European Model

[SmartieParts]

Thanks!  I hope you had a great holiday season too.


Just a little update:  Someone in the UK managed to get one of our units, apparently believe we were withholding them from non-North American customers because we take offense to our toilets being referred to as "loos".  He promptly discovered that we weren't full of loo-goodness and the unit in fact will not work on non-North American smarts as it is currently configured.

Many (many!) UK gear heads have told me and Arthur that the car is the same, that the differences are minor, etc etc.  But there is a significant difference and the simple fact of the matter is that without simple but vital in-car analysis being done by us, in person, and some reconfiguration of the unit's software... it is just a relatively ineffective paperweight for non-North American customers.

SO IF YOU ARE OUTSIDE OF CANADA AND THE US... PLEASE!!! do not get sneaky and circumvent our top-secret sales scheme by getting someone in NA to buy it for you.  We aren't selling only here because we can't figure out what state you live in.  It is because we know you can't make use of our product AT THE MOMENT.

Hopefully very soon.  Thanks for your continued patience.  I am leaving on Friday.  I'll be back in February assuming I don't get arrested while explaining in a foreign country that I'm not installing an explosive device in a rental vehicle.

 - Steven

ps.  Anyone in the UK or Europe or wherever that has managed to get an Area 451 Cruise Control... please, send it back to your friend or relative and have them return it for either a refund or free reprogramming when/if we get it figured out.

[bipbip]

Thanks for the heads-up Steven. I'll still be here when you get back ...

[SmartieParts]

Success!

On my second-to-last day in Rome, I was able to finally get access to a smart and do the required testing.  As expected, it did NOT work as-is, but with the testing equipment I brought with me it didn't take too long to figure out the necessary changes.

As predicted, it was only a software change that was needed.  I made the changes on site and tested the new program and it worked!

There's still some work before it will be ready for production but it won't be too long after I return on the 9th.

 - Steven

[admin]

I never had any doubts!

[100mpg]

Awesome news... And I have Italy lined up with someone who can mail out... although I hear Italy Postal is a bit of a toss-up.

[SmartieParts]

I've had only one experience with the Italian post    And that's just when I was on vacation.  I sent out 8 postcards to 8 family members on Jan 14th and I also shipped some clothes back to myself the same day.  It is now Feb 19 and last I checked (about a week ago) none of the 8 people got their postcards and I still don't have my pants!

 - Steven

[admin]

A European-spec version has been completed and is now available.  You can buy it on SmartieParts website only for now:  http://www.smartieparts.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12_15&products_id=311

If there is anyone in Europe, the UK, and/or prehaps Asia somewhere that would like to carry these please contact Steven as well because shipping overseas is slow and expensive.

Art

[FinnishSmart]

Hi, this is my first post on here.

I'm located in Finland and have a 2008 CDI 33Kw Smart and wondered if anybody has been able to get the Area 451 CC to work with a European diesel Smart?

There does seem to be a demand for cruise control on the Finnish forums; especially if installation doesn't require an expensive visit to the greedy MB dealer. I would even be interested in being a supplier for European customers once I've had experience installing a unit. I have three other cars so am able to experiment with installation on my Smart.

[admin]

Hello and welcome!

Unfortunately, the CDI isn't so easy.  See, we don't have the diesel over here so we couldn't develop a compatible wiring harness not knowing what the wiring is like in the CDI.   We did get hold of a wiring diagram, so I am pretty sure that our cruise control is electrically compatible with the cdi... in theory... but from some pictures sent to us from a CDI owner in the UK, I can also tell that the physical connectors are completely different (and I had no luck finding them on the open market).  So what does that mean?  The good news is that we can probably get the cruise to work in the CDI if we had some time with one.  The bad news is that CDI owners would have to splice into wires to make the connections.  Splicing can be perfectly safe and reliable, if done properly, but it is something most owners probably would avoid because it no doubt affects the car's warranty.

So while the simple answer is "no", it can be "yes" (or at least a very promising "maybe") if:

 - One of our guys came to Finland, or anywhere else that has the CDI.
 - Someone there lets us experiment with their car for one or more days.
 - It is accepted that the wiring would be spliced, rather than using a harness.
 - Travel expenses are covered.  *

* That last point is difficult, of course, because travel expenses can be enormous.  There isn't enough demand overseas for us to just pay for it and hope it pays off in the long run (we've had a working version for the gas model  for over a year and have shipped < 20 to Europe I think).  And it clearly isn't worth it for one person to take on those costs.  So really the only possibility that I can think of is if someone (like yourself) gets together a sizeable group of gas smart owners (2007 and newer) that all wanted the cruise control (and are willing to pay for it).  The minimum size of the group would depend on the travel costs.  Then any CDI owners could get it on the deal, but they wouldn't count toward the minimum number just in case we can't get it working.  The worst case scenario is that we can't get the CDI to work (so the CDI owners pay nothing and get nothing), the gas owners all get cruise control at some modest discount, and one CDI owner (presumably you) has some nicely patched up wires and really nothing to show for it except free training on how to install gas cruise controls.  Best case scenario is the exact same... but we make the CDI owners happy too.

Steven from SmartieParts has tried several times to organize some sort of event like this in the UK with no luck.  It takes someone on the other side to work hard in organizing things and to have good access to the local community.


I'd love to say we could just send you a unit and tell you what wires to splice... but even when/if we determine for certain that it can be compatible electrically... there is still a lot of testing to do to make sure we can communication properly with the car's computer.  This takes specialized equipment and experience.  That's why we'd have to send someone.

Well, that and I've always wanted to see Finland in the summertime 
 
Art

[FinnishSmart]

Thanks for the warm welcome 

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more interest from Europe ! Do they have CDIs in Canada?

Seeing as the population of the UK is 10 times that of Finland, arranging a sizeable group of Smart owners willing to pay for (I'm pretty sure every Smart owner wants one) the cruise control might be a challenge. I'll ask on the Finnish Smart forums to try and get some idea of the number genuinely interested and prepared to pay. Cruise control is the only thing missing from my Smart really – if it had CC, it would be the perfect car.

- One of our guys came to Finland, or anywhere else that has the CDI.
 - Someone there lets us experiment with their car for one or more days.
 - It is accepted that the wiring would be spliced, rather than using a harness.
 - Travel expenses are covered.  *

I can provide accommodation, food and transport to and from the airport, I live close to the main international airport. I can provide the CDI and workshop. How much do you think travel costs to Finland would be? I've travelled to New York and Washington DC several times and have been able to get flights at very reasonable prices booking through the Internet and flying economy class.

[admin]

Sorry, but we only travel first class.

Just kidding   Of course we'd look for the cheapest flights possible, and I'm not looking to pad the bill by saying we need $x per day, etc etc.  I haven't looked hard, but a quick search and the lowest priced flight I see to Helsinki is about $1350!! That's far more than I expected.  I'm sure with more searching we can probably find something cheaper.

Canada does not have the CDI either.

If you contact Steven @ SmartieParts.com, he handles all export sales.  He'd be the one to work out the potential pricing.

Art.

[SmartieParts]

I'm pretty good at searching airfare.  If I were to go, from here (YVR), the best I could find is $1093 from September 14 for 10 nights.  10 nights is a long time and adds to other expenses.  Next best is Sept 2nd for 4 nights for $1183.  Prior to September is too expensive, but also unlikely anything could be organized that quickly.

This gets crazy complicated... but one idea (and its just an idea) is to work on a major multi-city, international cruise sales/install fest!  We'll aim for September/October (could give it a very original name like Oktoberfest) and hit several cities en route.  For example, I could fly down to LA fairly cheaply and not consider that part of the travel expense because I can visit my brother there.  From that major hub, I could fly to NYC (any any interested US cities on the way) and say we get a group of 10-02 NYC folks for a deal and installs.  From NYC, a flight to London for a group of 10-20.  Then over to Finland for perhaps a group of 10.  Intra-Europe and intra-USA flights are relatively inexpensive so maybe there's interest out there if the total travel expenses are spread over a much larger group?

Its just an idea I've had for awhile.  However, in practice... when I went to Rome in '08 I was 100% completely unsuccessful at getting a SINGLE smart owner to even respond to my posts on their club forum and I ended up having to rent a smart to do the testing.  Of course, this was when we didn't know for sure if we could even get it working for Euro-smarts, so the difference now is we know it works on gas models.

It will take "champions" at each location to get the interest and do the organizing.  If there's enough interest, I think we can give a pretty good discount to each person, or we can give a bigger incentive to the champion and less of a discount to everyone else.  I don't know what works best.


Then again, we also have to keep in mind that there's really not a whole lot of reason to be jetting around the world since we know the unit works as-is on all gas models and it is easy to install.  So really the only reason to do this is to get the CDI possibly working, and there just hasn't been much interest at all in that regard.

I agree that it can be done though.  I'm confident that given a day or two with a CDI that I can get the cruise working with it.

Hey, what about a pre-test?    This just occured to me.  What about sending a unit to FinnishSmart with a special firmware that doesn't do anything but turn on the LED.  We send clear instructions on which wires to splice and then we can at least confirm the unit is electrically compatible.  At that point, we know then all that's left is communicating with the computer, and that shouldn't be any more difficult than it was in Rome (it took me 20 minutes on the side of a road with a rented smart and a lookout standing watch for police).

What do you think, FinnishSmart?   You're taking a bit of a risk of course.  I don't know what kind of electronics skills you have, so it would be up to you to splice the wires without making a mess, and patch them back up properly afterward.  It isn't rocket science, but it does have to be done properly to avoid shorting something out and/or starting a fire!  And unless you are VERY careful to hide your work... chances are if you ever have a problem with your car's electronics that it may not be covered by warranty if they see evidence of the splicing.  Unfortunately, there's no way around splicing for the CDI.

 - Steven

[FinnishSmart]

Some good ideas  there might be a way to avoid splicing... I'm just looking into it and ordered some stuff from Germany. I'll let you know if it works out. It may take a while for my order to arrive, if it arrives - you never know what scams are going on  Would it be possible to make some short bits of cable with appropriate connectors on each end to connect the pins of the incompatible connector blocks to test with before splicing? That might be a dumb question as I haven't touched the wiring on my Smart yet so have no idea what the connector blocks are like  :

[admin]

Would it be possible to make some short bits of cable with appropriate connectors on each end to connect the pins of the incompatible connector blocks to test with before splicing?

That's the idea... but also the problem.  They don't exist as far as I can tell.  If they did, we would just build a new harness for the CDI with the appropriate terminals/connectors.
 
To do it without splicing, you basically have to create a "Y adapter", which is effectively what our harness is.  For a Y-adapter, you need a male and female connector that will connect to the original female and male connectors and form a bridge.  Ideally, we would have made our harness directly take the place of the large black connector block that goes into the ECU... but the male version is "protected" (for sale only to the licensed manufacturer... ie. Mercedes) and the female version simply doesn't exist.  So instead, we focused on the terminals (aka "pins") themselves.  For the gas model, we were able to identify them (Tyco MicroTimer-II) and while rare, they did exist on the open market.  And a smaller connector block existed as well (that's the red connector block pair that makes up our harness).  So in a round-about way, we were able to build a y-adapter.

But for the cdi, unfortunately, the situation is different.  The large connector block/ecu is still the same problem (female doesn't exist) but its worse because the terminals are also protected! At least I think so. From some fuzzy photos taken by a CDI owner previously, we identified them as Tyco Quadlok series, but the particular configuration appears to be available only to Mercedes.  Worse, there are no alternative connector blocks for them (similar to our red connectors).

So in a nutshell... unless I misidentified the terminals or my extensive searching missed something... there is no way to make a y-adapter for the CDI.
 
I am curious what you ordered from Germany.
 
Art.

[FinnishSmart]

I am curious what you ordered from Germany.
 
Art.

My "stuff" from Germany arrived today  I'll send you a private message about it...