Roady 2

I ordered an XM Roady 2 that should come to 10 bucks after rebate, also using a code availbe in fatwallet forums you can get 3 free months of service. So this is pretty much a risk free way for me to try out XM.

One thing that instantly struck me about the device was the station selection switch. This is located in the upper right hand corder of the device. You roll up, down, and then press in to make your channel selection. Using this switch is very uncomfortable. What do do? Let's add our own switch.

The first thing was were to get a switch. I had an old broken receiver laying around that i decided to go investigate. I found a knob type device on there that was used to make selections in either the left or the right direction and then the selection was chosen by pressing down. This was almost a perfect match of the behavior that I needed. Time to start tearing things apart!

Check out all those white buttons. Well save this for later.



Check out this spring loaded door. I can see this being used when I make a housing for my screen.















This is what I was most interested. You can see here the mode selector knob as well as a few simple buttons and a volume knob post which is nothing more than a potentimeter (variable resistor)











Swithces generally work by connecting two
points when the switch is closed. Thefore with a
multi meter you can see when the resistance goes from one (infinity) to zero to determine how the switch works. Using that method I was able to determine how this switch works.


There are 5 pins. 1-2 connected is left, 2-3 is right, 4-5 is select. I also connected 2-4 so i have a common close line.




Using the same method, I determined that the Roady 2 has the following switch configuration.

Notice how small and awkward the switch on this device is.

Once we have both of these switch configurations known, we simply connect wire between the "common", "left, "right", and select pins.

You'll need a pretty steady hand and a good low watt iron on to get these Roady 2 points.



Here is the test rig. I usuall try something out like this before you go tear the entire car apart.












I couldn't really think of a place on the car to mount the switch that I really liked but ended up going with mounting the switch on the center console. One advantage of this is that you can rest your arm while manipulating the control.

This does not seem like a big deal, but when you consider that there are 100+ stations, you don't want to have your arm extended for that long of time.





Here is a (blurry) view of the control knob mounted in the car.


















After running power, audio, and antenna wires under the carpet and through the front of the car I'm just going to throw the thing up on my dash for now. Nothing too permanent - I don't really even plan on keeping my XM device.


The end.