freakbrian

For those who want to replace their steering wheel with an aftermarket one, but don't want to lose cruise control functionality, you can make your own button panel if you are a bit handy with electronics.

Parts needed:
-3-4 momentary push button switches
-Pack of various resistors
-Wire, solder, heat shrink, etc.

This is a dumbed down diagram of the cruise control switch panel on the stock steering wheel (not including clock spring) therefore what you will need to replicate. It is a multiplex switch panel meaning each button has a different resistance that it sends back to the car so that the car knows what button you pressed without needing a separate wire for each button. Except for the on/off button which just connects the two wires together.



The cancel button isn't really necessary. If you'd prefer to have less buttons you can omit it and just tap the brake pedal to cancel cruise instead.



Buttons mounted to the trim panel to left of the steering wheel



Each switch wired up with one common wire, and the other going through a series of resistors, according to the diagram.
Multiple resistors in series had to be wired up to get the correct resistance. For example they don't really make a 615 ohm resistor, but I used a 450, 160, and 6.6 in series to come up with 616.6 ohms (within like a 10 ohm margin is fine).



Completed wiring



Wrapped up wiring with some tesa and final checks with all buttons resistances using a multimeter



Now on the car side of things, you'll want to access the clock spring plugs to get to the cruise control mux wires before they enter the clock spring. It is just 2 philips screws on the bottom of the steering column cover, and then the top and bottom halves will easily pop apart. The plug you'll want to access is shown circled above, the white plug next to the yellow plug at the bottom of the column going into the clock spring, closest to the steering wheel. You can unplug this without worrying about airbag issues if your airbag is still installed, don't unplug the yellow plug next to it though.



The wires we will be working with for cruise are the green with red stripe and red with yellow stripe which if you're looking at the plug with the tab facing down and the wires facing you, are the second and third starting at the left.

Connect the common wire (going to one side of all buttons directly) to the red/yellow, and the multiplex (wire with resistance values going to the other sides of the buttons) to the green/red.

You can either splice into the factory wiring (recommended) or just cut it if you don't plan to go back to a factory wheel or are okay with putting the wires back after. Your choice.



Switch panel mounted and works great
Just have to label the buttons now.

Hope this was able to help someone If you have any questions I'll do my best to answer.

dnguy28

Thanks for posting this! I've been looking on a write-up on this for a while. Will be referencing this when I add buttons to an aftermarket wheel.

Ivana129

I bought audio controls for Mitsubishi Lancer 2012 and when I put them,they work and switch radio stations and all buttons work perfectly,but they dont lightening up? There is no back light on switches. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

damo

Thanks to the OP for this post, it was very helpful.
I ended up putting my buttons on the lower steering column cover which also made running the wires easy.



For anyone else thinking of doing this, you don't need to splice or cut the wiring on the car. You can actually just unplug the white plug from the clockspring and then connect the wiring from the buttons into the white plug. It doesn't need to be plugged back into the clock spring if you are running an aftermarket wheel. The male pins from RC servo leads or a "dupont cable" will plug perfectly into the white plug.

I have labelled the pins below. The other pins are used for the horn, audio, speech buttons and the illumination for the buttons.



1 (green) = horn
2 (blue/red) = audio (multiplex)
3 (black/white) = audio (common)
4 (red/yellow) = cruise (common)
5 (green/red) = cruise (multiplex)
6 (green/white) = illumination

For reference, if you wanted to make additional audio buttons, the resistances are as follows:

• MODE = 271 ohm
• CH UP = 743 ohm
• CH DOWN = 1300 ohm
• VOL UP = 2120 ohm
• VOL DOWN = 3120 ohm
• SPEECH = 4590 ohm
• PICK UP = 6260 ohm
• HANG UP = 8630 ohm