Electronic Rear View mirror

[Mad-Machine]

I recently picked up a rear view from a Z4 for VERY cheap after the Previous owner removed it from his car to install one with ALL the gizmos. I had hoped to wire it into my e30 325... the problem is.. now that I have taken it apart to look about.. How does it work? I can see the following connectors on the autodimming mirror control..

IGN (obvious)
Gnd (another obvious)
REV
O/S +
O/S -

what do the other three pins do? I am not worried about the alarm feature.. I will gut that and wire it into my preexisting alarm...

thankyou!

[97alpineM3]

Well... I'd say.... its a light sensor... just like most e36 models.. have on in there instrument cluster.. that adjusts the level of intensity of all the orange lights... durring day light driving. Same principle for your mirror I presume.

[Mad-Machine]

Right, it is for the auto dimming feature.. I am just trying to figure out what else those wires are for. I might try just wiring up the ign and gnd and see what happens. The sensors for the autodimmer are built into the mirror and the circut card already inside the mirror

[97alpineM3]

True... I have no clue about the wires.... good luck

[Dirty_Tool]

All the mirror needs is power and ground to work as far as the electrochromatic feature goes. Also you could wire the reverse signal to it to disable it during reversing if you wanted to get technical. You have other pins for the output to the side mirrors and input for LED if fitted.

So what you need to do is Run power with the key on to pin #3 on the mirror (green and white wire) make sure it is fused with a 5 Amp fuse. And run ground to pin #10 (should be a brown/ black wire) and if desired run the reverse lamp signal (power) to pin #1 (blue/yellow wire.) From there the light sensors in the mirror will do the rest, there is a sensor in the front and a sensor in the back of the mirror that calculate the difference of light between the 2 and dim or undimm the mirror as necessary.

Any other questions just let me know. I had an electrochromatic mirror in my 1990 325i (e30) and an M5 electrochromatic RVmirror in my current BMW a 89 735i.
Pictures of the mirror in the 7 can be viewed on the pictures link from my webpage

My Webpage

[Mad-Machine]

thankyou!

I was playing with it tonight. Hooked up a stray 120 to 12volt power supply I had laying around.. then ran a pair of leads to the {ign} and {gnd} pins and lo and behold.. when the mirror is lowered into the darkness below my desk, it goes dark. When raised up into the light, it brightens up. As for the reversing feature, not really needed, I usually contort myself around and look out the rear window.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to mount it and see what to do about covering up the bare metal arm.. I am pretty sure that the Z4 has some sort of plastic cover for it.

[Dirty_Tool]

yup u can order the plastic cover for the mirror arm through a bmw dealer, Ill get u the part #s when i get a spare min. Its fairly inexpensive. Be sure and post some pics when you get the project done. oh ya u can also order the metal mount then just use 1 of the rear view mirror glue kits from a local auto store to attach the metal to the glass, then the mirror twists to secure to the metal.

Let me know if u need any other info :-)

PS did u see the pics of my m5 mirror?

[Mad-Machine]

yes... pretty mirror. Not sure it would go with the looks of my E30 though. Overall though, I have to say I think it looks VERY good in your 7 series. You had to do more work though I think.

[Dirty_Tool]

thx for the compliments, it wasnt too much work ..i just wired the led coming from my alarm and the power and ground for the electro chromatic function. When i 1st installed my alarm/remote start a while back i prewired the led wires up to that area to make it easier for when i installed the mirror.