Hey guys. I'm doing bit of personal project which includes connecting Skoda multifunction steering wheel to Raspberry Pi. I know it's not Octavia specific, but maybe I could get some help and perhaps someone will find this information useful further down the road.
I bought this Skoda steering wheel and I took out buttons themselves.  I'm bit surprised but there are 4 pins. I know one is for LIN bus, one for ground and one for power supply but the additional one? Do you guys have some pinout overview and perhaps there is source for LIN frames sent by mutlifucntion steering wheel?
Jay

Edited 12 December, 20187 yr by JayMorgan

Anyone?

Official wiring diagrams can be found here https://erwin.skoda-auto.cz/erwin/showHome.do although they might not help with the fourth pin.

 

You might be best taking the buttons apart to see where the 4 wires connect to, if you grab a pinout for whatever chip is used it might give some clues.

 

You could also try googling for other MQB platform cars like the MK7 Golf as it should be similar.

Any chance someone could check info for steering wheel wiring, since I do not have Skoda OrgID?

What's an OrgID?

 

Anyone can sign up for erwin and pay per time access. There are plenty of autoscans online so you should be able to find a VIN from a car with the same buttons too.

 

Might be worth adding what you're trying to do too

21 minutes ago, langers2k said:

Might be worth adding what you're trying to do too

 

OP is looking to either emulate the LIN frames sent when someone uses any of the MFSW functions, or parse the LIN frames received from the MSFW when they use any of the functions so they can either map them to his own software on the PI, or to use his PI to communicate with the car.

 

To be fair, when I first saw the post, I took a look around and there aren't many people who have done this, of those who have, the frames may not be cross compatible.

 

Best way would be to tap the LIN line and read the data. You should be able to use a RS323 and I recall seeing some software that decodes the stream into something for you to read.

 

Are you using CarPI, or going it alone @JayMorgan

38 minutes ago, gRoberts said:

Are you using CarPI, or going it alone

 

Thanks for the reply  
It's bit more complicated. I have 3 Pi's simulating 3 ECU's (steering wheel simulator using touch pad, parking sensors and HMI) communicating with each other via CAN bus. For the CAN I'm using PiCan 2 shields and Autmotive Grade Linux system. I'm basically creating my own CAN frames. Right now I thought It would be iterestesting to switch touch pad with real car steering wheel, but the issue is: how would I properly connect it to RPi, get LIN frame, somehow convert it and send via CAN. I know it's not specific for this forum, so I did not go into details, I've asked several question on RPi forums, but no response and the topic. Seems not that many people attempted something similar.
I was bit surprised by 4 pins for MFSW, I guess one might be responsible for horn. 

7 minutes ago, JayMorgan said:

 

Thanks for the reply  
It's bit more complicated. I have 3 Pi's simulating 3 ECU's (steering wheel simulator using touch pad, parking sensors and HMI) communicating with each other via CAN bus. For the CAN I'm using PiCan 2 shields and Autmotive Grade Linux system. I'm basically creating my own CAN frames. Right now I thought It would be iterestesting to switch touch pad with real car steering wheel, but the issue is: how would I properly connect it to RPi, get LIN frame, somehow convert it and send via CAN. I know it's not specific for this forum, so I did not go into details, I've asked several question on RPi forums, but no response and the topic. Seems not that many people attempted something similar.
I was bit surprised by 4 pins for MFSW, I guess one might be responsible for horn. 

 

Sounds... interesting

 

That said, I'm a little confused - what information would you be looking to capture from the MFSW via LIN? 

 

As I understand it, LIN is used for everything on the steering wheel, i.e. horn, functions etc. But getting the steering angle etc, is handled by the steering angle sensor in the column it self.

 

I presume you're looking to replicate the conversion from LIN to CAN that the car already does?

 

I was going to suggest tapping in at the infotainment end, but suspect that the radio is controlled via CAN, after LIN is processed into CAN packets?

14 minutes ago, gRoberts said:

That said, I'm a little confused - what information would you be looking to capture from the MFSW via LIN? 

 

Information about what sort of LIN frame each of the buttons sends, so I can use it inside my infotainment. As for the communication inside car, I believe that MSFW is connected to gateway which processes data, enabling LIN-CAN communication.

Just now, JayMorgan said:

 

Information about what sort of LIN frame each of the buttons sends, so I can use it inside my infotainment. As for the communication inside car, I believe that MSFW is connected to gateway which processes data, enabling LIN-CAN communication.

 

Thought as much - with that in mind then, the only real solution would be to tap into the LIN line and capture raw packets as they are sent. 

Assuming the infotainment system will be ultimately used in a MK3 Octavia (or similar) and connected to the CAN-bus, it might be easier to add an appropriate CAN-gateway to your setup as that should do the LIN <-> CAN conversion.

 

That way, you're only dealing with CAN messages and it'll most closely match the environment it'll actually be used in.

33 minutes ago, langers2k said:

Assuming the infotainment system will be ultimately used in a MK3 Octavia (or similar) and connected to the CAN-bus, it might be easier to add an appropriate CAN-gateway to your setup as that should do the LIN <-> CAN conversion.

 

That way, you're only dealing with CAN messages and it'll most closely match the environment it'll actually be used in.

 

Pretty much this. It just means you'll have to sniff the CAN network for any messages relating to what you're after (if you don't already have that info)

@gRoberts @langers2k
I wanted to avoid buying LIN-CAN gateway in order to get this one working. However I might buy Carberry shield. Do you guys have any idea about pinout for MFSW? So I will have idea where to connect and not burn anything

1 minute ago, JayMorgan said:

@gRoberts @langers2k
I wanted to avoid buying LIN-CAN gateway in order to get this one working. However I might buy Carberry shield. Do you guys have any idea about pinout for MFSW? So I will have idea where to connect and not burn anything

 

You'd need to buy/download the service manuals from erwin to get that info :( 

I haven't got the pinout but you can get one from erwin as I mentioned above.

 

Couple of link from other places that might help:

- http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/forums/f78/installation-mk7-multi-function-steering-wheel-paddles-into-mk6-107916.html

- https://tx-board.de/threads/golf-7-lenkrad-ich-habs.90214/

 

On ‎12‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 10:32, JayMorgan said:

Hey guys. I'm doing bit of personal project which includes connecting Skoda multifunction steering wheel to Raspberry Pi. I know it's not Octavia specific, but maybe I could get some help and perhaps someone will find this information useful further down the road.
I bought this Skoda steering wheel and I took out buttons themselves.  I'm bit surprised but there are 4 pins. I know one is for LIN bus, one for ground and one for power supply but the additional one? Do you guys have some pinout overview and perhaps there is source for LIN frames sent by mutlifucntion steering wheel?
Jay

 

Illumination or maybe the Switch module is CAN and you have Power/Ground/CANH/CANL. CAN is certainly more robust than LIN and is more often than not used in Safety Systems with a high PL requirement. Whether any buttons are used in a PLd or even a PLc system (Cruise Control is the only thing I can think of).

The wiki article on LIN has a section about addressing and slave node position detection. One of them uses a two pin system called "bus shunt method". Realistically you need wiring diagrams and maybe even some vag specific LIN specs. 

19 hours ago, JayMorgan said:

@gRoberts @langers2k
I wanted to avoid buying LIN-CAN gateway in order to get this one working. However I might buy Carberry shield. Do you guys have any idea about pinout for MFSW? So I will have idea where to connect and not burn anything

See if this makes sense I the context of the connections you have:

pin 9 LIN

pin 10 +12V

pin 7 earth and to one side of horn switch

pin 8 horn return

4 hours ago, Wino said:

See if this makes sense I the context of the connections you have:

pin 9 LIN

pin 10 +12V

pin 7 earth and to one side of horn switch

pin 8 horn return

 Yes it does and it seems to be compatible with diagram posted here: http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/forums/f78/installation-mk7-multi-function-steering-wheel-paddles-into-mk6-107916-4.html
Now I have to get the right order of pins.