[klaymen]

Hello fellow Escape owners,

Have any of you ever installed a Joying Head Unit in the 2nd gen Escape (mine is 2011)?

What should have been straight forward process is turning out to be wiring nightmare. There are more wires on the generic Ford harness they provided than on the audio port for my stock head unit. Joying support is of course no help, contrary to what the word on the street is about them. They seem to be pretending that they don't know what the problem is.

I have 4 wires (described by Joying as Brown/Key1, Black/Ground, Orange/Back, Blue/Ant), two of which need to be connected to wires on pins 18 and 19 on the stock audio connector to go to the steering wheel control (diagram attached). I have ruled out the Blue/Ant wire, and any combination of the remaining three will produce errors on the dash and/or relay click sounds.

I attach pics of the connectors.

Any help will be appreciated!

- George

 

[Mountain Escape]

Hello fellow Escape owners,

Have any of you ever installed a Joying Head Unit in the 2nd gen Escape (mine is 2011)?

What should have been straight forward process is turning out to be wiring nightmare. There are more wires on the generic Ford harness they provided than on the audio port for my stock head unit. Joying support is of course no help, contrary to what the word on the street is about them. They seem to be pretending that they don't know what the problem is.

I have 4 wires (described by Joying as Brown/Key1, Black/Ground, Orange/Back, Blue/Ant), two of which need to be connected to wires on pins 18 and 19 on the stock audio connector to go to the steering wheel control (diagram attached). I have ruled out the Blue/Ant wire, and any combination of the remaining three will produce errors on the dash and/or relay click sounds.

I attach pics of the connectors.

Any help will be appreciated!

- George

Hi George, Welcome to the city

what exactly are you trying to do, splice harnesses together, make the audio controls on the steering wheel work?
What are the wires you were trying to connect supposed to do. have you tried operating the radio controls from the steering wheel yet?

if you have more wires that are on the stock unit, I would assume the others are simply not used- Like the blue power antenna wire.
I would try disconnecting your battery, installing the head unit, then reconnecting the battery. you may have to relearn a module otherwise.

 

[Matt2wheels]

Hello fellow Escape owners,

Have any of you ever installed a Joying Head Unit in the 2nd gen Escape (mine is 2011)?

What should have been straight forward process is turning out to be wiring nightmare. There are more wires on the generic Ford harness they provided than on the audio port for my stock head unit. Joying support is of course no help, contrary to what the word on the street is about them. They seem to be pretending that they don't know what the problem is.

I have 4 wires (described by Joying as Brown/Key1, Black/Ground, Orange/Back, Blue/Ant), two of which need to be connected to wires on pins 18 and 19 on the stock audio connector to go to the steering wheel control (diagram attached). I have ruled out the Blue/Ant wire, and any combination of the remaining three will produce errors on the dash and/or relay click sounds.

I attach pics of the connectors.

Any help will be appreciated!

- George

Fought a similar problem putting a head unit into a Mazda RX8. Black is chassis ground. Orange is probably a signal wire for the reverse camera. Blue is for a power antenna (and possibly an amp switch?). As for the buttons...my head unit had 2 wires, one of which I ended up grounding and the other one hooking to one of the wires for the steering wheel buttons. The stereo is just looking for varying resistances in a circuit, there's no electrical mystery to it. I'd get some alligator clip jumper wires from Harbor Freight and experiment with hooking your Key wire to one of the wires from the steering wheel, then try grounding the other, until you find a combination that works.

 

[klaymen]

Hi George, Welcome to the city

what exactly are you trying to do, splice harnesses together, make the audio controls on the steering wheel work?
What are the wires you were trying to connect supposed to do. have you tried operating the radio controls from the steering wheel yet?

if you have more wires that are on the stock unit, I would assume the others are simply not used- Like the blue power antenna wire.
I would try disconnecting your battery, installing the head unit, then reconnecting the battery. you may have to relearn a module otherwise.

The problem is that the ACC wire coming out of the car that should have 12V when the car is running has no power.
I went to my local dealership an they pulled up the wiring diagram for my VIN and there are actually more wires on my actual car then what the diagram says it should have. They are stumped as well. The white/blue and grey/yellow wires from the above pics (I assume they are the SWC wires are not even on their diagram for my car. It's a puzzle!

The goal at this point is just to get the new hear unit powered up, and THEN get the steering wheel buttons to work.

 

[bluto]

The factory harness does not have a turn on wire. You have to use an adapter like this: Crux SOOFD-27C Wiring Interface to get a turn on signal from the CANBUS. Or rig up a fuse tap to get a wire that is hot when the ignition is on.

Detailed explanation here: 2011 XLT Aftermarket Radio Wiring Harness

 

[klaymen]

I ended up tapping into F47 (30A) and powering it from there. It's proper Accessory Delay power, so it works. I also tried F41 (15A) which also works but doesn't supply enough power all the time - sometimes when the AC kicks in the hear unit goes to sleep for couple of seconds and until the power draw drops.

Now to solve why only 5 of the 8 SWC buttons work. So strange. What an experience with Joying unit!
And then there is the non-functioning CANBUS box they provided. But I don't really need that to use the unit, so I might just forget that.

 

[bluto]

The 3 buttons that don't work are wired directly to the sync module. If you remove the sync module you should be able to tap those wires and bridge them with the other two SWC wires going to the radio harness.
Lots of info on the subject here: Guide to Adding SYNC to 2008 Escape

 

[klaymen]

OK, that was helpful. Thanks.
I get the principle now. What I didn't get from that forum post was where I can find the SYNC module and where the two steering wheel buttons would be on it, but I will continue to dig.

Do you think that bridging the "sync" wires with the "media" buttons going into the radio harness would work? Just taking the two "sync" wires before they get to the SYNC module and marrying them with the two "media" wires going into new head unit?

 

[klaymen]

I read your post here Where is the Sync 54-Pin Connector Located 2010 Escape which was helpful as well. I will tap the "sync" wires at steering column, as suggested.
Do you see a reason to keep the SYNC module in the car at all at this point?


Also - would the button presses from the three "sync" buttons be traveling on the can bus? I have a can bus decoder but I have not gotten it to work yet. Or are those buttons wires directly into the SYNC box and are not on the can bus?

 

[bluto]

There would be no need to keep the sync module at this point. All of the SWC media buttons are the old school resistor ladder variety. The 3 buttons for sync are hard wired to the sync module just as the other 5 are hard wired to the back of the radio. They are not connected to the CANBUS.

 

[klaymen]

Any idea where the SYNC module actually is? I googled around but there isn't much info on this for the 2nd gen Escape. I would rather tap the wires for the 3 buttons there, and remove the module, than to mess with the steering wheel column wires.

 

[klaymen]

Any idea where the SYNC module actually is? I googled around but there isn't much info on this for the 2nd gen Escape. I would rather tap the wires for the 3 buttons there, and remove the module, than to mess with the steering wheel column wires.

EDIT: never mind, I found it, I have to remove the central console.

 

[klaymen]

So I did get the SYNC module out. I also have access to the steering wheel column connectors.

I can't find out which wires are the ones for the three "sync" buttons. You said it would be just two buttons, but searching around for the diagram for the 54 pin connector what I am seeing that the buttons may be separate. Two wires per button going into the SYNC module. Such as this (fits 2013 Escape, mine is 2011): Ford (2013-2016) Sync 1/2 APIM module pinout diagram @ pinoutguide.com. Any thoughts?

I am trying to avoid taking the airbag out to actually look at the buttons.

I attach images of my connectors.

Thanks.

 

[bluto]

It is definitely two wires coming from the sync module and going to the 16 pin steering wheel clockspring connector. I would try to find the two wires on the 54 pin connector with a multi meter before you cut them. If you are on the correct pins you should have about 1000 ohms resistance with no buttons on the steering wheel pressed. When you press and hold a button a different resistance reading will be observed.

I found the instructions for the Maestro SW that sort of shows which wires to tap.

https://www.idatalinkmaestro.com/en/products/maestro-sw

According to these instructions, the blue/orange and white/violet wires at the 54 pin connector should be the wires that you need to find.

 

[klaymen]

I have been all over it with my multimeter. Without knowing which pair to look for the number is combinations is huge. I tried pretty much everything that sounded remotely related to what I am looking for, based on the pin out on that link I sent.

Is the clock spring connector the one on top or bottom of the steering wheel column? They are both 16 pin.

Not relying on wire colors too much. They differ from year to year. Pin out diagrams are always the best.

Thanks.

 

[bluto]

I think the pinout in your link is too new. In 2013-2016 you would have sync 1.5/2.0. For the Escapes of 09-12 vintage it was definitely sync 1.0. In this link the Sync SWC switches are on pins 14-15.

https://www.justanswer.com/ford/2ysoo-layout-54-pin-connector-sync-module.html

I would also try 46-47 if you have not already.

I guess when I say clockspring connector, I am referring to the connector on the steering column, not inside the wheel. If you do decide to pop off the air bag, it is pretty easy. just find an allen wrench that fits in the the small hole in the bottom of the center of the steering wheel. You will be pushing a spring wire out of the way. Just feel around until you touch it and then it takes a bit of force to move it which will cause the plastic center/airbag to pop out. At that point it is just a matter of unclipping the airbag wire connector and releasing a small spade connector for the horn wire. With the airbag out you will have a visual on where the going from the top clockspring plug over to the SWC buttons.

 

[klaymen]

OK, so once again that was great info. Thanks. They really ended up being wires 14 and 15!

So now my new head unit is detecting the button presses from the 3 sync buttons. I spliced them together with the SCW audio wires going into the new head unit. HOWEVER, a new issue arose - two of the three buttons have the exact same resistance values when pressed as two of the 5 audio buttons! So for all the work I gained just one new button.
I'm thinking I could connect a resistor in one of the sync wires, changing the value to something new. If the unpressed value is ~1kOhm and pressed around 500Ohm or so I could put like a 100Ohm resistor in there. Thoughts?

 

[bluto]

I don't have a table of the resistance values of the sync buttons handy but attached should be the values for the 5 radio buttons. There is some space to work with between the 514 ohm of the media button and the 1.1 kohm of no buttons pressed. If you could add a resistor inline to the sync buttons such that they would have resistance of values of say 600, 700 & 800 ohms it might work just fine. If you can't get a workable result adding a resistor inline, then doing surgery on the button itself to change the individual resistors might be the only way to make it work.

 

[klaymen]

The exact values ultimately don't matter, I think. As long as the values all differ from each other on all 8 buttons.
I have a bunch of 20 Ohm 1/4W resistors, if one doesn't work I can always put several of them in series. There is enough room between the 5 media buttons values in the table you attached that I should be able to hit the empty space by adding 20 or 40 Ohms.

Will report back!.

Thanks!

 

[klaymen]

So I have bad news - it did not work. I have tried putting multiples of 20 Ohms, up to 100 Ohms, on both the SYNC buttons and the AUDIO buttons (not at the same time obviously). So that's 10 different combinations. In 9 cases the SYNC buttons were close enough to the AUDIO buttons that they were still triggering the AUDIO buttons actions. In one case only two SYNC button were mirrored, and one of them worked separately, but I didn't make note of the resistor value and I am just too tired of it to go through all that again. Without the resistance values table for the SYNC buttons and figuring out what resistor values I should use, on paper, there's just no way to do this. Moving the two resistance value ranges up and down against each other like this blind just doesn't work.