Disclaimer: It was never my intention to install a factory navigation system in my Mazdaspeed 6. It was only my hope to use the factory motorized box with an aftermarket screen.
Ok, so I picked up a factory navigation box off of eBay hoping to install my Garmin Streetpilot 7200 screen in it in order to have a factory looking navigation system with a Garmin operating system. My car does not have a navigation system from the factory.
Note 1: Mazda's are not pre-wired for navigation. This means that there is zero wiring present that would help me in my endeavor. I was able to obtain some wiring diagrams from Mazda, which were some help.
I was able to get the factory nav box and the HVAC display with the buttons to open/close the nav screen. This, as it turns out, plugs into the same harness that the HVAC display without the open/close button uses. So far so good.
I opened up the factory navigation box praying that the electronics for the motor to open the box were separate from the factory LCD. No such luck, all the controls for the motor are built into the LCD. This meant that I had to keep a sizeable amount (approximately half) of the electronics for the LCD screen in order to operate the open/close mechanism.
Using the wiring diagrams I got from Mazda I was able to determine which pins needed 12V power or ground on the nav box. It was my hope that simply by supplying power to the box that I could get it to open and close. Since I was running my own independent navigation system, this was all I needed it to do.
In the end after hours and hours of work and intricate wiring, I was able to hook everything up, install my Garmin into the factory nav box and put everything back together. I supplied power to the unit and pressed the open/close button...it worked...sort of. There is obviously more wiring needed than simple power and ground for this thing to work, because it would open and close, but only sporadically, definitely not reliably. Sometimes it would open halfway, others it wouldn't do anything. I could not get it to work the way it was supposed to.
The morale of this story is to hopefully save anyone some time, money and effort if they are thinking of trying to use a factory nav box. It will require large amounts of effort and wiring, and in the end the chances are that it will not work for you. There are many other aftermarket options available, so I would highly suggest you go one of those routes.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Ok, so I picked up a factory navigation box off of eBay hoping to install my Garmin Streetpilot 7200 screen in it in order to have a factory looking navigation system with a Garmin operating system. My car does not have a navigation system from the factory.
Note 1: Mazda's are not pre-wired for navigation. This means that there is zero wiring present that would help me in my endeavor. I was able to obtain some wiring diagrams from Mazda, which were some help.
I was able to get the factory nav box and the HVAC display with the buttons to open/close the nav screen. This, as it turns out, plugs into the same harness that the HVAC display without the open/close button uses. So far so good.
I opened up the factory navigation box praying that the electronics for the motor to open the box were separate from the factory LCD. No such luck, all the controls for the motor are built into the LCD. This meant that I had to keep a sizeable amount (approximately half) of the electronics for the LCD screen in order to operate the open/close mechanism.
Using the wiring diagrams I got from Mazda I was able to determine which pins needed 12V power or ground on the nav box. It was my hope that simply by supplying power to the box that I could get it to open and close. Since I was running my own independent navigation system, this was all I needed it to do.
In the end after hours and hours of work and intricate wiring, I was able to hook everything up, install my Garmin into the factory nav box and put everything back together. I supplied power to the unit and pressed the open/close button...it worked...sort of. There is obviously more wiring needed than simple power and ground for this thing to work, because it would open and close, but only sporadically, definitely not reliably. Sometimes it would open halfway, others it wouldn't do anything. I could not get it to work the way it was supposed to.
The morale of this story is to hopefully save anyone some time, money and effort if they are thinking of trying to use a factory nav box. It will require large amounts of effort and wiring, and in the end the chances are that it will not work for you. There are many other aftermarket options available, so I would highly suggest you go one of those routes.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
