MikBox on 2004 SL 500 with V710 - Installation slides

[xtianpel]

I am thrilled! My current setup is better than anything Mercedes Benz has to offer, including their 2005 and upcoming 2006 models. I love to be ahead of the curve! I took all these pictures of the installation of the MikBox simply because I want to show people how easy it is. I am NOT the kind of person that modifies their car. In fact I have never done anything to any of my cars other than put gas and take it to the dealer for maintenance. This is, perhaps, the only modification I will ever do to my car, but I felt it was imperative to upgrade from the old and outdated v60 Mercedes Benz phone to something newer, more exciting and more fun. I am not related in any way to MikBox. I am doing this for our great Mercedes Benz community. Retrofitting your phone with this system is a breeze and it’s worth every penny. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at xtianpel@sbcglobal.net As an added bonus to this wonderful day, I was able to figure out everything that needs to be done to unlock my standard v710 phone to allow me to transfer files back and forth between my PC and the phone using Blue Tooth or a cable. You DO NOT need an original Mercedes Benz v710 for this to work thanks to Mik’s magical MikBox! www.mikbox.com Today is a great day! I hope this is helpful to whoever needs it. Please drop me a line and let me know. The file is now down to 2 MB now. (I had a ridiculously big 70 MB file when I first posted this) The slides can be found at http://www.xtianp.com/MikBoxInstalla...kBoxSlides.ppt Enjoy, Cristian.

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[blueSL]

Boring, who cares? It's only a phone... And why not change the resolution to reduce the total download size if you think the message is that great.

[LovinSL600]

Originally Posted by xtianpel

I am thrilled! My current setup is better than anything Mercedes Benz has to offer, including their 2005 and upcoming 2006 models. I love to be ahead of the curve!

I took all these pictures of the installation of the MikBox simply because I want to show people how easy it is.

I am NOT the kind of person that modifies their car. In fact I have never done anything to any of my cars other than put gas and take it to the dealer for maintenance.

This is, perhaps, the only modification I will ever do to my car, but I felt it was imperative to upgrade from the old and outdated v60 Mercedes Benz phone to something newer, more exciting and more fun.

I am not related in any way to MikBox. I am doing this for our great Mercedes Benz community. Retrofitting your phone with this system is a breeze and it’s worth every penny.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at xtianpel@sbcglobal.net

As an added bonus to this wonderful day, I was able to figure out everything that needs to be done to unlock my standard v710 phone to allow me to transfer files back and forth between my PC and the phone using Blue Tooth or a cable. You DO NOT need an original Mercedes Benz v710 for this to work thanks to Mik’s magical MikBox! www.mikbox.com

Today is a great day!

I hope this is helpful to whoever needs it. Please drop me a line and let me know.

WARNING: The file is close to 70 MB!
The slides can be found at http://www.xtianp.com/MikBoxInstalla...kBoxSlides.ppt

Enjoy, Cristian.

Extremely well done!

[xtianpel]

Originally Posted by LovinSL600

Extremely well done!

Thank you Lovin! That's kind of what I was hoping to hear!

[xtianpel]

Originally Posted by blueSL

Boring, who cares? It's only a phone... And why not change the resolution to reduce the total download size if you think the message is that great.

BlueSL: I'm sorry you didn't get as excited as I about my project. But then again, it was my project and I know lots of people are trying to do the same thing.

If I wrote "boring" for every posting I read that has your name (or lots of others) on it I would spend a long time. If you think it's boring, please move on, but I really don't appreciate the fact that I spent all this time and energy in sharing this with the board and the first comment I get from you, of all people, is "boring".

On the subject of the size, I have not had the time to reduce the size of the pictures and if I had found this resource before I made my modification I would not have minded spending the time for the download. I will have to change the resoultion to make it smaller so my server won't be so bogged down. I'll do that soon, so when you need this document (in a year or two) you'll be able to download it faster. Oh, that's right, you probably won't need it, you'll just get another car.

From my point of view, it is very exciting to still be able to enjoy the little things in life, like "just a phone". I'm sorry you don't, you're missing out.

Keep up your positive attitude and have a great day.

[blueSL]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but Mercedes offer integration with specific phones and of course it would be great if you could just plug in any phone you like but the fault does not lie at Mercedes door.

It's the failure of the phone manufacturers to provide open access to their phones and their mistaken belief that they will protect themselves commercially by sticking to proprietary interfaces. It's also the case that Motorola, as the major indigenous vendor of buggy, difficult to use phones, has a stranglehold on the US market which illustrates very well the problems of lack of competition.

You can also think of a world where, no matter what the make, all phones had the same interface to connect to the outside world. Sadly, that's not the case and the lesson learned when the IBM PC was introduced nearly 25 years ago means that the consumer misses out.

However, aside from the fact that the phone in my car works fine, I do find it difficult to share your enthusiasm. It is, after all, just a phone.

[xtianpel]

Blue:

Yes, unfortunatelly, it is what it is and finding a way around it gives me great pleasure. Some others might benefit from it and that's the sole purpose of my posting.

I couldn't agree with you more. Here in the States, Verizon cripples their phones. It is infuriating.

You're right, it is just a phone after all. Just like our cars are just cars after all but I just love my toys and love them more when they play with each other

[tiggerfink]

Very good job. I will be placing my order after I get back from Star Tech.

[tiggerfink]

Originally Posted by blueSL

Maybe I'm missing something here, but Mercedes offer integration with specific phones and of course it would be great if you could just plug in any phone you like but the fault does not lie at Mercedes door.

It's the failure of the phone manufacturers to provide open access to their phones and their mistaken belief that they will protect themselves commercially by sticking to proprietary interfaces. It's also the case that Motorola, as the major indigenous vendor of buggy, difficult to use phones, has a stranglehold on the US market which illustrates very well the problems of lack of competition.

You can also think of a world where, no matter what the make, all phones had the same interface to connect to the outside world. Sadly, that's not the case and the lesson learned when the IBM PC was introduced nearly 25 years ago means that the consumer misses out.

However, aside from the fact that the phone in my car works fine, I do find it difficult to share your enthusiasm. It is, after all, just a phone.

Motorola did not learn from Apple. Apple tried to be proprietary, and they almost went out of business. Now Apple is having great success with the IPOD and any company can make it.

[LovinSL600]

Originally Posted by blueSL

Maybe I'm missing something here, but Mercedes offer integration with specific phones and of course it would be great if you could just plug in any phone you like but the fault does not lie at Mercedes door.

It's the failure of the phone manufacturers to provide open access to their phones and their mistaken belief that they will protect themselves commercially by sticking to proprietary interfaces. It's also the case that Motorola, as the major indigenous vendor of buggy, difficult to use phones, has a stranglehold on the US market which illustrates very well the problems of lack of competition.

You can also think of a world where, no matter what the make, all phones had the same interface to connect to the outside world. Sadly, that's not the case and the lesson learned when the IBM PC was introduced nearly 25 years ago means that the consumer misses out.

However, aside from the fact that the phone in my car works fine, I do find it difficult to share your enthusiasm. It is, after all, just a phone.

Blue,

We all get excited over different things. Let's give the guy a break. He did a great job on something that he is excited about and let's let him enjoy it.

Half the excitement is conquering the job itself and that he certainly did. In addition he did an incredible job with the presentation. Far better than the Mercedes instructions. Personally, I think he did a hell of a great job.

Heaven help us on some of the things we might get excited about.

[tiggerfink]

I get excited when I get new boxers.

[LovinSL600]

Originally Posted by tiggerfink

I get excited when I get new boxers.

But the better question is, does the wifey?

[So Cal Sam]

Cristian,

Excellent presentation. I wish I owned a SL500 so I could install one too. Hopefully some day.

[StephenK]

Good Job!

[tiggerfink]

xtianpel,

Do you have instructions to install the lighted door sils?

[xtianpel]

I'm sorry, I don't.

[LovinSL600]

Originally Posted by tiggerfink

xtianpel,

Do you have instructions to install the lighted door sils?

Putting the actual sills in are easy. Doing the wiring can be complicated.

I would ask Blue, I think he has done it.

[blueSL]

Installing the lighted door sills is similar to this procedure but goes further. You also need to remove the plastic rail along the bottom of the door aperture - this allows the old sill to be removed and the new one just slots into place. The cables are routed over the welded seam down behind the carpet and back along to area underneath the storage bins where you place the power converter and hook up to unswitched 12v, ground and you also splice into one of the cables going to the door switch which is exposed by removing the rear side panel. You pick up power using an unused fuse position in the fuseholder underneath the passenger side storage bin and run a wire across the car to supply the other side.

The worst part of all of this is getting the side panel off without breaking the clips. They slot into panel and are a press fit into the bodywork, they are difficult to remove without breaking them so I'd recommend (so would Lovin') to replace them with new ones.

I have a PDF explaining the procedure if anyone wants it. It's in German and I can help with translation if you don't speak it.

[blueSL]

Worth stating as well that if you plan to do the phone modification and the door sills, you should do both at once. The less times the car has to come apart, the better.

More about the wiring. The door light switch has two wires - brown (which is ground) and grey/red. When the door opens, the grey/red wire is connected to ground which switches the light on. This switch does not actually carry the light bulb current, it's simply a logic signal (high/low) to tell the car the door has been opened. The actual control of the interior light is handled by a control unit which does the dimming and switch-off delay and so on.

You can think of that grey/red wire being a logic 0 - light on, logic 1 - light off. That same logic sense is used to switch on the power converter which is a small "brick" needed to generate the high voltage, low current required by the door sill. It has three wires, +12v, ground and "control". To connect it, you simply splice the ground wire to the brown wire, the control line to the grey/red wire and the +12v to the cable you have run from the fuseholder.

[blueSL]

One more - if you do remove the plastic rail, start at the back and ease it up, moving forwards. At the front, there's a hook to keep it in place which will break if you start at the wrong end. The rail is held in place using barbed clips and it's quite difficult to remove. Fortunately, it's not an expensive part; in fact for me, it's a routine maintenance item because I find they scuff very easily.

[tiggerfink]

Can you send the pdf to tigger_fink@yahoo.com

[blueSL]

Done...

[StephenK]

If you could email me a copy I would appreciate it too. kynio@sevenhillsrealty.com

[Mik]

awesome presentation, xtianpel :-) I will put this up on my site if you don't mind.
By the way, Motorola's call control interface (or other manufaturer's interfaces for that matter) are not propriatary. If you just look around on the internet you'll eventually find it. The problem is that Mercedes chose to force people to only use Motorola phones in the US for some contractual reasons, and worse, programmed their system to only work with phones that have the Mercedes firmware. Even dealerships resent this decision, since it brings them a lot of problems and aggravation.
Personnaly I don't think that this strategy will be beneficial for them in the future, since better interoperability has proven to succeed in other markets.
I have no ties to MBUSA or Motorola, but I hope that the contract expires soon, so that we (in the US) can enjoy the variety of phone options they do in Europe.

[xtianpel]

Hi Mik!

I don't mind at all! In fact, I'm flattered. Thank you for creating an awesome product!