Change gears with button. Possible?
 

Hey,

So i have an automatic Infiniti G37 sedan and want to make a mount for my ipad where my gear shifter is. But that means getting rid of the shifter.

Since its an auto i thought it would be easy to somehow craft a way of changing gears with a pneumatic motor, with buttons, kinda like the new Jaguar XFR and its knob for changing gears.

I just wanted to know if any of you have heard of this being done before. I gave google a quick search but couldnt find anything relevent.

Thanks

Saagar

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but there wouldn't be any direct connection with the shifter and the transmission. The shifter should send a signal to the ECU which would control the shifts. Best bet would be to tap the line going to the ecu and sniff the signal to see how it operates for your specific application. Then you could probably use a uC (small AVR would work) to spoof the signal and take the appropriate inputs.

Just a heads up though, to do this right it'll take either a lot of money or time+skill.

Because I'm curious, why do you want to be mounting your iPad there?

You're better off taking out the stereo, and relocating your temperature controls and mount your iPad there. Plus it would give you a better viewing angle imo...

Push button transmission technology has existed since the 50s.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/autom...nsmission.html



Although I can kind of see how it could be done it would be a shitton of work and, in the end, not worth it. It would be easier re-purposing a swingarm lamp and mounting it under your dash or looking at this



http://www.mp3car.com/mp3car-blog-ta...ar-mounts.html

It depends what level of integration you want to do. It would really help if you have a spare circuit board that is underneath the shifter assembly. Car that vintage typically signal uses CAN bus.

My suggestion and probably the easiest in terms of reversing the process when / if you need to sell you car:

1. Figure out what kind of signal are generated by the different positions of the shifter.
2. Use Audrino to generate the signal for you via iPad(Audrino works with iPad). So you can actually shift the car via an app on the iPad.

An example will be this

The problem is Japanese makes generally don't publish protocol specifications. European typically are much more friendly eg if you have BMW you have things like this (I know it is not the latest optical bus etc etc).

Yes it can be done like godwin has suggested but it can be dangerous to both you and your transmission if not done correctly

Here's a pic of some guy that did it in his H2.

http://i52.tinypic.com/i6zc5y.jpg

I still see a shifter and not buttons.