This will not be so much about how to do the installation of the MIMA system, as what I did with the two items left to the design of the customer; that being the design/mounting of the joystick and the display. The MIMA installation is well documented on Mike Dabrowski’s webpage
http://www.99mpg.com , where you will also find all the schematics for the joystick and led display.
Here’s a picture of what I did with mine, in the early stages while I was finding the right position on the shifter.
Experimental joystick mount.
Also in the picture is a bracket that will look familiar to most. It is one of those reflector brackets off a bicycle. I threw the reflector in the picture for clarification, although I had to turn it over to take the picture. There are several sizes of these things, to fit different sizes of tube, but I had some new ones, in the desk drawer that I had taken off the mountain bike, and they were the right size, so I already had some on hand. I was initially thinking of popping the reflector off, and mounting the joystick on the flat surface that was left, but then the joystick would still be exposed, and there were some other things that I wanted to incorporate into whatever I wound up attaching to the shifter.
INSTALLING A ZIPPER IN THE SHIFTER BOOT
Another thing that I wanted to accomplish with the joystick and led display install, was to make the wiring, as inconspicuous as possible. I decided to put a zipper in the shifter boot. This would allow the somewhat larger items that might be hard wired, to drop through, when removing the console. I had a button hole made crossways, at the top of the zipper opening for any wires to pass through, which was particularly suited to the flat ribbon cable coming from the joystick. The ribbon cable lays very nicely in the button hole opening.
To get the shifter boot off, remove the console, and turn it over, so as to get to the 4 screws holding the plastic frame onto the console. Remove the 4 screws and the shifter boot which is stapled into the plastic frame. Looks like this:
Shifter boot removed and turned inside out.
The small rubber band is removed by rolling it off, and then the plastic ring will fall out. Remove the staples and the boot itself is free. You might want to mark the dash (forward) side of the inside of the boot so that whomever does the sewing will get the zipper in the right quadrant of the boot. All sides are not equal. The forward side is longer, as can be seen in some of these pictures. I had the person doing the sewing for me, roll the edges of the cut, to the inside while sewing in the zipper, and also sew the zipper to the inside of the boot. It will look pretty good that way, and give an overall finished look.
Boot remounted in the console with zipper in place.
Notice the button hole at the top of the zipper.
Once you get the zipper sewn in, just re-staple very carefully. Remember, the boot is not equal on all sides. You may have to think upside down and backwards here.
Now anything attached to the shifter, can be taken loose and slipped through the zippered opening in the boot, to allow easy removal of the console.
Passing the hardwired MIMA joystick mount through the zippered shifter boot.
From one of my electronics supply sources, I ordered a few examples, of different sizes of project boxes. Once I had the options reduced to the one I wanted to use, I modeled the chosen one, for the purpose of dimensioning, and; since I was going to have the cut-outs done on a bench top laser, the digital files could be downloaded to the laser.
Here’s the results of the modeling:
Back from the laser shop, to the desk top:
My friend Murphy, always seems to need one of what I’m working on, and as you can see from the right hand pic, he dropped by and got his share. That is why I ordered more than two. I milled a flat on the bottom of the boxes for the mounts to set in, while the epoxy sets up.
The switch operator that will be on the left side of the joystick, is the top half of a momentary rocker switch. I cut the top of the switch off, (the part that would panel mount), and glued some extensions to the top of the tactile switches on the joystick board. These (purple in the photos) extensions, reach up inside the rocker part, so that, once the cover is mounted on the box, the rocker will activated the two tactile switches, for MIMA mode 1 (forward rocker motion), and MIMA mode 2 (aft rocker motion). I finally had to just run Murphy off, on this part of the project, ……..pesky fellow, that Murphy.
The switch to the right side of the joystick, is the same switch that I cut the top off of, for the left side, except I left it in its original configuration. The forward motion on it, will be the garage door opener (Aft motion undecided at this time.). This switch is visible in the right hand photo. The small, four lobed knob, that I used on the joystick itself, is very intuitive for operating MIMA. Your finger will just fall into place. The cross-cuts in the center of the cover, also help guide the joystick to the four cardinal points of use.
The completed joystick mount.
I found a nifty little project box, with some nice curves to match the Insight, or so I thought anyway, and it was available in blue (my Insight is blue). The front panel was removable, so I had my buddy with the laser, cut some clear replacements out of a cd case. (So happens the case was the right thickness.) Got several of them cut, since once you are there, 3 or 4 costs the same as a quantity of one. The masking tape is used to keep the smoke from the laser cutting, off of the clear plastic. In the case of the black plastic switch box, the smoke is not that big a deal, and can be washed off with some liquid dish soap. With the clear, we didn’t want any residue left on the surface.
I wanted to mount my garage door opener board inside this enclosure, so I had to cut it down from it’s original size. About half of the circuit board was not used anyway, and I didn’t need the switch that is on the board, since I will activate it from the MIMA shifter mount. My particular door opener is 12v powered, so that eliminates some bulk and some wiring. There are also a few extra wires on the ribbon cable from the joystick and from the led display, so wiring in the garage door opener was pretty simple.
The rear view of it mounted in the vehicle, is taken with the rear hatch opened. I removed the push rivet that holds up the headliner, placed a small circle of Velcro behind the push rivet, and put the mating Velcro on the display, as seen in the left photo above. A small straight razor cut in the headliner allows the cable to exit and be plugged into the display housing. Let me get the wiring in place and then a couple more pics should clear up any question about where this thing is mounted.
Fishing the wires through the headliner….
…and through the interior rocker panel, to the front.
And now, those other pics to help clear up where the MIMA display is mounted.
Left pic shows the display with most of the leds lit up. The right pic is what I am seeing when I look in the rear view mirror.
Those detail oriented folks that might be reviewing this, would call attention to the fact that the leds are not the same in many of the above photos. The one on the left just above, with everything lit up, was taken at a later time. I had installed a larger 5mm green led, as an FAS indicator, in the center of the MIMA leds. It is much larger than the tiny amp indicators, so it’s easy to tell the difference (I have the smaller leds from the discrete display kit). All leds, are never lit up at the same time, in real time use. I lit everything up just to take the picture.
For the MIMA users:
This display gives the same information, in the same order, as Mike’s factory board. I basically just flipped it over and placed it behind my head. The only real difference is I stacked the green and amber leds, instead of having them all in a row. The regen still indicates from the right to the left, and the assist from the left to the right, with the red status indicators being somewhat separated from each other.
SECONDARY JOYSTICK LOCATION:
The MIMA design allows a secondary joystick to be in parallel with the original. This requires a piggy back plug on the primary cable and a second joystick and cable. Here is my choice for the location of my secondary joystick location:
Putting the second joystick in this location, lets my arm rest comfortably while controlling MIMA, and the cup holder in the Husco armrest is a useless item (in the Insight), as far as I’m concerned. I had to look for a long time, before I found just what I needed for the cup part. It had to be the right diameter and have some taper to it, so as to go down inside the slide out tray part of the cup holder. Here is a picture (on the left) of the two possibilities that I bagged during the hunt.
On the right are the cup-holder shapes that I cut out of the beverage tray, from the left picture. One is the raw cut-out, and the other is trimmed to fit the slide-out tray in the arm rest. That is a bare joystick board in the right hand pic.
As these photos show, the square relief area, in the trimmed cup-holder provides a means of access to run the ribbon cable from the secondary joystick, to a place where it can be routed under the carpet and up to the MIMA board. In the right hand picture you can also see that it would be necessary to have some relief, as the cable could get pinched when the cup-holder tray is returned to the “fully upright and stowed position”.
Almost done:
THE RATTLE IN THE HUSCO ARMREST:
While working with this joystick location, I wanted to see if I could get the rattle out of the slide-out part of the armrest. The following pics show what I came up with. If you have a Husco arm-rest and it rattles, this might help.
In the left hand pic, you can see a small detent in the exterior of the Husco armrest slide, in line with the slide out part. I stuck a black ziptie, zip side out, in between the frame of the armrest and the slide. I cut it to the proper length and super-glued it to the slide. This tightened up the slide (no more rattle) and makes it stay where you put it, thanks to the detent riding in the zip. If you do this, make sure you get the back end of the ziptie far enough back so it won’t ever come out from behind the detent, on the occasions when you pull the slide all the way out. Clear as mud….huh.
Well, if you stayed with me this long, I hope at the least, you enjoyed looking at the pics.
Randall
I sure wish you worked for Ford or GM inside one of their interior groups as you can beautifully package anything …
Linear Mode
