Digital Display Gages - Page 4 - Interior Forum

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Re: Digital Display Gages
Monday, January 07, 2008 9:36 AM
alkatmsu wrote:I'm not sure of the inner workings, but I know the digital odo in my Cav used to be a yellowish orange with a white bulb, but now that I've put a blue LED in behind it, it's blue. Maybe you could have whatever makes the actual numbers and the light source be seperate like that, so it'd be possible to put 2-3 LEDs right behind it so it could change colors?

That's an LCD display, not LED. Completely different animal. With LED, in order to have color change, the display itself would need to have the capeability. Essentially, each segment of the display would have to have more than one diode. With a standard LED, it's simple, but when you talk about having 8 segments per display (basicly 8 LEDs in one package), you are talking about 8 additional pins on the display just to add a second color. To make it RGB, it would have an additional 16 pins. A typical 8 segment display has 10 pins already--2 common pins, (either positive or negative), and one pin for each segment (positive or negative).

FReQ Z, I'm familiar with those. I've actually got a pile of 3V 5mm RGB LEDs. I have yet to see a numeric tri-state display, though. If you know of any, I'd be interested in the info.







Re: Digital Display Gages
Saturday, February 02, 2008 9:31 AM
OK guys, sorry for the long time with no updates, but I have really been waiting for the engineer to get back to me. I finally made some progress on this, but it looks like the time frame will be longer than originally projected. I've pretty much got everything lined up for my sourcing & prototyping, but it's all waiting on final circuit and PCB design. Also, speaking with the company on the production, I may only be starting with one color available, then offering other colors later.

I'll update as we get further into the circuit design. I was really hoping to have it in the PCB design stage by now, but it looks like we're a couple of months out.






Re: Digital Display Gages
Saturday, February 02, 2008 10:02 AM
this is pretty dang sweet.
i'm gonna try to keep an eye on this
leaning towards green for me




Re: Digital Display Gages
Sunday, February 03, 2008 1:25 PM
Im still interested man, keep me posted


hop on in i've got a J

Re: Digital Display Gages
Monday, February 04, 2008 11:57 AM
cyberdyne just picked me up this year so ive got a full set of gauges coming so looks like im going to bite the bullet and go ahead and figerglass a whole new top dash piece instead.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography
Re: Digital Display Gages
Monday, February 04, 2008 12:37 PM
Nice score man! Post up some progress pics.





Re: Digital Display Gages
Monday, February 04, 2008 3:30 PM
Very nice Jason!



SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Digital Display Gages
Wednesday, February 06, 2008 9:38 AM
thanks. ive got shows till the second week in march and then about a 6 week break before things start back up so i'll be hitting it hard then.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography
Re: Digital Display Gages
Wednesday, February 06, 2008 3:11 PM
Cool! Myself and Ryan are hoping to hit the shows hard this year!



SOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Digital Display Gages
Monday, May 26, 2008 10:58 PM
What ever happend to this cause I am wanting one.
Re: Digital Display Gages
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 5:24 AM
I haven't given up yet, but I ended up dropping the engineer I was working with, and now I'm trying to find another one. The problem seems to be that most of these guys don't feel like bothering with anything that's not a $50K+ project, unless they just have some free time.

I've pretty much got the whole package ready to go: face, components, display mounting, warning lights, etc., but I need to get the circuit designed to translate the signal for the gauges.







Re: Digital Display Gages
Saturday, June 07, 2008 11:35 AM
well keep us posted, this is to cool of a project to go unfinished



All show, coming soon ---> GO
Re: Digital Display Gages
Sunday, July 13, 2008 3:58 PM
bump. any updates?



Re: Digital Display Gages
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 12:37 AM
man consider this sold for this guy!
any chance i could get a custom... custom? my car is themed pink and black, so pink gauges would be desirable.... the way its layed out is good. the design itself is beyond amazing. the fact that every person on this forum hasn't at least admitted to wanting one is astounding to me. and as long is this will mate up to an 00 cavalier and keep the ecotec in check, you may have just sold me one! please dont let this project disappear! one suggestion i have is to talk to some colleges in the area who offer engineering degrees or something along those lines. you can have the students learn something and possibly get this thing finished for cheap or free if your REALLY lucky. I used to take my truck to the technical college in my town and got everything on it fixed for free so i'm sure you might be able to work something out in your area.

GOOD LUCK!!!!! keep us all posted on what could quite possibly be the most exciting interior project on the site, if not the most interesting period.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike wrote:The auto to manual swap is not as involved as you would think.
Get all the parts you need in a pile, and drive the car into it.
They will find their way into the correct places.

Re: Digital Display Gages
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:47 PM
Sorry guys. I have nothing to report at this time. I still have everything laid out on my desk, but since the nice weather rolled around, I've been working on my car, my house, and my yard. I'm actually picking up a couple of pieces of equipment that should help me further this project along, but I'm probably not going to really get back to it before the end of the summer. I'm trying like hell to get stuff done to my actual car right now.

I'm rethinking the actual way I'm going about this, and depending on how successful I am with the new equipment, it may make the whole project a lot easier. Let's just say that due to the set backs I've already encountered, I'm skeptically optimistic about it.






Re: Digital Display Gages
Thursday, August 07, 2014 4:44 AM
OK Guys, so I'm sure everyone thought this was dead...However, I've been quietly working behind the scenes. I'm sure there will not be the interest that it originally had when this thread started, but I always intended on finishing the project one way or another.

So here's the update:

This project got put way onto the back burner years ago because I went through some financial trouble, and my priorities quickly changed. I no longer had the time or money to put into such an undertaking, so it sat, along with all of my research, in boxes in my basement.

Well, over the last couple of years, I began getting into the microcontroller world, and some things dawned on me...I used to program in assembly language when I was younger, purely out of interest in computers that reached beyond anything I could access in school at the time...I had knowledge and experience I could apply toward projects I'm looking at now, and the technology has advanced to such a degree that it is now relatively inexpensive to get into making complex circuitry, so I dove in. I bought myself piles of electronic components, compiling software, and various microcontrollers, and began (re)learning. My first circuit was a simple LED dimmer, then a chasing sequence. (this is for another project which will be showing up at some point in the future as well). Back when I was really deep into this project, I had done a ton of research on GM's UART and Class 2 serial data streams, and learned a lot. It's not going to be that complicated to read them, and there are some custom microcontrollers out there now that are designed specifically for this purpose. My options are to incorporate one of these, or just write my own software to read the information I desire. I haven't decided which, and I may try both to see what works out better. Ultimately, my cluster will be plug-and-play, which has been my goal all along.

Fast forward a few months, and I realized that making a digital readout on my own was within my grasp. I began mapping out the circuit design for my tach. I researched components trying to find what I was looking for, and I just wasn't happy with the displays for any number of reasons, so I came upon another idea: I'll make my own display (yeah, I DO get that nuts fairly often!).

So here's where I'm at: I have my circuit designed for the tach, I have my display designed, and my prototype of the display face in my hands. I'm currently in the middle of laying out the PCB, but I haven't yet decided how I'm going to go about making it. There are various DIY methods for making PCBs, but I would need to purchase some equipment for it, and I wouldn't be able to do multi-layer boards, which this circuit really needs in order to fit things properly. However, I figured I'd throw an update in here just because...

Here's the design for my tach display. Instead of a typical digital desplay where each number or segment of the bar graph is a component, I am going to use SMT LEDs (if you're not familiar with SMT, it's surface mount technology, where components are much smaller, and simply lay on top of the circuit board, rather than have pins which protrude through it). and a face that snaps onto the board. The face has the shapes of each segment cut out of it, and they will be filled with a diffusing translucent resin so that it performs just like a typical display component.



Also, just to show some of my electronics progress, here's a quick little vid of an RGB chase sequence I made while playing with the microcontrollers:




So here are the details: the entire display will be RGB, with separate color control for the readout and the bar graph. I'm still toying with the idea of adding the ability to separately control the colors of the bar graph segments for the purpose of adding a redline color change, but I may just make the entire thing change color when the redline is hit. The cutout at the bottom is for another display. I'm currently planning on having the trip odometer there, but I may use it for a message center instead.

Also, since I've already designed the RGB color control circuit, I'm making the rest of the interior indication (HVAC, power locks, power window switches, steering wheel buttons, etc) fully integrated with the color change of the cluster. By using the separate LEDs on the cluster circuit instead of pre-made displays, I can use the same LEDs throughout the car, keeping perfect uniformity of color mixing, without any need for an adaptation. There will be a dedicated signal line run through the car carrying information of color, and each node, it will be able to chose which color of the cluster it wants to match (so, for example, if I have my bar graph blue, and the digits red, I could have the power window switches match blue, while the door locks match the red). For the steering wheel controls, it's going to get tricky. I'll get to that later.

Anyway, enjoy the updates.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edited Thursday, August 07, 2014 4:52 AM
Attachments
Tach_Lens.png (101k)
IMG_20140609_163923622.jpg (255k)




Re: Digital Display Gages
Thursday, August 07, 2014 6:07 AM
Apparently I subscribe to the randomest threads and can't remember why this one. Course it has been...*checks date* 6 years?!?

Anyway, I hear ya about financial troubles. Been out of work for nearly 2 years which put all modding stuff at the bottom of the priority list. Hell, even the Saturn brackets are still in the box.

That said, moar pics









Re: Digital Display Gages
Thursday, August 07, 2014 6:32 AM
LOL. I figured this would pull some people out of the woodwork!

I'll update with pics when I get the PCB done. I don't expect it to be before November, though.
I just got that piece made in June, but when summer hits, I drop all of these type projects and get outside.

Also, since I no longer have a running factory powered J-body, part of my project is building an engine simulator (a circuit that fakes all the sensor signals to the PCM). I'll be building that at some point and running the PCM with a factory cluster to test functionality, then I'll start working on making my cluster read the datastream. Once I've got it down, it will be very simple to get it working on the 3400 PCM.

I'm pretty pumped to have made the progress I have on it, and more will come.






Re: Digital Display Gages
Wednesday, September 10, 2014 1:06 AM
Just out of morbid curiosity, how much do you think the new ones are going to run for cost?
the ideas you're throwing around have me drooling a bit haha.



Re: Digital Display Gages
Friday, September 12, 2014 10:59 AM
tbird IV wrote:Just out of morbid curiosity, how much do you think the new ones are going to run for cost?
the ideas you're throwing around have me drooling a bit haha.
Honestly, right now I'm not sure. Once I get my PCB layouts done, and everything tested, then I can really estimate it. The first one is going to be obviously crude, but once the circuit is completely done, the options for customizing are very wide open.

I'd be surprised if the price isn't in the 600-800 range, but these days, you never know what can be made cheaper. The cost of 3D printing coming down is huge for things like this.





Re: Digital Display Gages
Friday, September 12, 2014 11:34 PM
yeah for sure, actually at my college they're working with 3D printing in metal, it's pretty badass. I'm on the formula SAE team (design/build/race an autoX racecar) and they print out the knuckles for the car in titanium, super lightweight and you can engineer strength beyond the surface -internal ribs and such- it's really cool tech, that and the friction stir welder, you can WELD plastic to steel with that, or steel to aluminum, or other things that shouldn't technically weld up.
Well thats enough pointless talk for now haha. anyways, its really cool stuff you're working with and if money works out I'd definitely be interested.
I'm actually working on getting lab access for the 3D printers, so if you needed a prototype in plastic, or a master copy for mold making I might be able to help you out. I'm just not exactly sure on the rules of the thing yet.

-TbirdIV




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