Keyless Entry Upgrade, ditch the IR (infrared) for RF
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Junior Member
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 78
Likes: 1
From: Tustin, Ca
Model: Cherokee
Keyless Entry Upgrade, ditch the IR (infrared) for RF
So after 7 months of owning my Cherokee I had enough of the crappy IR keyless entry system. The lack of range and having to point the remote directly at the receiver was driving me nuts so I decided to do something about it.
Keep in mind this is on a 94 cherokee so older models may be different.
I bought a cheap RF keyless entry kit like the following:
http://www.jcwhitney.com/MODEL_6RT_REMOTE_KEYLESS_ENTRY_SYSTEM?ID=12;0;0;0; 100001;ProductName;0;0;0;0;2001393;0;0
And started to decode wires. My goal was to just replace the IR receiver with an RF one and not have to hack into anything under the dash.
If you pull the cover off the IR receiver it looks like picture 1, a circuit board with 9 wires going into it. That is a lot of wires but for what I was doing only 4 of them were important:
Pink - Constant 12 V
Black - Ground
Pink with Purple Stripe - Unlock
Orange with Purple Stripe - Lock
Once I had those figured out it was just a matter of splicing in my connections. For my specfic model the connections were as follows (can kinda be seen in pic 3):
Receiver Jeep
Red and Purple Pink
Black Black
Blue Pink with Purple
Green Orange with Purple
Once all the connections were made and I tested it out I stuffed everything back into the headliner and retained the IR lens for looks.
Now I can unlock/lock from almost 200 ft away with the receiver in my pocket if I want!!! Huge improvement and definetely worth the 30 bucks.
Pic 1 - Old Receiver
Pic 2 - New Receiver
Pic 3 - Wire Connections
Pic 4 - Stuffed back into headliner
Keep in mind this is on a 94 cherokee so older models may be different.
I bought a cheap RF keyless entry kit like the following:
And started to decode wires. My goal was to just replace the IR receiver with an RF one and not have to hack into anything under the dash.
If you pull the cover off the IR receiver it looks like picture 1, a circuit board with 9 wires going into it. That is a lot of wires but for what I was doing only 4 of them were important:
Pink - Constant 12 V
Black - Ground
Pink with Purple Stripe - Unlock
Orange with Purple Stripe - Lock
Once I had those figured out it was just a matter of splicing in my connections. For my specfic model the connections were as follows (can kinda be seen in pic 3):
Receiver Jeep
Red and Purple Pink
Black Black
Blue Pink with Purple
Green Orange with Purple
Once all the connections were made and I tested it out I stuffed everything back into the headliner and retained the IR lens for looks.
Now I can unlock/lock from almost 200 ft away with the receiver in my pocket if I want!!! Huge improvement and definetely worth the 30 bucks.
Pic 1 - Old Receiver
Pic 2 - New Receiver
Pic 3 - Wire Connections
Pic 4 - Stuffed back into headliner
Last edited by Goathearder; Dec 22, 2009 at 10:34 AM.
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Joined: Apr 2012
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Model: Cherokee
I know this is an old thread but it encouraged me to upgrade my 96 IR with an RF keyless entry I had sitting around collecting dust. In order for the lock/unlock switch on the doors to still work with the RF keyless entry I had to add relays for the lock and unlock trigger. It sounds like a newer RF keyless entry wouldn't need the relays. Mine was free and I'm not sure of the brand or age of the unit.
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