General Hacking Saves $ Hundreds!

Ashish came today with an inkling that the optio-coupler for one of the buttons on his BMW dash control was a bit buggy.

An hour or two later, a $1 component, and some surface mount work in conjunction with fellow hackers (including moi) and everything was up and working again!

The kicker? Ashish had previously taken this to a local BMW dealer for a quote to replace the buggy module. That quote came in at, no joke, $1,000! $600 for the module and $400 for labor. Even sourcing it from the US was going to be $300+ for the part alone.

See below for some photos showing wires and one happy hacker!

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So next month when you’re considering your membership fees… : )