anyway to use aftermarket alarm with BMW key remote? (E46)

[saksiri]

i'm interesting in buying an Alpine SEC-150R alarm system for my E46... the only thing that gets me is that i want to use the factory key remote.

i am planning on getting this adapter harness (found through search here):

http://store.autotoys.com/cgi-bin/wf...RMHARNESSBASIC

the reason i want the Alpine is for the dual-stage shock and proximity sensors.

also, anyone know about remote starters?

thanks for the help.

[saksiri]

no one knows, huh...

[digitalgm]

Dude, get the factory alarm. I love it and you can always hook up more sensors to it. I am hooking a dual stage shock sensor to mine tomorrow. Check out circlebmw.com they are having a special for 220$ for the factory alarm.

AdamR

[saksiri]

yeah, coming to same conclusion...

what about external radar though? one of the reasons i want an alarm is so that it will chirp (not go off) when people stand around the car too long.

[digitalgm]

Yeah you could hook that up ... I want to do that to mine. Give me a little while and Ill hook you up with how. I mean the stock system is the best and the fob is on the key already so no need for something else. I do have to say that the range sucks on the fob!!!!!

AdamR

[digitalgm]

Alright man, here is the unit that I am going to use. Its from autotoys.com which I have had a great time dealing with in the past when I bought my shock sensors. The unit is a dual stage radar sensor which is nice because you can use the first stage as the "pre-warn" stage that just triggers a beep and the second stage as "warn" which would trigger the alarm. I will figure it out on the schematic side later this week.

Heres the link -
http://store.autotoys.com/cgi-bin/wf.../radardualzone

AdamR

[Kenshiro]

Saks, this is Dennis' (bigdenis) friend Mike...

Remote start is possible, but a little involved:

http://www.directechs.com/directfax/pdfs/1060.pdf

If you don't mind hacking up the harness a little, you can add whatever sensors you want as long as you can rig them up to be negative-type switches.

Finally, it's unlikely (unless you want to etch your own circuitboard) that you can get an aftermarket alarm into your key... Besides, the EWS code is stored inside the key, so fiddling with it might cause you not to be able to start your car.

[saksiri]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the info. That's a neat solution for the remote start thing.

I was hoping that there would be outputs from the factory alarm harness for the lock/unlock signal, and inputs on the Alpine alarm in the case that you want to use a different method of activating the alarm... but I wasn't holding my breath because it seems that the Alpine remote is probably an integral part of the system.

While what you mentioned about integrating the Alpine alarm into my key wasn't exactly what I was thinking of, it did get me thinking in another direction. This probably sounds silly/anal/stupid but the whole reason I posted this message is because I didn't want to have to carry something in addition to my key (it's my only key); and I carry the key in the leather case that the valet key comes because I don't want to scratch it up (silly/anal part) by having a keyring on it. Haha. Anyway, I should just figure out a way to carry the remote without a keyring. Simple solution. =)

Are you still in Boston? I just saw Dennis a couple weeks ago, out here in CA... send me an email... I PM'd you my email address.

[Kenshiro]

If you're trying to basically daisy-chain your lock/unlock (do E46's double-lock?) what you can do is find the lock/unlock leads (I dunno where those are for E46) that are triggered by the keyless entry system, take apart your alpine remote, and hook a relay into the unlock/lock circuit to trigger the contacts for the remote, and put it all in a small Radio Shack project box and stuff it behind the glovebox. If you want to get really fancy you can even hardwire the remote power so you don't have to change the battery, but you'd have to make/source a stepdown transformer from 5v to 2.3v or whatever your remote battery uses.

It should be pretty straightforward, so long as you don't have to double-click anything (which is a BITCH to set up via relays)