reyokonova
Member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2025
- Posts
- 69
- Reaction score
- 76
- Location
- Gainesville FL
- Ram Year
- 2014
- Engine
- Ecodiesel 3.0
@SitKneelBend and I got curious one Saturday morning......
TESTED ON 2014 RAM WITH 2016 BCM:
So since we had a bunch of screens and three different radio setups sitting around, we decided to do some experimenting (and risk some expensive hardware) so you guys don’t have to.
We tested a mix of UC4 and UC5 radios, along with the UC4 12", UC5 12", and UC5 14.5" screens. We also tried both types of LVDS cables, and even went as far as swapping the board from a UC4 screen into a UC5 screen just to see what would happen.
First thing, the LVDS cables are definitely different. The UC4 cable is basically a crossover style cable. Not exact pin numbers, but think of it like A goes to B, B to C, C to D, and so on, with ground staying the same. The UC5 cable is straight through, 1:1. We tested both cables in both directions just to be sure. Still not totally sure why the system works the way it does with the crossover cable, but it does. Also worth noting the uc4 lvds cable only worked on the uc4 but the uc5 worked on both.
Now for the screen and radio combos. The UC4 screen will actually work on a UC5 radio, even though a lot of people say it won’t. The radio we used was a 2025 unit that had been flashed from Atlantis over to PowerNet and fully updated so keep that in mind. The big catch is the touch does not work, which obviously makes it pretty useless. One interesting thing we noticed is that the color and brightness comes from the radio, not the screen. The UC4 radio looked dull on both screens, and the UC5 radio looked much more vibrant on both.
The UC5 radio worked on both screens display-wise, but again, no touch on the UC4 screen no matter what we tried.
The 14.5" screen would not work at all with any combination of radios or cables. Most likely because it’s on the Atlantis architecture. It’ll probably always need some kind of translator. I know someone is already working on that, so hopefully we’ll see something soon.
We also tried one of the newer 6th gen 12" screens (the ones with the black back, usually Denso). That didn’t work with anything either. I’m pretty confident those are Atlantis-only as well. So if you’re looking for a screen, don’t buy a 12" that’s newer than 2024. If the back is black instead of aluminum, or it’s made by Denso, it’s not going to work in a 4th or 5th gen truck they are technically 6th gen.
We didn’t try reflashing those screens to PowerNet, but it might be possible. Ram seems to be trying to standardize things, so in theory it could work. For radios, you can do it, but you need CDA, WiTech, and a Micropod 2 (or clone), which isn’t cheap. For most people it’s easier to just stick with a 5th gen setup.
If anyone has a 2025 Denso 12" screen and access to CDA, it would be worth checking if PowerNet is even an option on it.
Now for the more sketchy part. We pulled apart both UC4 and UC5 screens. They’re actually pretty easy to open, and we’ve done it a few times now. The good news is the UC5 12" and UC4 12" are basically identical in size and shape, so our custom bezel fits both. I’m planning to design one for the 14.5" as well, and also a full OEM-style bezel so you don’t have to cut the dash.
We tried swapping the board from a UC4 screen into a UC5 panel, since you can find UC5 LCDs cheap online without the boards. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. The screen powered on but was just solid white and nothing functioned.
Another weird thing, after we swapped everything back, the radio completely stopped responding to touch until we sent an ECU reset through Alfa. My guess is it either tripped some kind of error state or got stuck expecting a different touch configuration.
As for why touch doesn’t work across setups, the LVDS cable is only handling video. It’s basically just display data. The touch signals are going over CAN bus. So what’s probably happening is the UC4 and UC5 are using different CAN messages for touch, and the radio just doesn’t know what to do with the UC4 signals and vise versa.
In theory, this means a translator could be made. Something that reads the UC4 touch input and converts it into what the UC5 radio expects and the other way around. Since CAN runs through the screen power harness, you could probably make a plug-and-play module. If someone took the time to sniff the traffic, it should be doable.
I’ve got both setups here, so I might mess with that down the road when I get time. Would be a fun project and would make upgrading to UC5 a lot cheaper for the community since it would expand the pull of parts you can use.
Anyway, that’s everything we’ve found so far. Figured I’d put it all in one place. If anyone else has info to add, definitely post it up so we can keep this as a good reference thread.
Also, I’m planning to mess with adding the passenger screen at some point. If anyone has one, post pics of the back, that would help a lot.
TESTED ON 2014 RAM WITH 2016 BCM:
So since we had a bunch of screens and three different radio setups sitting around, we decided to do some experimenting (and risk some expensive hardware) so you guys don’t have to.
We tested a mix of UC4 and UC5 radios, along with the UC4 12", UC5 12", and UC5 14.5" screens. We also tried both types of LVDS cables, and even went as far as swapping the board from a UC4 screen into a UC5 screen just to see what would happen.
First thing, the LVDS cables are definitely different. The UC4 cable is basically a crossover style cable. Not exact pin numbers, but think of it like A goes to B, B to C, C to D, and so on, with ground staying the same. The UC5 cable is straight through, 1:1. We tested both cables in both directions just to be sure. Still not totally sure why the system works the way it does with the crossover cable, but it does. Also worth noting the uc4 lvds cable only worked on the uc4 but the uc5 worked on both.
Now for the screen and radio combos. The UC4 screen will actually work on a UC5 radio, even though a lot of people say it won’t. The radio we used was a 2025 unit that had been flashed from Atlantis over to PowerNet and fully updated so keep that in mind. The big catch is the touch does not work, which obviously makes it pretty useless. One interesting thing we noticed is that the color and brightness comes from the radio, not the screen. The UC4 radio looked dull on both screens, and the UC5 radio looked much more vibrant on both.
The UC5 radio worked on both screens display-wise, but again, no touch on the UC4 screen no matter what we tried.
The 14.5" screen would not work at all with any combination of radios or cables. Most likely because it’s on the Atlantis architecture. It’ll probably always need some kind of translator. I know someone is already working on that, so hopefully we’ll see something soon.
We also tried one of the newer 6th gen 12" screens (the ones with the black back, usually Denso). That didn’t work with anything either. I’m pretty confident those are Atlantis-only as well. So if you’re looking for a screen, don’t buy a 12" that’s newer than 2024. If the back is black instead of aluminum, or it’s made by Denso, it’s not going to work in a 4th or 5th gen truck they are technically 6th gen.
We didn’t try reflashing those screens to PowerNet, but it might be possible. Ram seems to be trying to standardize things, so in theory it could work. For radios, you can do it, but you need CDA, WiTech, and a Micropod 2 (or clone), which isn’t cheap. For most people it’s easier to just stick with a 5th gen setup.
If anyone has a 2025 Denso 12" screen and access to CDA, it would be worth checking if PowerNet is even an option on it.
Now for the more sketchy part. We pulled apart both UC4 and UC5 screens. They’re actually pretty easy to open, and we’ve done it a few times now. The good news is the UC5 12" and UC4 12" are basically identical in size and shape, so our custom bezel fits both. I’m planning to design one for the 14.5" as well, and also a full OEM-style bezel so you don’t have to cut the dash.
We tried swapping the board from a UC4 screen into a UC5 panel, since you can find UC5 LCDs cheap online without the boards. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. The screen powered on but was just solid white and nothing functioned.
Another weird thing, after we swapped everything back, the radio completely stopped responding to touch until we sent an ECU reset through Alfa. My guess is it either tripped some kind of error state or got stuck expecting a different touch configuration.
As for why touch doesn’t work across setups, the LVDS cable is only handling video. It’s basically just display data. The touch signals are going over CAN bus. So what’s probably happening is the UC4 and UC5 are using different CAN messages for touch, and the radio just doesn’t know what to do with the UC4 signals and vise versa.
In theory, this means a translator could be made. Something that reads the UC4 touch input and converts it into what the UC5 radio expects and the other way around. Since CAN runs through the screen power harness, you could probably make a plug-and-play module. If someone took the time to sniff the traffic, it should be doable.
I’ve got both setups here, so I might mess with that down the road when I get time. Would be a fun project and would make upgrading to UC5 a lot cheaper for the community since it would expand the pull of parts you can use.
Anyway, that’s everything we’ve found so far. Figured I’d put it all in one place. If anyone else has info to add, definitely post it up so we can keep this as a good reference thread.
Also, I’m planning to mess with adding the passenger screen at some point. If anyone has one, post pics of the back, that would help a lot.
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