canbus? full half? wots it all about?

[veralum]

I have a pre facelift cdti 150 breeze diesel april 2005 , whats it likely to be? it has a cd30 fitted

[kman247]

you have full canbus mate

[Robsey]

AS said...you will have a pre-facelift, but Full Canbus Vectra.

If the "factory fitted" radio starts with just the letters CD (as in CD30, or CD50 or CD70) or the letter CDC, (as in CDC40) then these are all Full Canbus units. (Usually 54 plate onwards).

If the radio has CCR, or CDCR or NCDR then these are all half canbus units...usually before October 2004.( upto 04 plate, but not 54 plate)

Just as an obvious foot-note...the face-lift aspect occurred in October 05 on the 55 plate.

[GazVXLINE170]

Any Vectra C 02 Plate to 54' Mid October 04 is half canbus ie 3 buttons either side of the steering wheel and 54' mid October onwards is Full Canbus ie scroll wheels.

Gazza4

[Penfold101]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control...93area_network

Basically, if you switch on your lights, you aren't directly applying current to the bulb, or even the relay for the bulb. Your switch will complete a circuit connected to the ECU which deals with the lights, and that will in turn apply power to the relay which will allow current to the bulb itself.

Advantages of this sort of system are (as John explained above) it allows for bulb failure warning sytems (computer monitors resistance in bulb circuit, and if it becomes very high, ie when the bulb blows, it activates a warning signal through the ECU and put the symbol and warning up on the dash for you)

Auto lights are fitted to the higher spec models, and when selected on the light switch it brings the light sensor into play which will tell the ECU to put the lights on when it drops below a certain level of brightness.

Similarly, some people with Auto wipers have found that if they've left the windows open and the rain sensor detects rain, the windows go up automatically.

This is the CANBus system at work, connecting all the various ECU's around the car through wiring looms and allowing them to talk to eachother.

The downside to all of this electromagicianry malarchy is that it becomes a huge problem adding stuff in. ie, you can't put LED sidelights in without some form of ballast resistor because they use a lot lower current than normal bulbs and the bulb failure system doesn't like it. You have to be very picky and choosy about where you add in electrical stuff and to what circuits otherwise the canbus will pick up the fact that something's not right in the world of voltages and currents and flag up warning signals...

[Robsey]

Wow..well explained..even I understood that...

Next time someone asks, I'll quote your words of knowledge
(although I won't pay you any copy-right fees...lol

[Penfold101]

I wouldn't bother - I just copied and pasted it from a story I wrote the last time someone asked what it was...

Took me longer to do a search and copy it that actually write anything in the box...

[Impresss]

Woops wrong topic.