[abhi182]

Originally Posted by aseemsood

Dear abhi182,


Two questions:

1) I noticed that some sites claim to have FSC generator softwares available for download. Did you ever try those?

2) Any guidance on where to purchase the FSC key that you bought for Euro 50?

days. May I ask where did you buy the cable and how much delivery time are they promising?

The free FSC generators are available only for maps as far as I know - Nav has been around for a long time and someone may have found a flaw in the encryption or leaked the private key

AFAIK, maps (6CP) does not have any free generators available in the wild.
I picked my key from a cartechnology UK forum member called "BMWdriva"

Beware that his English skills are limited so while he will provide you the keys promptly, don't expect any help/guidance on how to use them

As for enet cable, I doubt you will get it in India - all amazon listings are for dropship imports
If you want it quick, you will need to buy a OBD II connector (which are available locally)
The enet cable does not have any electronics in it - it simply has a RJ45 Jack on the other end
If you are comfortable with soldering, you can build one with a connector and a CAT6 cable in less than 5 minutes

[graaja]

Originally Posted by aseemsood

Hi graaja,
I searched online and found many ENet buying options but all of them indicate delivery in 15-20 days. May I ask where did you buy the cable and how much delivery time are they promising?

As abhi182 mentioned, none of the Indian websites have a stock of this connectors. All of them will be imported on order.

I ordered it through the below AliExpress link.

ENet Cable

I paid $2 extra for Hong Kong registered air mail that had a delivery time of 15 to 24 days.

Originally Posted by abhi182

...
I picked my key from a cartechnology UK forum member called "BMWdriva"
...

Thanks for this info. Once I get the cable and understand the usage of E-Sys, will contact him for the FSC code.

Can you also share the link from where you ordered the Wifi antenna?

I found the below product in AliExpress. Is this the antenna?

Wifi Antenna

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by graaja

As abhi182 mentioned, none of the Indian websites have a stock of this connectors. All of them will be imported on order.

I ordered it through the below AliExpress link.

ENet Cable

I paid $2 extra for Hong Kong registered air mail that had a delivery time of 15 to 24 days.


Thanks for this info. Once I get the cable and understand the usage of E-Sys, will contact him for the FSC code.

Can you also share the link from where you ordered the Wifi antenna?

I found the below product in AliExpress. Is this the antenna?

Wifi Antenna

Yup..That's the antenna
I ordered from Ebay UK as I had someone in the family travelling this weekend but I have had good experience with AE and HK/SG Post in the past.
Pretty much everything I have ordered with this shipping method ends up reaching my local PO in a week or so.. What happens next is another story (usually required waiting for a week for the local PO to deliver followed by a call to the postmaster and a trip to the PO)

I still maintain that building a enet cable is a 5 minute job.. But then I was a keen electronics DIY guy back in the roaring 90s.. (I actually wonder if the current gen kids would even know what a soldering iron is)

if you aren't comfortable soldering and/or crimping ethernet cables, just take a spare RJ5 cable, cut it, ask a local electronics/electrical repair shop to use a 0.5K resistor and a soldering iron to carry put the attached instructions


PS: Love it or hate it, the electronics on Bimmers are in a class of their own..
I ran a quick diagnostics with ISTA+ last night on my car (no real underlying reason, just for the heck of it)---- got three fault codes in the memory list.. two were old (the error codes show the mileage reading and other details when the error was recorded )
Guess what the current (and ongoing) fault code was ?
"B7F81A : Headunit to WLAN Aerial connector: Line disconnection"

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by GTO

Wow! Congrats on both, the car & the carplay activation.



What kind of an idiot makes such a decision at BMW India? Someone spending 60 lakhs doesn't get a useful feature that's standard in Maruti hatchbacks today .

Many thanks for this thread! Am going to add it to our homepage too so that other G30 owners don't miss it.

Question: Is there *any way* that owners of older BMWs such as mine (F10) can get Android Auto?

BTW I just noticed that all BMW India cars now do come equipped with carplay ..
I spoke to the Sales rep at BMW who did indeed confirm the same
However he also mentioned that no upgrade (paid or otherwise) is available for existing cars...

Why BMW why?

[graaja]

Originally Posted by abhi182

...
However he also mentioned that no upgrade (paid or otherwise) is available for existing cars...

Why BMW why?

Maybe because the WiFi antenna is not connected and the task of training the service personnel to install the antenna! Usually these German companies do not do component level upgrades to their hardware. Whatever it is, only BMW knows!

Originally Posted by abhi182

...
I still maintain that building a enet cable is a 5 minute job.. But then I was a keen electronics DIY guy back in the roaring 90s.. (I actually wonder if the current gen kids would even know what a soldering iron is)

I do have the tools to build the cable. I guess one gets lazy in the later part of the career and prefers to get the smaller things outsourced

Originally Posted by abhi182

Guess what the current (and ongoing) fault code was ?
"B7F81A : Headunit to WLAN Aerial connector: Line disconnection"

That should be because the iDrive hardware sees that CarPlay is enabled, but the RSSI from the WiFi hardware is very low. Some really high level of diagnostics indeed!

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by graaja

That should be because the iDrive hardware sees that CarPlay is enabled, but the RSSI from the WiFi hardware is very low. Some really high level of diagnostics indeed!

That's what I thought until I realized that the phone wasn't in the car so there was no other signal with a baseline to compare the RSSI against.

Still wondering how it would detect a fault on what is essentially a single wire signal path with no feedback loop

[graaja]

Originally Posted by abhi182

Still wondering how it would detect a fault on what is essentially a single wire signal path with no feedback loop

One possibility is that they have a switch to detect the insertion of the FAKRA connector to the iDrive. Or they could be detecting reflected waves on the antenna trace on the PCB. RF transceivers have become a lot advanced these days.

[Akshay1234]

Originally Posted by graaja

Maybe because the WiFi antenna is not connected and the task of training the service personnel to install the antenna! Usually these German companies do not do component level upgrades to their hardware. Whatever it is, only BMW knows!

Some cars have the wifi antenna, but no carplay enabled. Some cars don't have the wifi antenna all together. But when you enable carplay on those cars, the idrive then gives the wifi disconnection error. As soon as the antenna is plugged in, all is well.

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by Akshay1234

Some cars have the wifi antenna, but no carplay enabled. Some cars don't have the wifi antenna all together. But when you enable carplay on those cars, the idrive then gives the wifi disconnection error. As soon as the antenna is plugged in, all is well.

That part is kind of obvious
What is not is how exactly does the HU ECU perform this check?

When you plug-in the wifi antenna , all you are doing is extending the single wire (signal path) etched on the PCB that goes into the antenna FAKRA connector

When you attach the wire, you are essentially extending what was originally a signal path terminating at a random point (antenna connector) to another random point (end of antenna) which is a little far removed

Thus there is no discernible method for the HU to know if a change has occurred.
(Think of it as adding a wire on top of your router antenna - how would your router know if you have added it)

To Graaja's point, The FAKRA connector could have a switch that detects a connector plugged in ..
I have received the antenna and will be fixing it this week - so when I pull out the HU, I may be able to spot if a switch exists

[graaja]

Originally Posted by abhi182

...
Thus there is no discernible method for the HU to know if a change has occurred.
(Think of it as adding a wire on top of your router antenna - how would your router know if you have added it)

To Graaja's point, The FAKRA connector could have a switch that detects a connector plugged in ..
I have received the antenna and will be fixing it this week - so when I pull out the HU, I may be able to spot if a switch exists

I have been reading on RF amplifiers and transmission lines and the result of disconnected antenna.

RF amplifiers are designed to drive a load of 50 ohms impedance (the antenna circuit will have this 50 ohm impedance). When you remove the antenna, the RF waves get reflected back through the transmission line into the amplifier and could potentially damage the amplifier.

It is very much possible to measure this reflected wave (just like measuring RSSI) and flag an error if the amplitude of reflected wave exceeds a threshold. I am almost sure that the HU has this method to detect an open antenna than having a switch in the FAKRA connector. Measuring reflected waves will be able to detect a cut wire even after the FAKRA connector, whereas the switch will only detect if an antenna is inserted or not.

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by graaja

I have been reading on RF amplifiers and transmission lines and the result of disconnected antenna.

RF amplifiers are designed to drive a load of 50 ohms impedance (the antenna circuit will have this 50 ohm impedance). When you remove the antenna, the RF waves get reflected back through the transmission line into the amplifier and could potentially damage the amplifier.

It is very much possible to measure this reflected wave (just like measuring RSSI) and flag an error if the amplitude of reflected wave exceeds a threshold. I am almost sure that the HU has this method to detect an open antenna than having a switch in the FAKRA connector. Measuring reflected waves will be able to detect a cut wire even after the FAKRA connector, whereas the switch will only detect if an antenna is inserted or not.

I am glad we had this discussion..
While the tx power of 802.11 amps , esp one designed to work in a closed space like a car would be quite low, it is indeed possible to damage the RF amp by running it without an antenna..

Coming to think of it, the fact that it does get reported as an error code on ISTA-D possibly indicates the same

For now, I have disabled CarPlay (from drive settings) and confirmed that the HU is not TXing
Will switch it back on once I get some free time to install the antenna.
(BTW I checked how easy / difficult it is to remove the two panels above and below the HU to get to the torx screws.. Glad to state that you can pry them with minimal difficulty directly with your fingers )

Suggest you too order one as it is very likely yours would also come without one (guess your model is the same as mine i.e. the 2016/17 f34 LCi LuxuryLine)

[aseemsood]

Originally Posted by abhi182

I am glad we had this discussion..

Suggest you too order one as it is very likely yours would also come without one (guess your model is the same as mine i.e. the 2016/17 f34 LCi LuxuryLine)

1) Is there a way to check if wifi antennae is already installed or not?
2) Is it possible to keep wifi off and use apple CarPlay via cable?

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by aseemsood

1) Is there a way to check if wifi antennae is already installed or not?
2) Is it possible to keep wifi off and use apple CarPlay via cable?

1) Check physically or alternatively enable WLAN through coding (don't need to buy FSC code for it) and test for signal strength on your phone - with an antenna, you should get no less than -60dbm anywhere in the car

2) No, BMW is the only manufacturer that supports wireless carplay - it also means that it is wireless only

In any case, installing the antenna was a 30 minute job (excluding of course the wait time to receive the antenna) and I am not a very experienced DIYer

[graaja]

Originally Posted by abhi182

In any case, installing the antenna was a 30 minute job (excluding of course the wait time to receive the antenna) and I am not a very experienced DIYer

Good to know that you have installed the antenna. After installing the antenna, has the error about WiFi antenna gone away? How is the connectivity when you move the phone to extreme corners of the car?

I have received the antenna from AliExpress - reached within 2 weeks. Now waiting for the cable to arrive.

I am also waiting for the dealer to get back if it is possible to enable it officially by BMW.

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by graaja

Good to know that you have installed the antenna. After installing the antenna, has the error about WiFi antenna gone away? How is the connectivity when you move the phone to extreme corners of the car?

I have received the antenna from AliExpress - reached within 2 weeks. Now waiting for the cable to arrive.

I am also waiting for the dealer to get back if it is possible to enable it officially by BMW.

The error remains but the connectivity is all fixed now (-50 to -60db )
It works pretty much perfect now
If you do get around to installing it, the easiest place to fix the antenna is probably on the inner side of the plastic panel just under the HU

As for the error, since the ISTA-D error did not go away so I did some more research

Apparently The antenna on this is not exactly an open circuit but a closed loop with an expected impedance of 50ohm on the original
A workaround is to disable the Wlan diagnostics flag on the HU (Wlan_diagnostic) - doing that cleared the error
I never checked the resistance as I had no reason to and now I don't want to open up the panels again just to check the resistance

If you have a half decent multimeter, it would be great if you check the resistance on the antenna terminals and post back