Steering Wheel Switches

[Kurek, Larry]

A guy on the F-body list did a little research on this in order to
convert his steering controls on a fourth gen Pontiac from radio
control, to a nitrous control system. While I don't have the setails
handy, you can probably search the fourth-gen archives on f-body.org. 

To answer your question, he found the different functions were
controlled by different resistances depending on which button was
pressed. However, this could be different on different cars...

Larry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Boucher [mailto:BoucherJC at lmtas.lmco.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 16, 1998 12:02 PM
> To: diy_efi at esl.eng.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Steering Wheel Switches
> 
> 
> I went to Las Vegas with the wife the last week of October.  
> Went to the Sahara
> hotel where they have an interesting driving simultation 
> using 24, 3/4 size Indy
> cars mounted on hydraulic rams, each in it's on booth in 
> front of a big wide
> screen.  You guessed it, you race against the other drivers.  
> For $8 it was better
> than the simulators in the arcades.  They give you a read out 
> after you race with
> a traction circle and other info showing how you did.  After 
> looking at the info,
> I was less frustrated and wanted to go back, but the wife had 
> another agenda.
> 
> The transmission was semi-auto with the up and down buttons 
> on the steering
> wheel.  That made me think of the higher end cars in the late 
> '80's.  There seemed
> to be a contest to see who could mount the most buttons on 
> the steering wheel.  I
> think the Bonneville SEi had more than an F-16 cockpit.  I 
> know each button didn't
> have a seperate ring in the steering column, so how did the 
> switch signal travel
> from the steering wheel to where ever it went?  All my 
> electronically limited mind
> can think of is either different resistances or capacitances 
> or varying frequency
> signals.
> 
> Am I close?
> 
> Joe Boucher
> '70 RS/SS Camaro  '81 TBI Suburban
>