Lex Talionis

okay.. given my new info above, we posted at same time.. what do you think now? In looking at the motherboard we currently have wires coming into pins 5,6,8,10,11,14 If so, now what process might we follow to determine which pin(s) will make this happen? Jpark references pins #1 and 2. It seems to me you should be able to run a power wire up to the gray pigtail and into open lead/holes #1 and #2, touch the pin, and see if it fires up those lights.. no? ground is in place, so it seems just adding power to those pins 1 at a time until it lights up would tell us what pin and not harm this motherboard. once you figure that, you could then tie it into the correct "accessory delay feed" power wire (which still needs to be determined yet). would we agree on this or is there a better method? what would solve all of this so easy would be if someone reading this with a Lincoln - like MKX2007 :) would pop down this control panel - very easy, just pull down the edge closest to your head - and snap a photo like my last one above that shows what color wires come into what port on the back of that pigtail. then we could clearly see what wire we are missing AND what color it is AND what lead/port it goes into on that pigtail... (that tape on the led is not my photo, it is one I found and posted for reference)

So, it dawned on me last night what this whole "pin" reference was and I am one step closer to solving this. :shades: On the flip side of the mother board are 2 pinned harnesses ports that the 2 pigtails from the headliner plug into. Notice the 2 pigtails are white and gray. Notice the gray port on the motherboard has 14 "pins" while the white port has 3 larger pins. The gray one seems to power the BAMR roof controls while the white one seems to supply power to the overhead map lights. I believe these are the 'pins' Jpark reference, they were never seen in his photo as they are on the opposite side. Now, look at just the gray pigtail - the key one in solving this I believe - coming from the headliner - as the pictures show, there are 18 lead/pin holes available in total, not 14. BUT also notice that we only use 6 of them (as seen by looking at the wires in the bundle that come into the backside of the gray pigtail). So, when you plug this pigtail in, it is contacting just 6 of the 14 open pins on the motherboard side. So, this tells me that in the Lincoln, there is/are another wire(s) coming into that gray pigtail in that wire bundle and in the end, making more than 6 pin connections. This lines up with Jparks reference to just needing another '3 feet of wire' as the ground is there already for us. SO.. the million dollar questions are (1) what lead/pin hole would you run a wire into (notice there are 8 to select from that would line up with pins), which one is the golden pin and (2) what color existing wire would you tap into the existing wire bundle to get the correct power if you knew what lead/pin hole to tap into. Jpark mentions "accessory delay feed" - if so, what color is that currently?

I believe what you see as 'pins' are, in fact, actually slices in the plastic housing that are for the clips on the opposite piece to snap home. I have attached a blown up pixelated image of that board, you can see only circuits at the top of that board. no 'pins' that I see. The image below that I found also and it seems to show the motherboard taken out of the plastic housing - maybe giving access to actual pins on the other side? I would tend to agree if it is that simple and allows to plug-n-play activation by hooking into the existing harness that is in the head liner and not have to run a wire. I would buy it as it would be clean and take advantage of prewired ground and power. IF that is what it does (see the pig tail image I found below). I might actually go by the dealer and have them pull up this section of Edge parts on their computer and then pull the same parts up for the Lincoln and see if it shows an additional pigtail or inline adaptor versus the Edge model parts - or at least, show this section of parts and what a discernible difference is.

no worries... if I can nail it down, I will do a better idea of explaining what is what and how it is done. with photos. for now, just talking out loud hoping someone who similarly understands this stuff can clarify some of the unknowns. once that is done, we will be cooking with fire.

I want to better get a grip on what this "The only reason they're not lighted is that there's no wire running from the Accessory Delay feed running up the A-pillar to the switch assembly...a 3-foot piece of wire, and missing only on the Edge. The ground is already there." and this "That's a little steep for the two pins I'm going to remove from it and plug into the connector already in the car (so I can run the ground and Accessory Delay leads)," amount to? as these together make it sound so simple. If I could only understand 1) is the ground already done and in place, no need to worry about that since the board is already powered given it controls the map lights already, or is one of the pins for the ground and we still need to ground it, he is just saying it is there for us ready to use 2) where are the 2 pins and what pin is what? 3) why the mention of the pigtail if it simply is just 3 feet of wire we need? 4) what color wire is the "accessory delay feed"

I am now on a mission to do this. I already took the unit apart to scope it out. I have tackled projects WAY bigger than this here on my Edge and made them happen... this should be totally doable. I just need a little more understanding. Sanche, I also read the part about "(pins 1 and 2 on the switch connector)" BUT I am not sure what or where that references on that board? Do you? Can you tell by looking at the image? And, IF you did know what/where those were on the board, does that mean one is power and 1 is ground and if we ground 1 and run power to other, we can fire it up? Now, If so, why the mention of that $55 pigtail? Does that, I wonder, imply that you can take the purchased pigtail, plug that into the bundle coming out of the headliner and plug that new pigtail into the unit and have it fire up quicker than running a new wire? The pigtail comment implies to me that that pig tail you could buy would bypass the current connection and supply the needed power to that motherboard to light those LEDs. In a way, that makes sense as that seems like something they could just pop in at the factory to make this system work rather than running wires as many of these parts are the same as in the Lincoln. Anyway... if we can hear from Jpark, it might explain more as I am a little confused by what the pig tail would offer or if, since we only tie into 2 pins, we can manually do this (clip or solder to a pin) and get this going.

okay... I started some deep Goggle and found where this post came from. see it here at Bue Oval - it answers a few of my above questions. seems, as per that thread at least, he has not pulled it off (page 3, post #42)... yet also turns out, it was by Jpark, also a member here at our forums! I have a PM in to him to see if we can revive this topic and between us, get this done. if it is all there, and all we need to do is run a wire, I will do this today. BUT, in his last post on the topic, he mentions a $55 14-pin connector pigtail assembly WPT-287 needed to do this, but I 'might' be able to fashion one and work around that - since it seems you only need 2 pins - if I can get a better idea where to attach and what it does, etc.

sanche.. PLEASE follow up on this here. I was correct it was never done here, but apparently you have another forum that has this info. this is great news. if you can get me the details: where the wire is placed, is it soldered or just crimped on to an open lead somewhere (I cannot tell), do you have to run a wire from your own power supply or is there a power wire there in a bundle nearby just not attached, where are the bulbs to supply light IF you get this hooked up? if you can get me more details, I will do this ASAP and give a write up about it. I am really actually surprised they would not hook this up and hold it back like it is some sort of 'upgrade' just for the Lincoln,

someone needs to snap this thing up. :poke: I am telling you, it can easily be installed with little finesse and look perfect. mine looked a little off, but installed fine as I aid above.

an email I put in to them last week said that they plan to have it available "in a few weeks".. so we will see. that one above I linked to by Green seems to no longer be listed. might have never existed, but at the time if the link, it did.

can you or anyone expand on what that is and why it is there? if you can easily 'pop' it out, is it just a restrictor? why would it be there and also be removable? that Green one I posted about elsewhere now seems to be... gone. the website no longer lists it. so not sure what that is about. there is also a thread here that has a post, with photos, to a website that shows one in development by Steeda. Well, I emailed them last week and they said 'a few weeks'.. so stay tuned.

IIRC, it was never stated they were 'not hooked up'. in fact, I do not even recall seeing that. what I do recall is that some people are bummed it is not there - I have come, over time, to wish they were lit myself actually, but the last I read here some were considering trying to get the Lincoln part and install it into an Edge. never saw anyone actually do it. Now, if this is wrong, let me know as I would gladly wire them up and pass on the exact details on just how to do it. but I suspect the ability is not even there as I would be hard pressed to believe they would put them in, and not wire them up

this part has been hotly contested by dealers, Ford and others. rather then going in and saying it is still under warranty to get it done free, might be best to explain your connectivity issues that this addresses - that seems to have gotten a greater free response from dealers.

if you use the search function here, you will see about 50 threads on this very topic already... more than you would ever care to read

a few people over at SyncMyRide.com.. no one seems to report a lot of noticeable changes or diffs - a few say it helped some phone issues, some say still issues. it is the biggest thread there and pretty detailed FWIW. most pissed we need to pay for the enhancement as it seems to update a chip (there are 2) that only dealers can update and not us. I think that Aug 8 deal was bogus the more I have read about it and not really convinced it will ever be released for us to do ourselves. great huh? first true Sync 'update' for those of us with connectivity issues - and we cannot even self install it.

I feel ya, but it seems there are few choices for these out there: this one (no longer made), the Ford one (most people say thin and over-priced) and another off eBay (no real reports). When I imply you have to adjust it, it is not a major effort or adjustment - there is some effort required to place these things no matter who's you get - and I would take this thicker model over that Ford one and something over nothing. Just look at the picture in my Gallery, does that not look about perfect when installed?

sorry your bumber cover did not work ... IIRC, mine was not exactly perfect, but once you lay down the adhesion liquid and peel off the sticky back, if you lay one half down you can just massage the other half into the radius that works best. it is not precise, but this seemed to work perfect for me as I also recalled when I just laid it on for trail run, it was skewed, but when I tacked it down, I could get exact placement I wanted as it is rubbery and malleable.

have you tried here at blue oval forums? your more likely to get a response there than here I have seen. I know I got mine there.

seems to be a lot of opinions on this topic no doubt, and I am sure you are about to get your fill of them so I will pass on the actual debate. That being said, I am a big fan and have/had them on past and current cars. I did not get one yet as I am waiting to see if someone - like Steeda or K&N or Air Raid - will release a cold air intake kit, which will naturally have their filter included. If that does not happen in the next fews months, I will be doing a K&N for sure.

interesting... as a first post, it is compelling and the right place to have it. if someone else comes here for that issue, this should help them.

yes/no IF you do not use the yellow wire off the input box and attach a switch (or parking brake) to override the nav system you will only get it to be a backup camera off Video 2.. IF you do use the yellow wire and put in an override switch (or attach to parking break) then you can flip the switch and use whatever video source you attach to Video 1. now, on that note, according to the maker, the backup camera will ALWAYS have priority no matter what is going on. This is a step above most other systems (non of which are DIY at this point though). So, what this means is that even if you have hooked up a DVD player in Video 1, if you put the car in reverse it will always show the reverse backup camera and override whatever is happening on Video 1. So you do not have to flip the switch you put in to off or turn off the power to the DVD player (or whatever you have hooked up to Video 1) to use the reverse camera as it is the default primary input. this being said, this will not get you audio. this is a video system. so, to get audio you would use the external audio from the device, an FM transmitter, or splice into the stereo head unit an auxiliary input for sound. since having a backup camera was the goal, I am not too worried about even doing this.

ouch... well there you have it, that explains why the 2008 has that little entry door there. I wondered why. looks like that same part is used in 2007/2008, but in 2007 they used it for the button and 2008 they closed it off with a plate when they added the actual lower grab handle with the button. well.. maybe there is room left or right of it? if not, a license plate frame camera would be ideal.

hey hey.... first, I could just not fit my camera wire through and the reason why - I did not explain above - is the end of my camera wire is a thick bundle that has the RCA jack, another stereo 3mm jack, and a red power wire. That all emanates from a pretty thick bundle and trying to fish it through that ridged rubber sleeve was just a no go as it was just to thick if a bundle and sticking to the tacky rubber. I tried, but decided given the time spent thus far just not worth the effort so went around. I assume not all cameras will be like this I am sure, mine was and it was just to thick a mass and taking to much massaging effort past each ridge in that sleeve. I said it and moved on. as for the color wire to get power for the input box, I am pretty sure I explained above that I tied the blue and red together from the box and then tied those 2 to the red power wire that came at the end of that camera wire bundle - power viola to the box. Since the camera was already powered back at the rear reverse light, that red power wire that came off my camera end supplied the boxes power. That worked slick and allowed me to not have to search out the power up front for the reverse lamp since I did it back at the lamp. BTW.... what camera did you get? Report back your experience. I found wiring up that box is much tougher than running the camera. be careful with all that sensitive 9 wire bundle with white tip connector and thin thin ribbon cable & the snap connectors and 4/4 and 5/5 pin connectors and tight tolerances... it can get trying at times

thanks... yeah, it was trying to not make the scrolling soooo long versus making readable paragraphs. I went for the former. if not, it could be about 5 more scrolls down long - but I feel yeah. I bet most will just look at the photos anyway

Thanks... I plan to wire up Video 1 today (the yellow wire) so I can run a DVD player or something. The Port is there, so might as well wire it up and I plan to put an RCA jack & a flat toggle switch in the center arm rest console as there is a very deep storage spot in there and a power outlet, so it makes sense. The retail price for the nav unit is $325 and the camera was like $110-115 if you Google for best deal. Call Sam to order. It was just released a week ago. The unit is there, all they do to make it plug and play is the special harness (wire bundle, ribbon cable, cable to tie harness to box), but the box they show and list is the same. When you tell them what car yo have, they know that kit is needed. The photo above shows what you will get.