PDC Retrofit Question

[ladookadoo]

Ah, So you're doing what I did a couple of years ago on my MK7 R. I went through the erwin diagrams to figure out the wiring, which the Chinese directions actually matched up to. The connectors they've provided are to allow you to connect the wiring from the kit to the OE wiring without having to physically splice. They are dovetails and they can make it easier, assuming you have the correct pins for the connector, which based upon my experience worked.

Nice! glad you got it working on yours a few years back.

Those dovetails are the connectors i circled right? Where would these plug into though? Sorry if i’m sounding stupid but i haven’t come across these before tbh.

 

[Kushdaiin]

Yes, those are the dovetails. I don't remember where they tap off of exactly without looking at my notes (on my home computer) but the concept is to depin one of the pins from the appropriate harness, plug that in the receptive side of the dovetail, which creates two extensions of that original pin: one to go back to the harness you removed the OE pin from and one to go to the extension kit with the the additional PLA sensors. As I said before, it's non-invasive splice. I'll check my notes later. My recollection is that there are two pins on the PLA harness that have to plugged into the dovetails (one to the front bank (bumper) of sensors, one to the rear bank (bumper)). I did a similar dovetail for the power going into the PLA (easy as you're already there) and grounded at the base of the A-pillar. I purchased additional dovetails from Aliexpress. I believe you can buy them with pins that you can terminate yourself or go the route of getting them off of digikey, which I think is a little quicker for us in the States.

 

[ladookadoo]

Ahh that makes so much more sense, thanks!

So in the dovetail there's space for 3 pins, 2 of which are occupied with wires already part of the new harness with the empty slot i assume being for the wire that we depin off the OEM harness.

once that’s all plugged in we just leave the dovetail hanging i guess?

also i assume this is for if the pins are already occupied in the PDC module (which they probably are), i did something similar when i hardwired the door projector leds into my door card

unless the empty slot is for a different pin that’s not listed on the aliexpress instructions, would appreciate if you could let me know which one.

Yes, those are the dovetails. I don't remember where they tap off of exactly without looking at my notes (on my home computer) but the concept is to depin one of the pins from the appropriate harness, plug that in the receptive side of the dovetail, which creates two extensions of that original pin: one to go back to the harness you removed the OE pin from and one to go to the extension kit with the the additional PLA sensors. As I said before, it's non-invasive splice. I'll check my notes later. My recollection is that there are two pins on the PLA harness that have to plugged into the dovetails (one to the front bank (bumper) of sensors, one to the rear bank (bumper)). I did a similar dovetail for the power going into the PLA (easy as you're already there) and grounded at the base of the A-pillar. I purchased additional dovetails from Aliexpress. I believe you can buy them with pins that you can terminate yourself or go the route of getting them off of digikey, which I think is a little quicker for us in the States.

 

[Kushdaiin]

It doesn't look like it at first but there's a male/female plug there. You need to take the OE pin and plug it into the opposite side of both of those dovetails. So you'll plug two of the OE pins opposite of the wiring harness. But yes, they allow you to take the the occupied pin and add a wiring harness. The empty slot will remain empty unless you want to create a similar dovetail for tapping the power off of the PDC module.

 

[ladookadoo]

It doesn't look like it at first but there's a male/female plug there. You need to take the OE pin and plug it into the opposite side of both of those dovetails. So you'll plug two of the OE pins opposite of the wiring harness. But yes, they allow you to take the the occupied pin and add a wiring harness. The empty slot will remain empty unless you want to create a similar dovetail for tapping the power off of the PDC module.

gotcha, so the wire i take out of the OE harness will go on the opposite side of the dovetail. i’ve attached a little picture i edited based off the wiring diagram. hope i’ve got the right concept.

do i still need to tap power? the wiring diagram from aliexpress doesn’t mention it, unless one of those pins on the diagram provide power anyways

 

[Kushdaiin]

Yes that pictogram you put together looks correct. This is the answer as to whether or not you need power/ground (it’s yes).

View attachment IMG_1965.jpeg

 

[ladookadoo]

Yes that pictogram you put together looks correct. This is the answer as to whether or not you need power/ground (it’s yes).

View attachment 304139

oo okay, would you mind sharing how i’d be able to go about doing this?

i’ve seen the image you attached for the plugs that go into each sensor but don’t understand what to do.

that’s one thing that’s throwing me off as it’s not present in the instructions

 

[Kushdaiin]

I tapped ground at the grounding stud at the base of the A pillar under the trim. Your kit should already have a grounding loop terminated on the appropriate wire. My recollection is that the power wire (red?) is not terminated in any specific way. I ended up using the open position on the plug, created my own dovetail with wire, and used the power going into the PLA module to power both the PLA and the extended harness for the parallel park sensors.

A lot of this is coming back to me but I realize that I ended up ordering the kit off of carsystems.eu because I wasn't confident about the park sensor brackets that came with the Aliexpress kit. In hindsight, with the right epoxy, they probably would have been just fine.

Ali Kit

carsystems.eu

 

[Nuje]

The connectors they've provided are to allow you to connect the wiring from the kit to the OE wiring without having to physically splice. They are dovetails and they can make it easier, assuming you have the correct pins for the connector, which based upon my experience worked.

That unfortunately has not been my experience with those dovetail splice connectors; with the wiring kits I received on my parking retrofit (as well as a couple others that met at TIUL), both the pins and "sockets" from AliX (Dokiauto) were just ever-so-slightly different from those that existed in my car; so it was cut/heat-shrink butt-connector for me.