- Thread starter
- #161
Alas, after much research no wire harness will be produced. The connector company is not interested in supplying the needed parts.
Mod: Extending range of keyless entry
- Thread starter Ayune
- Start date
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Somebody has probably already mentioned it but if not you’ll can a few extra feet by holding the fob against your head. Use all those fluids as a conductor 
I tried this now everytime i hit the lock button on the key the windows roll down what do i do
LazarusTaxa
SILVER Star
Hey @Ayune, resurrecting this old thread as I'd like to make an extension cable.. Did you repin those connectors? If so, do you happen to have part numbers for the male and female pins used and what wire did you use? Just generic 18 awg?
I'd like to find the connectors themselves on Mouser as well.. I'll ask them if they can find something.
I just bought a used 2020 land cruiser. Head anyone done this with a land cruiser that has my style fob and function?
Hey, I’m back after 5 years to finally finish this job. A few pages ago you’ll see I put the antenna next to the stereo, but I chickened out of trying to dissect the dash to get at the controller. So I just had my mechanic do it for me. I’ll get to soldering and then get it back to the shop, they’ll reinstall it for me and finish up some other stuff. More to come.
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Looking at my board, I've got a different version than the OP. Here is the OP's board, showing the location he scratched with the knife to reach grounded copper:
Here is my board held up to the light. I've de-soldered the antennas and I have circled in red the location where the OP scratched, but when I tried I realized there's no copper underneath. I've circled in blue the location where I think I should scratch out a ground, but can anyone confirm this is correct?
Thanks in advance!
Here is my board held up to the light. I've de-soldered the antennas and I have circled in red the location where the OP scratched, but when I tried I realized there's no copper underneath. I've circled in blue the location where I think I should scratch out a ground, but can anyone confirm this is correct?
Thanks in advance!
- Thread starter
- #170
The copper under the blue circle is not ground, it’s the same as where you’ll solder the center wire of the coax cable. The two orange circles below show good places to scrape & expose the ground plane on your board.
Yup, I took another look and realized my blue circle is over copper that’s just connecting the two antennas. Ended up going exactly where your top orange circle is. Metered it to the ground of the screw post and it rang loud and clear. Thanks!
Update - I did get this unit soldered up back in January, but it sat disconnected while life got in the way with other issues and my mechanic had a backlog. Here's what it came out looking like. But I've finally brought the car into the shop for a bunch of things to get done, hoping to have the car back next week. But meanwhile, I did get a call from the shop saying that they reinstalled the keyless entry controller, and the range is indeed much improved. So I'm calling the project a success even though I haven't witnessed it myself yet!
@Ayune I'm gearing up for this project - thanks for the write-up. Any thoughts on soldering something like this to the board, instead of the raw end of a coax cable?
I would then connect the 315 Mhz antenna to the fitting end of the cable with a male-to-male coax adapter.
I would then connect the 315 Mhz antenna to the fitting end of the cable with a male-to-male coax adapter.
...also @Ayune, can you advise on the correct antenna? I'd rather buy from digi-key than amazon, but the one you linked to at the top of this thread is NLA. Digikey sells others. One with a male connector would be ideal
- Thread starter
- #175
The coax cable you show would work, just try to keep the lengths of the red & black wires short. Also, that coax cable is available in a female SMA version that wouldn’t need an extra adapter at the antenna:
This is the SMA male antenna that you’d need from Digi-Key: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-linx/ANT-315-CW-HW-SMA/5592330
- Thread starter
- #177
The fob does its job well, its signal is simply not received well at the vehicle. As others have noted, after relocating the antenna the car auto-locks after the 30-second timeout before you can walk the new longer operating distance.Come on folks, someone make a kit for me! Haha, I would LOVE this mod but as it sits the juice isn't worth the squeeze to me. Can anything be done on the FOB end?
My car was at the shop for a while getting an array of projects done. I'm happy to report that after they reinstalled the keyless entry controller that I'd soldered the antenna to, the key fob range is phenomenal. This modification lived up to the hype. I haven't broken out the tape measure to test, but I'd say my range is somewhere between 30-50 feet. I couldn't get 30 inches previously. Outstanding modification, thank you to all the research that went into this!!!
While it won't get you anywhere near the range of this fix, I improved my range from a couple of feet to around 20 feet by cleaning the battery contacts in the fob with electrical contact cleaner. They had quite a bit of oxidation on them and that brought quite an improvement on my 99.Come on folks, someone make a kit for me! Haha, I would LOVE this mod but as it sits the juice isn't worth the squeeze to me. Can anything be done on the FOB end?