Been a while since I redesigned the Griff dash...
Discussion
So I thought I'd have another go:
I'm annoyed about the accuracy of the speedo, tacho and fuel gauge, and TBH the speedo is well passed its best since the odometer stops nearly every 1000 miles (when I get time to drive the car) and the speedo tells awful non-linear lies.
So the answer seemed to be a nice set of stepper motor instruments. The cost is considerable, and doesn't quite get me what I want. Plus they don't look quite like I want them to and have all the features I'd like.
So I decided to make my own. After all, how hard can it be...
An evening with a CAD package later, and I have the following:
Front:
Back:
Wireframe:
All parts are easily produced and assembled. The electronics should be fairly straight forward - a few counters and stuff in an AVR chip will suffice. Next step is to lay out the PCB.
I'm annoyed about the accuracy of the speedo, tacho and fuel gauge, and TBH the speedo is well passed its best since the odometer stops nearly every 1000 miles (when I get time to drive the car) and the speedo tells awful non-linear lies.
So the answer seemed to be a nice set of stepper motor instruments. The cost is considerable, and doesn't quite get me what I want. Plus they don't look quite like I want them to and have all the features I'd like.
So I decided to make my own. After all, how hard can it be...
An evening with a CAD package later, and I have the following:
Front:
Back:
Wireframe:
All parts are easily produced and assembled. The electronics should be fairly straight forward - a few counters and stuff in an AVR chip will suffice. Next step is to lay out the PCB.
It's been a while since I did anything much car related so Thought I'd better update this. For some reason work keeps getting in the way - specially when I get paid to go on sea trials in sunny parts of the world...
I got the pieces of dash laser cut at the end of last week. The picture shows the gauge assembly without the steel dash panel and gauge bezels in place. The PCBs are made and populated. "All" I need to do now is test the software, finish assembly and install them in the Griff.
Apart from the colours, it looks the same as the CAD drawing.
I got the pieces of dash laser cut at the end of last week. The picture shows the gauge assembly without the steel dash panel and gauge bezels in place. The PCBs are made and populated. "All" I need to do now is test the software, finish assembly and install them in the Griff.
Apart from the colours, it looks the same as the CAD drawing.
Long overdue for another update now I'm not being side tracked by all the other projects.
The version 1 code is all written now and the basic functions of the dash all work.
I turned my attention to the gauge illumination. My first attempt was lousy, so here's the first time version 2 was powered. There's spaces for a couple more LEDs at the top that should even out the light a bit, but when all said and done, the light is fairly even with only 2/3 of the LEDs in place. Nearly ready to fit in the car now.
The version 1 code is all written now and the basic functions of the dash all work.
I turned my attention to the gauge illumination. My first attempt was lousy, so here's the first time version 2 was powered. There's spaces for a couple more LEDs at the top that should even out the light a bit, but when all said and done, the light is fairly even with only 2/3 of the LEDs in place. Nearly ready to fit in the car now.
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