wire colors and the location of that SMU. Only one correction: There is no violet wire anywhere, those you mean are blue and green, but I´m gonna isolate them, however.
The only SM diagram I had to work with is very low res in your first photo. That might explain the violet wire instead of blue.

 

And one thing more: I myself supposed, that there might be a micro switch that could be bypassed with this remote system. It was because I had read about a huge number of CL- problems in VW- cars (especially Jetta/Golf- cars) being about the same age as my Felicia (1997 - 2001). And mostly the fault had been in micro switches, or actually in cold joints  or broken circuit boards. But, however, I assumed that there are some kind of separate devices also in Felicia. Thank God, there are not !!!

Your assumption that a microswitch might be faulty holds true based on the manifestation of the malfunction. Any mechanical device with moving parts is prone to malfunction much sooner than an electronic solid state one. For me VW cars are far from being a reference for reliability. On the contrary they are overpriced cars that slowly became less and less reliable and more and more expensive to maintain and repair. As an aside note, the Czechs absolutely hate now the marriage they had to do with VW. Germans force Skoda to follow VW manufacturing policy: quicker, cheaper and more and more plastic parts. They will end up making LEGO cars programmed to fail and buy expensive yet unreliable parts.

 

I guarantee that if Skoda would be allowed to design and manufacture freely a new version of Felicia... Golf and Polo would have a hard time selling.

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But I must ask: Are there any kind of micro switches in the locking motors, or how does the car know, when it is locked or unlocked?

You can find everything you want to know by downloading the Self-Study Program for Skoda (in German).

SSP_02 describes in detail the principles of central locking in Skoda Felicia/Favorit.

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Should be sleeping, but a short report:

 

Tonight I finally got that SteelMate installed in my car. The only delay was due to the wire colors. I tried at first with those brown and white, but they did not work.

 

Then I tried those blue and green as a AlfaRomeo- guy had told in a Finnish AR-site, and they worked. So I isolated those brown and white ones. Some day you may tell me why´s that ?

 

Shortly some pics, the first is about the SMU installed beside the glove box:

 

mbKAkZn.jpg

 

 

And then just the live feed from connector C as RobinSLXi had taught year 2010:

 

nH6bGP9.jpg

 

And one pic more, as the fuel gauge astonishingly woke up (it´s rare nowadays). Should find out the real fault, but seems impossible to me...No connection to SMU :)

 

RvN4yTb.jpg

 

Now i close this PC and start to sleep at 05.25 a.m.

 

Recuerdos de Finlandia, JussiG7

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Could you post the photos without annotations please? They are too cluttered. I am particularly interested in a photo showing clearly how you connected the SM wires to Felicia's central locking unit.

 

Also please indicate the link in Alfa Romeo forum where SM installation is discussed.

Edited by RicardoM
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OK. Here are some pics almost without annotations, only a title added.

 

It was at midnight as I took those photos, but I assume they are clear enough. So first the blue and green wires to Felicia´s CLU. No electrics to joint the wires, but some drops of a Loctite glue instead.

 

2mof5x5.jpg

 

And then a pic of that SMU almost without annotations, only a title added:

 

SqlzLdy.jpg

 

 

 

And because I doubt that Google Translator shall give almost impossible translations from Finnish  to English, I have a screenshot of the essential info given by JiiTeeÄssä at Alfa Romeo forum. The info given about SMU was useful, but the directions about the B- points in AlfaRomeo were in vain, of course:

 

cwA4p9F.jpg

 

And finally that link to the Finnish AlfaRomeo- site: http://www.alfabbs.fi/viewtopic.php?t=20218     the comments of JiiTeeÄssä are there almost on the bottom of the page, date being 26.02.2012

 

Hope that the SMU goes on working well in the future, but once again:

 

A lot of thanks to you lucky guy living in ideal climate conditions, from my point of view !!!

 

JussiG7

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A lot of thanks to you lucky guy living in ideal climate conditions, from my point of view !!!

Ideal ? We die in here from global warming. It's Putin and his unreasonable behaviour to blame for us scorching in here :) How did he dare to "annex" Crimea? Crimea was supposed to belong to USA and NATO. Also Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Korea, and a long list of puppet regimes from South America, Europe and Middle East, all vassals to the USA...

 

Let me study the Alfa Romeo topic about SM wiring to understand why brown and white wires didn't trigger the CLU of Felicia.

 

PS

You took very good photos :thumbup:

Edited by RicardoM
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I looked over that topic and based on Jii Tee Assa's comments I can now explain the mystery.

 

As I said before, the CLU on Felicia needs a short negative pulse (meaning from +12V to ground) on pin 2 to lock or on pin 1 to unlock. On cars equipped from factory with Laserline 989SK anti-theft alarm system, it is this unit that feeds proper signals to CLU. The DC motors inside actuators are kept at 0 Volt on both terminals all the time and when a lock/unlock signal is received from a micro-switch the CLU feeds +12V on one terminal of the motors making them rotate accordingly to lock / unlock the doors.

 

The SteelMate control unit is supposed to control directly the actuators in all doors. The problem is that it does that using short positive pulses (from 0 to +12V), in reverse with respect to Felicia's CLU. Both terminals of the DC motors inside actuators are kept at +12V Volt all the time and when a lock/unlock signal is received from a micro-switch the CLU feeds ground on one terminal of the motors making them rotate accordingly to lock / unlock the doors. Everything is reversed compared to CLU on Felicia.

 

In other words, the only signals that can control properly the CLU on Felicia are those used by SM to power the motors. It is a weird setup but it works.

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Aha!

 

So, it means that the SteelMate is positively directed and Felicia CL-system is negatively directed, as they say here in Finland.

 

But as the whole system seems to work with that weird setup, I do not have anything to complain  :yawn:

 

It seems that many people have installed some kind of anti-theft alarm system afterwards, and it can be installed to give proper signals to CLU. 

Or, in some cases the original CLU can be replaced with the central unit of that alarm system.

If this car works well over one year, I might buy some kind of alarm system, but the cheap ones do usually more harm than advantage. 

So, maybe the red blinking led is enough for me  :happy:

 

Good Night, case closed, I hope  :clap:

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So, it means that the SteelMate is positively directed and Felicia CL-system is negatively directed, as they say here in Finland.

Exactly.

 

If this car works well over one year, I might buy some kind of alarm system, but the cheap ones do usually more harm than advantage.

I recommend you looking for the original alarm system. Laserline 989SK. It is a perfect fit.

 

I am looking for one for me too.

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Thanks about advice !

 

Now that the annual check of the car is rather near (last day 01.11.2016) , I shall concentrate in it. It takes some money in any case, so the anti-theft alarm system (ATAS) purchase shall happen in the beginning of the next year, if the car passes the test and if it proves to be a reliable car also in winter.

 

In my opinion, it seems that that huge amount of the broken micro-switch cases in VW:s is partly because all the functions (CL + ATAS  and electric windows in one compact and plastic part  with miserable joints) are put together. So, as I now have that CL with remote control, I shall install that ATAS separately from the CL, so if something fails, it does not have an effect to any other functions.

 

I did have a Citroen with el. windows, remote CL, ATAS end even a sunroof electrically opened. It worked well in summer but had many problems in winter with temperature -30C :)

 

Best Regards, JussiG7

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