We’ve all owned one thing the place one tiny element drives us nuts: a blinding energy LED, buttons within the incorrect order, or a beep that might wake the lifeless. This superbly documented mission fixes precisely that sort of annoyance, solely this time it’s the climate-controlled seats in a 2020 Ram 1500.
[projectsinmotion] wasn’t happy with adjusting seat heating and air flow solely by way of the truck’s touchscreen. As an alternative, they added actual bodily buttons that really feel identical to manufacturing unit gear. The problem? Trendy autos management seats by way of the Physique Management Module (BCM) over a mixture of CAN and LIN buses. To drag this off, they used an ESP32-S3 board with each CAN and LIN transceivers that sits within the center and interprets button presses into the precise messages the BCM expects.
The ESP32 additionally listens to the CAN bus so the brand new bodily buttons at all times match no matter setting was final chosen on the touchscreen, no mismatched states, no surprises. On the mechanical aspect, there are 3D-printed button bezels that snap into clean swap plates that come out trying fully inventory, plus a tidy enclosure for the ESP32 board itself. Wiring is absolutely reversible: customized adapters plug straight into the manufacturing unit harness. Each pinout, each connector, and each wire colour is documented with WireVis diagrams we’ve lined earlier than, making this an simply repeatable seat-hack ought to you will have an analogous automobile. Large because of [Tim] for the tip! Be sure you try a few of our different automobile hacks turning a mass produced merchandise into one in every of a sort.
