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No problem! Hopefully this helps people upgrade theirs, the instructions are next to non-existent for D2b.

Hi,

I have just recently purchased a Seicane head unit for my '2003 R230 with Factory Bose Speakers/Amp' and like you I was not keen on using the supplied 6m cable which needs to be cut and wired directly to the speakers in the doors (bypassing the Bose Amplifier ). Therefore I too purchased the D2B converter and after searching the net on how to connect it I came across your post and have a couple of questions hopefully you can help answer

D2B I received from Seicane (With no instructions):

My Questions:
1) Reading your post can see the D2B wires connect as follows:
"Red ACC": Positive on cigarette lighter
"Black GND": Earth on cigarette lighter
"Yellow B+ Battery": constant positive feed from head unit

"Blue D2B Wake up": This is where I am a little lost, you mentioned this wire connects to "Pin 10 on the Canbus adapter" but I am not sure which plug/wire you are referring to? below is a photo of the wires/plugs at the back of my head unit:

2) You mentioned since the Seicane head unit was not powering other fiber components they had to be removed from the fiber optic loop, can you please confirm where these fiber plugs are located?:
a) CD Changer
b) Cell Phone
c) Voice Control

3) Can you confirm where you purchased "MB part # 000-545-33-84" and is it the same plug used for looping the three connections mentioned above?

4) Do you still have the instructions you could share for connecting the other head unit plugs/cables (Not relating to DB2)?

5) I was not sent the external Wifi antenna, and the unit I received does NOT even have the connection on the back for the antenna to connect. However I was told that the antenna in now internal to the unit, can you confirm if this was the same for you?

6) Did you buy any extras with the head unit, if so how do you find them?
I bought the 'DAB Digital Radio module', 'Wireless reversing camera' and 'External DVR'

7) After using the unit what do you like and what do you dislike about it?


Many thanks and sorry for all of the questions

 

[C A R S E]

No problem! Hopefully this helps people upgrade theirs, the instructions are next to non-existent for D2b.

After reviewing your origional post I noticed your photo shows the "Blue D2B Wake up" wire, being extended with a turquoise colour wire which I am guessing then goes into "Pin 10 on the Canbus adapter" (highlighted red below), os this correct?

Also what are the two white wires going into the same plug (highlighted below in yellow)?

Thanks again.

 

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Below is the photo of my plugs/wire, is the plug I have highlighted with the red arrow my Canbus adapter?

 

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Yes, the turquoise wire is the pin 10 for the CANBUS wake wire. I took the actual pin from another CANBUS adapter so I didn’t have to splice into the factory harness and could plug directly in (hence the blue - turquoise connection).

I believe that the two white wires are for the steering wheel connection.

Hi,

Thanks for your replies 🙂, I will need to get some time to install, I didnt expect to have to dismantle as much of the car

Just on the two white wires you mentioned, are these wires that came with the Seicane unit (cant recall seeing white wires)?

 

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Yes they are on the CANBUS adapter connection, I believe there were also two green wires that were on that connection that aren’t used in the install (I removed these in an attempt to adapt them to the wake up wire).

Pitty you never took photos of all your plugs/wiring once installed lol

Below is a photo of a plug which came with the unit, looks like it may plug straight into the CANBUS adapter, just need to add the blue WAKE wire?:

**also looks like the turquoise wire/pin you may have used for your blue
WAKE wire?**

Just on the fiber optic looping, did you not need to loop the fiber plug going to the navigation module in the boot (as well as: CD Changer, Cell Phone, Voice Control)?


Will keep you posted on my progress, im sure I will have more questions for you

Thanks again.

 

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After looking at the wires provided with the unit again I am thinking the following cables will be used:

Highlighted
GREEN: Go into new head unit
PURPLE: Go to car plug (maybe power)
TURQUOISE: These are the wires I was querying in my last post (B6 & B3), where does the other ends go. I only see ONE plug that fits BOTH, which is the LEFT wire highlighted YELLOW (but it also fits RIGHT wire Highlighted YELLOW too?)

Can you remember what you did with the highlighted ends of these 4x (YELLOW and TURQUOISE) plugs?


Thanks again

 

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Looks pretty much spot-on from my memory. The green goes to the head unit, the purple goes to the factory harness's ISO plug, the turquoise B3 is the only connector used for steering wheel controls. I can't remember if the yellow ones you have highlighted connect... I would have to remove my stereo to double check.

You can also see in the cables you received that the Wi-Fi antenna is just a cable hanging out of the harness (pink).

The one thing that you need to change in that picture is where the RCA connections from the d2b box are going. You have Aux-LIn and Aux-RIn from the box going to Aux-LIn and Aux-RIn on the Seicane Harness, where they need to be plugged into Front-L and Front-R (the Aux-LIn and Aux-Rin on the Seicane side is for audio input, not output).

Thanks again, it is now becoming a LITTLE clearer ha..ha...

Just on the fiber optic looping, did you not need to loop the fiber plug going to the navigation module in the boot too (as well as: CD Changer, Cell Phone, Voice Control)?
*Must be a way to trick the other Fiber components into starting up

After thinking about the yellow wires AND reading between the lines on what you are saying:

WHITE: go together (The white wire from CANBUS must need to go to somewhere and I cannot see anywhere else it can connet)
GREY: are not used (you already confirmed the wire on the RIGHT is not used + nowhere else the LEFT wire can go)

Agree?

 

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Yes, that’s exactly it! The CANBUS decoder is what that white wire is going to (the box on the bottom).

I don’t know of the navigation unit in the trunk - is that on the fibre loop? I can quite clearly see where my lines are going and it looks like I now have a pretty clean loop with nothing but the head unit and amp.

If you skip to 11:30 in this video it talks about the fiber connections for navigation (same guy from the video you posted):

 

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Yes, that’s exactly it! The CANBUS decoder is what that white wire is going to (the box on the bottom).

I don’t know of the navigation unit in the trunk - is that on the fibre loop? I can quite clearly see where my lines are going and it looks like I now have a pretty clean loop with nothing but the head unit and amp.

Just out of interest did the original head unit you replaced in your 2003 SL500 look the same as my 2003 SL55 (below)?:

 

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I believe this is because his car is later and has the MOST fibre optics - the loop is probably different from our d2b cars.

Also, I have found that if you get creative you actually don't need any of the d2b couplers. Today I removed a lot of wiring and couplers so that I have a single loop from the head unit to the amp with only one coupler. This was accomplished by disassembling the head on the amp connection and removing all wiring from the loop back to the head unit coupler behind the center storage console. It's hard to explain but I may draw a diagram to help if you'd like - it makes more sense once you've messed with the fibre and understand the connections.

And to answer your other post, yes that is the same head unit that my car had in it.

I took pictures of the units that need to be unplugged from the fibre:

1. This is the cell phone module mounted to the right of the amplifier. The fibre optic connector is behind and below where you see the green connector in the photo.
View attachment 2710702


2. This is the voice control module, it is the unit with the silver sticker and Mercedes Benz logo. The fibre optic connector is to the right of the power cable and gold antenna connector seen below.

View attachment 2710703

I hope this helps!

Thanks Lawrence 😊

Those photo's will help me identify the modules, does either of the modules (Phone, Voice or CD Changer), need to be removed or is it easy enough to unplug the Fibre plugs while the modules are still in position?

Thats great not needing d2b connectors as I couldn't get them online, was going to try MB tomorrow. Think I am with you on removing the fibre plugs and making one loop between head unit and Amp. Couple of Qs:
1) Do I really need to unplug all D2B plugs if I go down this route. I was thinking if the loop goes from HeadUnit>Amp and HeadUnit>CdChanger (with Voice and Phone in-between) then I would just need to intercept these two plugs to make one loop between HeadUnit><Amp?
2) Maybe a diagram would help with Q1 😊
3) Can I ask why you decided to take your car to bits again, where you having trouble with sound?

Regards
Kevin

 

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Interesting, I will install the D2B converter and take it from there. From what you are saying I should NOT need to loop, but you had issues with sound when you did this?

Looking at that diagram you sent, looks like I would just need to disconnect 'M5' from the 'Voice Control Module' and connect directly to AMP (if the wire is long enough of course) leaving only head unit and AMP in the loop?

 

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That's interesting, and the way I expected it to work. Unfortunately, although I could hear the system attempting to wake up with the "wake up" cable installed, there was no sound. The only way I could get sound (with all other components plugged in) was to disconnect and reconnect the loop 3-5 times. I don't know why this worked, but it caused some sort of forced wake up.

After I disconnected and coupled all of the other units in the loop, the sound came on flawlessly and immediately. I went a step further yesterday and actually removed most of the loop, so that I have nothing else but the head unit and amplifier. I did this because one of the fibre heads was damaged and causing sound issues, so I eliminated it.

You can definitely have a go at installing without removal of the other components, as that would certainly make life a little easier, but this was the only way I could get sound to work with this converter.

Hi 😊

Well.....today I installed the stereo with the D2B converter in place, but NO sound! Just kept hearing that 'click click' noise you were talking about where the 'Wake' was trying to happen but kept failing.

So....I phoned around a couple of dealers and managed to track down a D2B Fibre Connector 20miles away (only cost £3.50).

Using the Connector I removed everything from the D2B Fibre loop (Was only CD Changer and TEL) leaving only HeadUnit and Amp in loop.
Hey presto....I have sound

Just need to install the 'DAB Digital Radio module', 'Wireless reversing camera', 'External DVR', and then put everything back together but thats for another day.

One thing I had to do when installing the new unit was to cut off two plastic PINs on the dash, which were stopping the unit from sitting flush (old unit used these to line up, but new unit never had the holes). Highlighted yellow:

 

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Brilliant! Glad to hear you got it working. It’s very strange that the wake-up signal doesn’t seem to do anything, but I’m glad that I figured to bypass the other components or else I would have just given up.

Very well said about the tabs - for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t slide in all the way, I kept pulling it out and re-arranging the wiring behind the unit thinking that was the issue.

Do double check that you don’t have the voice control module, the connector isn’t immediately apparent and at first glance it looks like the fibre runs right past.

Per photo below I only have 3x Fibre plugs then it goes back towards the HeadUnit:

I was thinking about leaving the 'Multi CD' out of the car, will give me more space for junk

Will let you know how I get on with the other addons, as well as the stereo itself as not had a chance to play about with it as yet.

I was impressed with the sound though, sounded like the original HeadUnit and all the speakers were working 💪

 

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I am making good process on my own install on a 2004 SL600. I have removed the CD Changer and disconnected all the car-phone stuff. I have a Double-DIN adapter for a 2005 R230 and will cut my 2004 trim piece to fit. I have the Seicane D2B converter. I bought two "cheap" headunits from Amazon, each optimized for Apple CarPlay, one even does wireless CarPlay.
I now have only the amp and the headunit on the fiber loop.
QUESTION: I am confused how to implement a microphone for hands-free phone calls? Do these cars have a microphone built in? If yes, how do I connect to it? I added CarPlay to a BMW and the kit came with a mic although I was able to use the built-in mic.

Thank you for this excellent thread!

Hi, does your new head unit not have a built in mic?

It is very unlikely your aftermarket headunit will work with the cars original mic. I am guessing the headunit doesn't have a standard mic jack on the back?
If not there must be an addon mic suited to your headunit that you could buy from the manufacturer.

Regards
Kev