Paddle Shift
Difficulty
Credit
Evilution
Cost
£80+
For
Old Style 600cc For2
Old Style 700cc For2
New Style For2
Roadster
Old Style 700cc For2
New Style For2
Roadster
Paddle Shift
No two ways about it, paddleshift is cool and there is more than one way to go about it.
No two ways about it, paddleshift is cool and there is more than one way to go about it.
There are two methods to activating paddleshift on your smart.
Works on all 600cc fortwos. There are reports that it works on the 700cc and 800cc fortwos, Roadsters and possibly the 999cc fortwo as well although these claims have yet to be tested.
The PCBs expect the paddle and horn resistances found in a 600cc steering wheel so if you fit a 700cc steering wheel, it won't work unless you change the resistors.
There are a number of gearshift PCBs available:
Smart (brabus)
Smartkits.net
Smartroniks
Smartshift
Although the boards look different, they all do the same job and are all fitted the same way.
The PCB plugs in under the SE Drive and attaches to the main wiring loom.
Two wires are then spliced into a wire going to the steering wheel.
How Does It Work?
The wire that is used from the steering wheel is the return for the horn. Each paddle uses
a different rated resistor and the horn uses no resistor. The gearshift PCB measures the
resistance through this wire and can determine which of the three buttons have been pushed.
Gear up, gear down or horn. More info about the resistors required in a section below.
How2 not available yet, if you fit one, take pictures.
This option is only available if you have a 700cc fortwo, 999cc fortwo,
Roadster or the newer version of the 800cc diesel fortwo with a SAM unit.
451 Fortwo
450 And Roadster
The code is applied to the car at a smart dealer, this code should cost around £100.
When the paddle steering wheel is fitted, a connection must be swapped over in the drivers
side footwell. Non paddle wheels use white/white, paddle wheels swap to the black plug.
Thanks to Black Dog for the picture.
The official paddle wheel comes in a bunch of different types.
2 spoke Brabus (600cc only)
2 spoke (700cc only)
3 spoke found in the fortwo pulse and Roadster (700cc only)
V6 Roadster Brabuswheel (700cc only)
3 spoke wheel (999cc only)
There was never an official button change steering wheel but there have been many
3rd party and home made button shift wheels as it is a lot easier to make than paddles.
There are also 3rd party paddle kits that fit to the standard steering wheels.
The difference is very easy to see although both types of wheel look the same.
Look at the black cartridge on the back of the wheel, you will notice either one or
two electrical connections. If it has one connector, it is for a 600cc smart or early diesel.
Two connectors signify it is designed for a 700cc and newer diesels.
The wheels with two connections can be used on 600cc cars simply by not using the
extra wiring connection. The one connector version cannot be used on a 700cc smart.
Disassembly of standard and both types of paddle wheel can be found
Take a look at the pastic cowel at the back of the wheel, where the paddles exit:
Squared off - meaning it is an old style paddle wheel with bolted in paddles.
Rounded off - meaning it is a new style paddle wheel with clipped in paddles.
This is not public knowledge, the people who know like to keep it to themselves. It's part of their evil scheme to take over the world, probably. In the years I have owned a smart, I have read many supposed truths about the values of these resistors. The problem is that all of the 3rd party gear change boards use different values, somewhere along the line the truth was lost in the confusion.
Smart Standard Paddle Wheel (squared - old style)
Horn - 0 Ohm
Up paddle - 470 Ohm
Down Paddle - 150 Ohm
Nothing pressed - no connection
Smart Standard Paddle Wheel (rounded - new style)
Horn - 4K Ohm
Up paddle - 2K Ohm
Down Paddle - 1K Ohm
Nothing pressed - 8K Ohm
There is a big difference between the way the 2 are wired. The old style wheel used serial wiring and
therefore only used 1 resistor at a time.The new style wheel used parallel wiring. This means that
the 8K resistor is used as well as the horn, up or down resistor.
This would give a totally different resistance.
Horn = 8K + 4K = 2.66K combined
Up Paddle = 8K + 2K = 1.6K combined
Down Paddle = 8K + 1K = 0.89K combined
Smartshift, Smartronik, Smartkits
Although the Smartshift and the Smartronik are now discontinued, they are widely believed to
share the resistances of the new 'copy' replacements sold by Smartkits and Smartarse Design.
Horn - 1000 Ohm
Up paddle - 0 Ohm
Down Paddle - 4300 Ohm
Wiring Differences
There is one major difference between standard and third party wiring.
The standard is wired in parallel, third party is wired in series.
This means is the down paddle on the third party wheel actually uses two resistors to
achieve the 4300 Ohms. It passes through a 3300 Ohm resistor before going through the
1000 Ohm resistor used to trigger the horn, therefore giving the 4300 Ohms required.Resistor Codes
470 Ohm is also known as 470R (Resistance), making it easier to type.
470 Ohm is stated on SMD resistors by the numbers 471, thats 47 and 1 lot of zero (multiplier).
150 Ohm is also known as 150R and 151 on SMD resistors. 15 and 1x zero (multiplier).
1000 Ohm = 1K = 1000R = 102 (10 and 2x zero as the multiplier).
3300 Ohm = 3K3 =3300R = 332 (33 and 2x zero as the multiplier).
'K' stands for thousand and is used instead of the decimal point to stop it being missed out.
It might sound daunting but I can assure you it's quite easy, i'll hold your hand, don't worry.
Resistor Colours
Because of the size of resistors, you distinguish the ratings using coloured bands.
This is ok if you aren't colour blind. Why they don't just write it on the resistor i'll never know.
The system works on four, five or colour bands. Each colour represents a number.
I will cover four and five bands here as six is rare and used for specialist resistors.
Can I Use The Horn Buttons Instead? Yes, you certainly can. You can adapt the steering wheel so the right horn shifts up a gear,
the left horn shifts down a gear and the centre horn sounds the horn.
Switches 1, 2 and 3 are the original horn buttons, after the mod, 1 and 3 become up and down gear.
Here is the link that shows you a few ways to add your own steering wheel shift.
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