FORD technical service bulletin : ICC touch screen display

[nc_fairlane]

Originally Posted by JasonACT

I tried to remember some of the words I had read about the FGX ICC being too large for the FG/II..

image

I can see the ACM in the FGX ICC sticks out a bit more than the FG ICC and the left and right metal brackets are different to allow it to hang out the back some more.

The FGX FDIM's mounting holes are also in a slightly different place, and it doesn't quite fit in the space for the FGII 8" screen. I'm sure the entire upper section can be swapped over, but that's not an option for me because I'll have a piano black bottom and a silver top, which will be horrid. The FDIM is close to fitting though, so a bit of trimming of the plastic and a couple of holes drilled in the FDIM's backet might solve that?

I've measured the voltages around the FG2's FDIM circuit board where the power regulators are too. There's a couple in there. Should come in handy if my screen should go pop. Interestingly, when I reassembled it all, the next time I plugged it in I was greeted with a message across the screen I have never seen before: "Thermal Shutdown" which disappeared and I've not seen again. I'm thinking the newer firmware tries to avoid the problem of the screen dying.

I've pretty much decoded everything in the CAN BUS I can think of on the FGII ICC (Radio, CD, CD-MP3 <- that's complicated!) and have moved on to the Sync 2 screen...

I've got it to power up, no easy feat given I don't have a FGX CAN BUS recording. It's not a "Medium Speed" bus either, it runs at the same speed as the FG's main CAN BUS. It's not a very cooperative screen either, the two others mostly worked independently and menus were available and working.. The Sync 2 seems to be waiting for CAN messages before it'll let me do anything more than see how hard to press for the touchscreen to detect it. It's surprising how hard you need to press on these screens. I didn't think it was working at all at first, until I pressed much harder than I need to on my FGII.

Anyway, the Sync 2 CAN BUS mystery continues. If anyone has details of the raw data going on in the FGX's 3rd (HS) CAN BUS, I'd definitely be interested in seeing it!

I have thrown a FGX icc in to my MK1 G6E it was a massive job but i'm happy with the results after decoding canbus for 6 months straight i have 99% of it working. I had to get a canbus module made up for it work in a FG1 . You wont get the SYNC2 bench tested with out the gateway module from a FGX/SZ2. I got more canbus commands my issue is i don't know how to convert them to a canbus module. Sync 2 canbus is running through MS,HS2,HS3,HS1

[JasonACT]

I'm just using an Arduino Nano & CAN BUS module:



The HIM doesn't support 49.5c but that's the max. cabin temp that can be displayed - 77c outside (though the FG[I] went all the way up to 99c).



The Arduino CAN BUS software libraries came with some examples and I was dumping data out of the car in no time.

I've got quite a few modules from the FGX too, the instrument cluster (I didn't realise the extra box on top was the GPS component), the BEM/BCM, fuse box and entire front loom. There's another module there with a 2nd OBDII port, says it's the Smart Data Link Connector.

I tend to agree with you though (why wouldn't I, you've done this!) that it's going to be a case of swapping over more parts rather than less (my screen only idea). The front buttons not going into the FDIM and the extra cluster module tipped me over that line.

[nc_fairlane]

The smart data link is the gateway module. I didn't swap clusters over i just made up what can bus signals i needed and got a module made up. I have never used Arduino or even know how to write them to a module.

Some MK1 and MK2 canbus signals are different for some stupid reason ford have swapped the dimming command in MK1 and MK2 so MK1 night dimming is MK2 day dimming .

[JasonACT]

Yeah, I noticed the cabin temp on the MK1 has its own identifier & packet data (0x313, byte #1), which is transmitted by the MK2 but with all zeros. The MK2 reuses the climate control identifier (0x307) and a previously unused byte (#5) in the packet with the exact same data.

Why did Ford do this? Good for business I guess. Mr.FPV gets to sell more MK2 HIMs though, and I guess Ford do too.

Arduinos are just little microcontrollers that have a large software library base and are targeted at hobbyists. The CAN BUS device I'm using is very dumb, it has buffers for two messages, signals to the Arduino there's something in there waiting, and the Arduino library reads out the identifier and data (always 8 bytes it seems in the FGs).

The library allows me to send in messages too, which is what I'm doing here.. play back various messages to see what happens on the screen.

To get the FGX screen to turn on, I wrote a short program to send every identifier (0x000 to 0xFFF) with 8 bytes of 0xFF data in. 0x433 with the first byte as 0x80 (or less reliably 0x40) was what woke it for me.

[JasonACT]

I decided to look at the radio on the FG2, mainly because of the hiss it produces when the amp is turned on:



Yep, audio code error - the unit is not happy without the security codes being transmitted over the CAN BUS - but it is staying on and the hiss is coming out of the speakers I've connected up.

But no matter what I try, the hiss doesn't change tone or level, and I tried a lot of things on the bare board... I guess it's just a sh!t unit.



I don't really understand why people are looking to replace the screen, and the market is being filled by business, when this part of the unit seems to me like the thing to replace. I wouldn't even care about the CD drive being removed, which I've done here... I have not used a CD in a long time except to rip it to a more convenient format.

[Citroënbender]

So the "hiss" is coming in at the preamp stage?

[JasonACT]

Hard to say, but maybe/probably. There is one input that should always be sent to the amp, the SAT NAV. I connected up a tiny speaker (it's the round thing above the LCD in the first picture) to the SAT NAV output of the screen and I can just hear the voice commands in the demo. But when it's connected to the radio board, with code error showing, it doesn't produce any sound other than the hiss. Grounding all inputs doesn't make the hiss go away. With a floating input, you can generally hear tiny changes in the amp's output - but there are none in this unit. It's like it's designed to output white noise!

[happy1]

Hi,
Very interesting to see how you use the Arduino CAN interface to record and re-play messages.

I bought a CAN analyser from China, but haven't had time to play with it yet.
(CANalyzer-ii from ebay) It is a two-channel analyser, and it can also filter messages, or be programmed to replace CAN messages between channel 1 and 2. Not sure if it is any good, should really hook it up and see what it can do.

Ford apparently changed some of their CAN network messages from FG(1) to FG2. Probably it was to adapt the Australian models to US practices. There should be less difference from FG2 to FGX, so it may be easier to retrofit SYNC in an FG2 than it is in an FG(1).

Cheers,

[raceteam]

I was looking at retrofitting Sync (i.e. SZII) into an SZ but haven't got any further than initial research. There was quite a few changes from FG2->FGX (i.e. SZ->SZII in the Territory). More info in this thread
https://fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11479118

[JasonACT]

Ha ha! That's the thread where I saw what the extra module on top of the cluster is (GPS). It's a good place for it, I suppose, though why it couldn't be under the ICC's top cover is a question I'm asking myself. That's where I'd put it.

I found that thread while I was looking for nc_fairlane's build thread. Sadly he hasn't got many photos. Or Sync 2 CAN message details :(

None of the FG2 messages (climate or radio/amp) make the Sync 2 screen do anything for me, so until I get a hint of what are candidates for the screen to listen to, it's all going to be on hold. Maybe the gateway unit is translating them from FG2-like codes into some standard Sync 2/3 codes - but it seems like a lot of work to get that connected when it's all just guesses.

I'm still toying with ideas for fixing the hiss in the FG2's amp for the moment.. And waiting for a GPS aerial to arrive from eBay - as my first move will be to install the FG2 screen with SAT NAV - and then pull my 2 year older screen apart to take photos, check if the unit's power up sequence is shorter etc. to see if the firmware was modified to protect them.

So much to do, so few hours in the day.

[raceteam]

Are you installing into FG or SZ? Not sure where the GPS antenna goes in FG2, but SZ it sits on a small metal plate that sticks out from the cross bar under the dash. You can access by taking out the glovebox and looking up forward of the passenger airbag module.

[JasonACT]

It's going in my FG2. The wrecker I bought the unit off wasn't able to get me the original aerial, the car had already gone to scrap by the time I realised I had bought the SAT NAV enabled ICC. His description didn't even say it was a MK2! I'll have to wait until the non OEM aerial arrives to work out where best to mount it in mine, I don't think it's going to fit where it was designed to. Service manuals for the FG show it near the passenger air bag above the glove box, I guess because there's no FG2 update, it's still the same.

[raceteam]

Sounds like the same place as SZ then. Pretty easy to reach up there if you remove the glovebox. Magnetic mount to the plate.

[JasonACT]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

So the "hiss" is coming in at the preamp stage?

Yes. Look Ma, no amp input... (I've cut a couple of legs!)



Hiss is still there, but it's about 1/5th now. If I could get it down to this volume level when the inputs are connected, it would be perfectly fine.

The radio has two large chips (one is a 16 bit microcontroller - with custom programming, not sure what the other is) and three "for car radios" components:

TB2934HQ (This is the part I've cut) the 4 way amplifier chip. Those are the two rear speaker inputs, the part says 41W per channel max, 27W typical. This part connects to the speakers via the large white plug without any other components in between.

TDA7462D (the first stage input audio processor) which I'm considering pulling up the 4 output pins and connecting them to the amp (via recommended 0.22uF caps) to bypass everything in between (may lose a software equaliser, and perhaps various beeps).

HA13173H car radio power regulator. I guess I could wire up some extra capacitors on the voltage outputs first (5.0v, 3.3v, 8.0v, 2 x 8.4v + one other output on a software switch - probably the +12v input?).

This radio may never see the inside of a car again.

[JasonACT]

Results:

I hooked up a very large capacitor to each of the voltage regulator outputs, testing each. No change whatsoever. This was sort of expected, there's lots of caps already around that chip. You can see them in the close-up shown above where the brand is clearly displayed.

I connected one of the loose cut amp pins to a random output of the first-in-line audio processor of which there are 4 (via the specified cap) and it remained quieter, but still that little bit of hiss, the same as when unconnected but quite acceptable. Started the SAT NAV demo, but didn't hear anything, so the audio code error state is turning off that chip (it's programmable for each of the 6 inputs it supports - 5 stereo, 1 mono).

Still, that shows the bulk of the noise is being introduced in the processing logic of the device between that main input and the final amp.

Wanting to hear something, I connected that wire/cap directly to one of the SAT NAV audio wires (there's 2: + and - where the audio processor converts those to one output - so I didn't expect much) and I got a constant pitch buzz.. waited a bit.. and in that buzzing a nice clear female voice started reading driving commands every so often at about the volume I would expect.

I wonder what audio processing magic I'm going to lose if I do this to my unit?! Do I... Don't I... Try?

[XD 351 Ute]

Thanks to all for contributing to this thread. I know very little about electronics, but it's great to see someone tinkering with these black boxes, and sharing the knowledge.
I may just learn something!

Ed

[happy1]

It's understandable that some manufacturers chose a $10 amplifier chip when building a base model budget vehicle.

It's disappointing to find that used in a $30k vehicle, and even more inappropriate to find that same low-cost amplifier chip used in a premium sound upgrade that the customer paid extra money for.

In addition to the hissing sound problem with the MK2 ICCs, there is also the 'screen going black' problem, and the lack of support for the navigation software update.

To improve the hissing problem, it would have been interesting to hook up an all-in-one premium signal processor with amplifiers such as this one: https://www.alpine.com.au/shop/proce...r/pdp-e800dsp/

Cheers,

[JasonACT]

That's a really nice unit, with all its bells and whistles you would really want to feed it with the cleanest audio signal (raw audio) you can so you don't have to remove any white noise. I see it takes both pre-amp and speaker level inputs, you would use the speaker level output on the FGs for this. The mod I'm looking at doing may be a good way to get a (much) clean(er) output? Then use that device's settings to shape the sound as you like it. It wouldn't matter then if what is lost in this mod is what the new unit gives you in a better way.

This is what I'm thinking of doing this long weekend (ah, a Canberra public holiday).

I've circled where the wires & capacitors would go between:



I've got all 4 inputs to the amp isolated and ready to solder:



Unfortunately, this is the radio from another car and isn't paired with mine. I'd really like to keep mine stock and in storage. Does anyone know if Forscan with the HS/MS manual switch can re-program the ACM on a FG2? I've got the elm327 device and Forscan comes up with:

Service Procedures:
ACM Module Calibration
ACM Module Reset

Config and Programming
ACM Module configuration (AS BUILT format)
ACM Module configuration

[JasonACT]

The silence is deafening, I may just have to try it myself then..



Lucky I bought some extras.. When I was a child hacking my computer, I would have looked at the price of that switch and become speechless. To be able to quickly compare what is and what was, is - priceless.



It's interesting, and annoying, but the capacitor I was using yesterday wasn't the exact value specified in the datasheet. I didn't notice any extra noise, except when connecting it to the source that I knew wasn't the right one. Now, with the correct values, I can hear extra artefacts - a very quiet ticking sound, no doubt of the electronics that's running.



This is closer to how I had it yesterday, but no difference. With my ears up against the speakers, it's there, ever so quiet - tick tick tick tick. 15cm away and it's too quiet to hear, but, I may have to get some more capacitors to test which are closer to the one I used before (I only had the one).

Bloody analogue electronics.

I just bet Sanyo were saying the same thing and came up with the idea of introducing slightly louder white noise to hide it.

[JasonACT]

I tried Forscan to recode the modified ACM, it said Service Procedures - ACM Module Calibration requires an extended license. I requested a two month free trial license and with that the radio code error went away. That's one question answered!

Bad news is, the only sound going through that chip is the SAT NAV voice and touch screen pressed beeps (which I've now turned off). Nice and clear, but Radio, CD, USB produced no sound. This surprises me, the only thing it's being used for is converting a mono +/- speaker input into quad single line outputs.

Since I have a FG (MKI) radio, I Frankenstein'ed it into the mix. Almost no hiss, and I mean even better than my bypass hack which still has some, but radio code error was showing. Forscan reprogrammed it and it started up but was tuned to some AM frequency (so that hiss was awful) but since the FDIM wasn't speaking its language it still said radio code error and I was unable to change the input to anything else. Still, this remains an appealing avenue to research.

Other things to report, my car is a single zone climate model, but this newer screen is dual zone. With the buttons from the donor unit, the passenger temp doesn't change anything in my car and the middle fan buttons work. In single zone cars, the fan speed is where the passenger temp is.. so they're doing nothing for me at the moment as the FDIM assumes those buttons passenger temp. I'm going to change that, but I need to pull apart the units a bit more to find the best solution. Forscan didn't come up with a FDIM option to select how many zones there are (but it did have a few other things like FPV splash screen, reverse camera, [sonar] park-assist, touch-screen-enable & VIN that could be edited).

I'm yet to play with my old FDIM, I wonder if it will break the first time I power it up? The other newer one was repeatedly plugged in (I'd say about 50-70 times) but never missed a beat.

[nc_fairlane]

Originally Posted by JasonACT

I tried Forscan to recode the modified ACM, it said Service Procedures - ACM Module Calibration requires an extended license. I requested a two month free trial license and with that the radio code error went away. That's one question answered!

Bad news is, the only sound going through that chip is the SAT NAV voice and touch screen pressed beeps (which I've now turned off). Nice and clear, but Radio, CD, USB produced no sound. This surprises me, the only thing it's being used for is converting a mono +/- speaker input into quad single line outputs.

Since I have a FG (MKI) radio, I Frankenstein'ed it into the mix. Almost no hiss, and I mean even better than my bypass hack which still has some, but radio code error was showing. Forscan reprogrammed it and it started up but was tuned to some AM frequency (so that hiss was awful) but since the FDIM wasn't speaking its language it still said radio code error and I was unable to change the input to anything else. Still, this remains an appealing avenue to research.

Other things to report, my car is a single zone climate model, but this newer screen is dual zone. With the buttons from the donor unit, the passenger temp doesn't change anything in my car and the middle fan buttons work. In single zone cars, the fan speed is where the passenger temp is.. so they're doing nothing for me at the moment as the FDIM assumes those buttons passenger temp. I'm going to change that, but I need to pull apart the units a bit more to find the best solution. Forscan didn't come up with a FDIM option to select how many zones there are (but it did have a few other things like FPV splash screen, reverse camera, [sonar] park-assist, touch-screen-enable & VIN that could be edited).

I'm yet to play with my old FDIM, I wonder if it will break the first time I power it up? The other newer one was repeatedly plugged in (I'd say about 50-70 times) but never missed a beat.

If you have access to a ford ids you can change the fdim to single zone.
You have done quite well on what you have discovered keep up the good work.

[JasonACT]

Thanks mate

I powered up my FDIM (single zone as can be seen, no SAT NAV) and I took some timings:



Powers up and starts displaying (lights up the screen) within 24 seconds. Splash screen on/off doesn't matter, except with the splash it takes a bit longer to display the above.

Now to the newer firmware on the newer unit...

It takes 19 seconds to turn on the screen. A bit faster! But, it always shows the splash screen on first power-up. It does this for 10 seconds, turns off, then there's some extra time before it will turn on again and display the above.

Maybe the new firmware turns on the screen while the CPU is doing very little, almost sleeping, so capacitors continue to charge at a faster rate? Only well after 30 seconds does it run both the screen and CPU. A 7 second increase. I don't think the SAT NAV makes a difference, because the newer screen often didn't show the "Nav" button until well after the screen was started and was running for some time (quite a few seconds).

[happy1]

Hi,
Does anyone have a faulty FG2 ICC? That way it would be possible to look at which component is fried when the displays goes dead.

When you play with the display, most of the messages from the HVAC system originate from the HIM (Heater Interface Module). On FG the CAN bus from the PCM and HIM goes via the instrument cluster (gateway) before arriving at the ICC display.
The HIM exist as single zone or dual zone. (same hardware, can be re-flashed).
It would have been interesting to have a HIM hooked up to see what messages are sent. But I believe others have re-engineered that part when developing aftermarket control of the HVAC / HIM.

Cheers,

[JasonACT]

It's been a long day.

I started out by reading my original FDIM parameter blocks using Forscan, while also having my CAN BUS logging device plugged in. Do I feel bad that I'm looking at what Forscan is doing while learning a bit about how these cars work.. Not really. I've got a whole lot more PIDs now.

I saw that my original FDIM has one half byte difference to the new one (BTW: half byte = nibble) but Forscan was not going to attempt to change that block for me to see how it does so. Eventually, I worked out what all the magic numbers meant and I was able to get the device in the same state as my old unit.

But oh no, that's not how these things work!

No matter what blocks I changed, it would not go into single zone climate control on the bench. Disbelief that these things could be configured set in and I moved on to using the donor unit's buttons. Some were very dirty, some were scratched...



I ended up swapping over my OK button. I'm actually pretty happy swapping over the black buttons to these silver ones, they match the steering wheel buttons I did a while ago...





Upon powering up the unit (after considerable work swapping things over) the screen says it's configuring blue-tooth and it's the Territory profile being used. What? Territory? That's weird! Up date complete...



The damn thing can be configured into single zone! But no SAT NAV!

Hmmm, touch-screen is also not functioning any more. That's also weird! But I had done all the screws up nice and tight - so out it came and everything loosened up - touch screen worked again. Turns out the two top screws holding the unit in place shouldn't be over tightened.

Plug her back into the car... Blue-tooth goes into configuration again! This time it tells me it's using the Falcon profile! SAT NAV comes back, touch screen continues to work, but it's in dual zone climate mode (which matches my new buttons - so all good).

Makes me wonder though, where do you press on the screen when first powering it up via the battery to get different profiles to load?!!!!!!!

[JasonACT]

Night time, back to the radio hiss problem...

FG (I) radio board:


Modified FGII radio board:


Side by side picture:


I can see the new one has more components near the white connector, all the other components are the same - but I assume the custom 16 bit CPU has different programming. I wonder if it detects the board by the components on it? Maybe removing some/all of the different ones will make it work better?!

[happy1]

Hi,
Maybe one of them was a premium sound version with Sub-output, and one was a basic version?

[raceteam]

From research I have done, I didn't think there was any config for dual/single zone in the FDIM. The zone info is in 2 places (HIM, which is configurable to single/dual via Forscan), and the ICC button board that connects to the FDIM. The front panel buttons are different for single/dual zone, so I figured that it was just a matter of plugging in the correct front panel.
Which half byte was different between the two?

[JasonACT]

@happy1 - you are correct, the FGII radio came with the SAT NAV ICC which is one indicator, but the confirmation comes from Forscan - this radio complains that it's lost connection to the SUB AMP.

@raceteam - I have had both button boards connected to the FDIM but it made no difference. In fact, the only difference in the boards is, the LEDs are not soldered into the single zone one for the middle +/- button. The circuit board itself does have the button pads and the rubber overlay also has the conductive material to short the pads.

The difference was in block 4:
Block 1 has 4 bits for the Forscan options (FPV splash, reverse cam, park assist & touch screen enable)
Block 2 has the VIN which cannot be updated (I watched Forscan try 6 times with various unlock methods)
Block 3 who knows: 01000000 (I now don't recall if I could change this)
Block 4 has: 0B0A030A05140000 for the dual zone model
Block 4 has: 000A030A05140000 for the single zone model
Block 5 has the text "Ford Falcon Bluetooth"

[happy1]

Originally Posted by JasonACT

Block 2 has the VIN which cannot be updated (I watched Forscan try 6 times with various unlock methods)

Typically each module has more than one placeholder for its VIN. You may not be able to update the initial (first) VIN that the module has been given, (remotely that is, unless you lift off the memory chip and changes it just on that chip, or removes the logic checking in the CPU or programming tool that checks if initial VIN is there).
Then there should be a secondary VIN, when a module has been re-purposed, and matched to a new vehicle. It will keep that VIN also in a different location, but not remove the initial one.

Ford's IDS in expert mode (engineer) can see all original VINs. I heard a comment from the dealer /programming specialist: 'once we had a dodgy FG come to the workshop, where all the modules originated from a mix of 3 different vehicles'.

[raceteam]

Looking at this screenshot, looks like Forscan can update the FDIM VIN if you've got a used one to go in. https://forscan.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7123#p30168