fishtailfred Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 I put the thread up on diyefi, but I want to cast the net a little further than that, so read it there and reply where ever you want. http://www.diyefi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=810 And yes, it was the three cylinder mishap and the running out of battery twice that got me worried and wondering about a few vital parameters. Any pics of your setups, esp stealth ones, appreciated! Fred. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KKtrips Posted March 21, 2010 Share Posted March 21, 2010 Get Stack dash http://www.stackltd.com/streetdash1.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barf Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 for $0.02 i can say that software configurable dashboard is the way to go, that mini2440 computer on the diyefi thread looks like the ticket. the computer's screen could then be the ONE dashboard instrument you need, being able to show all, or your favourite selection of gauges. no rice burning extraneous side-pillar gauge mounts, just one discreet display for everything - you do have everything monitored by engine management computer i'm assuming? in the case of megasquirt, Battery V, coolant, RPM, MAP and etc are all output via RS232, tunerstudio has a nice dashboard skin selection and a dashboard designer tool TunerStudio exmaples: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slacker.cam Posted March 22, 2010 Share Posted March 22, 2010 I've always been of the opinion that unless you are constantly monitoring your gauges then it doesnt matter how many you have as you are unlikely to catch an issue before serious damage occurs. Take being out on the race track for example - in our FSAE cars we have only two trouble lights that the driver can see (other data is displayed on the digital dash but that's mainly for tuning, etc) while he's on the track. These are water temp high and oil pressure low. If one of these lights comes on the driver is supposed to back off and take it easy to get the car home. As a driver there are two problems with this scenario - firstly you are so focussed on driving you dont have time or energy to look at the warning lights and secondly even if one did come on you probably wouldnt back off anyway... So the plan for my AE86 has always been to have a digital system that measures all of the things I'm concerned about and have it give an audible warning if any of these parameters fall out of range. This way you can concentrate 100% on driving and only pay attention to the LCD if the buzzer goes off. You could also have a bright light with green/orange/red conditions to give another layer of information without looking at the screen for precise values. Personally I'm not a big fan of having heaps of gauges all over my dash. Good quality gauges are fucking expensive for a start. And they draw attention to the car. Buy electronic senders for oil press and whatever else you care about and do the rest yourself is my suggestion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishtailfred Posted March 23, 2010 Author Share Posted March 23, 2010 Barf, that dash designer, is that tunerstudio? If so, those gauges suck compared to MegaTunix, give it a try, it now supports all the major firmwares except ms3 which has only just been released anyway. Cam, sure, on a race track, all of that is true, but on the street, you can get out of it, stare at them for a while, boost through a gear to try to force a condition, etc. Those minor faults with the ute really made me feel vulnerable (to damage) whereas if I'd been able to look down and check some of those parameters I could have stopped worrying and relaxed a bit more. I'm keen on the digi dash idea, 110% but I'd also like some dedicated hardware for the more essential stuff too. Positioning a huge screen without ditching the stock dash (something that I'm not going to do), is not easy, whereas a few critical items can be placed in easy viewing position with discreet units allowing the screen to goo in a more auxiliary location. BattV and AFR are two obvious ones, though I wouldn't put BattV in my face, rather inside a glovebox or on the EMS case or somewhere else more appropriate. Right now I own two EEE pc units, both nice ones, but the older one is pretty screwed having been dropped etc quite a few times. I'd be highly tempted to run one of these dismembered and embedded in the dash somehow, possibly with the screen flippable away. Another aspect of it is that each displayed quantity should definitely have out of range indicators on it. Say, black background for normal and red for too high, blue for too low or some such similar scheme. This ties into the warning light scenario but with more information available if you focus and just enough if you dont. Thanks for the input! Fred. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zep Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 I too have an EEE pc that I am willing to destroy in the name of data display! Show me how! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barf Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 fred yeah those are some tacky screenshots from tunerstudio i'll give megatunix a whirl but last time I tried it diddn't support MS2extra f/w, given that was a while ago Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forced Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 I'm 100% behind this guy here. Re: Gauges, what and why? Being a builder and racer my self i find gauges a wast of time. When u are cruising it is one thing or after a race you can look as see where everything has settled. But when u are driving the piss out of something there is no time to look at a gauge, well they way i drive. What i like is things like STACK or AIM where you can have a configured warning light or a screen turn color, something that can alert you from your peripheral vision that something is wrong. Bering in mind that is you are at full tilt and something happens, 90% of the time it is to late anyway.. just my 2 cents ................................. With a stock Mitsi ECU I run MMCD datalogger. It's got alarms that can be triggered by almost anything that it can log.When it beeps, lift the right foot. Do a 2nd gear road pull, log it, go home look at it......try again. People are far too reliant on computers, most people have no idea about their limitations. Even MMCD isn't foolproof. Some of the numbers displayed are incorrect. Most are unaware of it.It's programming error.Then the batteries go flat, it turns off when needed. Has to be reloaded from a PC with palm installed. Laptop dies, can't reload palm, no datalogging 'til fixed. What a pain. Real instruments should be completely independant from anything software controlled wherever possible. A "real" vac/boost gauge for ALL cars, oil pressure, volts, that's all that's needed apart from what's normally factory fitted. all those other things are just gimmicks and a waste of time and space. That's "oldschool" ...Volts, oil press, oil temp, fuel., tach. boost/vac, speedo. Green oil light with blinkers either side. 2 ammeters missing from down below, I wouldn't use one these days because they cause a voltage drop and charging issues due to it. A knock light is pretty much essential these days, Link do the standalone "knocklink" which flashes lights. They work really well but need to be in a place where it blinds you so you can't miss it. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slacker.cam Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 Cam, sure, on a race track, all of that is true, but on the street, you can get out of it, stare at them for a while, boost through a gear to try to force a condition, etc. Those minor faults with the ute really made me feel vulnerable (to damage) whereas if I'd been able to look down and check some of those parameters I could have stopped worrying and relaxed a bit more. Yeah i definitely think a visual display is worth having, just not 10 gauges all up in your face stz. My plan is get small graphical LCD and put it where the clock used to be in the AE86. It'll look totally stock, will be readable from the drivers position (i hope), and will give me any data i want including lap times, etc. I think your truck has a small clock embedded in the instrument cluster? In which case this isnt a goer for you i guess. So what are the must have values in your opinion? Wether they be digital or otherwise... For me it's something like: Water temp Oil pressure AFR Boost Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishtailfred Posted March 24, 2010 Author Share Posted March 24, 2010 Forced, excellent point re independence of gauges. I concur. fred yeah those are some tacky screenshots from tunerstudioi'll give megatunix a whirl but last time I tried it diddn't support MS2extra f/w, given that was a while ago http://www.facebook.com/pages/DIYAutoTu ... 932&ref=mf From the author himself! I stayed a night with him in the US and had a good chin wag. He's a good guy, very switched on and with the right attitude. The tuner studio author is more switched on as a businessman than anything else. I reverse engineered some of his code just to take a look and didn't really like the airy fairy way it was written, or the pop ups about paying hiim money that it generated. Tuner studio will almost certainly become pay per view at some point too. Best to be independent of it where possible. Cam, up in my face I want the stock four gauges, functioning. IE, gas level, speedo, tacho, coolant temp. PLUS, boost, oil pressure, AFR. Fuel pressure, oil temperature, batt v and accurace coolant can be down and out of the way. Fred. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.