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modding LEDs/Lights in the logicon, warning cluster, etc
Was wondering how difficult it would be for me to change all the internal lights on the logicon, the warning lights, etc to a color of my choosing. I am fairly capable of soldering new leds and such, but I just didn't know how hard it was to disassemble.
What you would have to do is make a new face plate or modify the current one. The bulbs are just plain bulbs, it's the filters on the plate that make it whatever color it appears. This goes for the warning lights, there are other factors at play for the logicon and switches.
This has always been on my list of projects as well. The project became less urgent after i found a spot for my wideband display in the center console. My plan was to get black vinyl cut to the design and lay if over some thin lexan/plexi.
LEDs in the idiot cluster would still probably be a good idea anyways. Might as well make it a tad bit brighter while reducing the current draw. It'd match a new faceplate with modernized looks. Although, if you were going to that extent, you may as well just make a custom digital unit. I think a digital display that continually displayed the clock and a couple read outs like AFRs or coolant temperature, but then cleared the display if it needed to throw up a warning, would solve every FC owner's dilemma of figuring out where to mount gauges.
On that note, has anyone made a digital replacement for the logicon or idiot cluster? After watching that episode of mightycarmods with that digital aircon unit and the Arduino stuffed in the back, I've been wondering how to apply that to the FC.
Are you sure it's not orange plastic? I really don't know but I work in manufacturing (tool and die, mold maker) and putting on a layer to change color is not common. At least in today's environment it's not. The Chevy bowtie is amber plastic with chrome plating on the back, not clear with gold plating.
A complete led display dash would be sweetness, that's for sure. I saw a post on this forum from someone that makes custom digital dash inserts but are not a full digital display.
If you've got a decent aptitude for electronics, this should be a fair bit of work, but not impossible to pull off in an FC (if you managed to find one of those unicorn factory digital stereos or aircon units).
Originally Posted by TonyD89
Are you sure it's not orange plastic? I really don't know but I work in manufacturing (tool and die, mold maker) and putting on a layer to change color is not common. At least in today's environment it's not. The Chevy bowtie is amber plastic with chrome plating on the back, not clear with gold plating.
A complete led display dash would be sweetness, that's for sure. I saw a post on this forum from someone that makes custom digital dash inserts but are not a full digital display.
I gave away my extra idiot cluster to a friend who wanted it... I'll ask him to see if he can pull it apart and check if it's a film or colored plastic.
I'm planning on using these when I do the rest of my lights in LED. Neo-Wedge Bulbs. If there is a film you just remove it and put it on to these. Might take a little work but it should be fine.
Funny this gets mentioned, no doubt I'm going to change my bulbs to LED, but I've often thought of simply writing up some code that converts the warning lights into bitmap images and displaying them on a 40x2 or 40x4 LCD. Then including random info like coolant temp, oil pressure, WB A/F, etc on the other side of the display. Not too hard to make bitmap images, then with a big enough Atmel chip, I'd simply just connect the wires to inputs (since there's only about 8 or so warning lights), run the LCD off I2C (so 2 data wires) and have the entire setup start when the key is on.
Making the whole display mount in the stock bezel wouldn't be too hard either since I already design and 3D print products with Solidworks for the company I work for. I'd use an orange or red 40x4 LCD, then put tinted plexi over it so that it's smoked looking like stock when off, and lit up about the same color of the gauges/interior when on.
Something this size would fit in the cluster's place rather well with the mount I'd design for it:
I'd order it in red though.
Maybe I'll get bored in the coming months and get motivated to make something like this, once it's designed, it would just be a matter of plugging in the chip/lcd combo, and mounting the LCD in the warning cluster's place. If you search google, you'll see we're not the only one's that have thought of this idea persay. Albeit no other cars seem to have idiot light clusters outside their gauge cluster, but the idea of engine info on an LCD in the dash, is an established and invented idea. Great thing is, most of the code for sensors is readily available online, and once you know C++, making the code display what you want, becomes easy to figure out.
This probably sounds like a bunch of nerd speak, but I have thought of this many times and always thought it would be cool to have the warning cluster be LCD and to turn the redline buzzer into an adjustable buzzer/shift light, so maybe I'll make it a reality soon after I retrieve and rebuild my TII.
Not nerd speak to a nerd lol. Sounds plausible, and I actually like it after some careful thought. At first I was like, "but that takes away from simply modernizing the old school feel!" But then I was ok with it.
A digital display is already slower transferring info to the driver (compared to an analog gauge), so you must locate it where it doesn't move the drivers eyes too far from the road. Probably the best "stockish" option would be the warning light cluster, not great but far better than on the center stack.
That location, convenient and semi-stealthy as it is, does suffer from glare issues however, I find it frequently washed out by the sun.
Does this display have strong enough backlighting and crisp enough resolution to remain legible in adverse lighting conditions?
A digital display is already slower transferring info to the driver (compared to an analog gauge), so you must locate it where it doesn't move the drivers eyes too far from the road. Probably the best "stockish" option would be the warning light cluster, not great but far better than on the center stack.
That location, convenient and semi-stealthy as it is, does suffer from glare issues however, I find it frequently washed out by the sun.
Does this display have strong enough backlighting and crisp enough resolution to remain legible in adverse lighting conditions?
Dang clokker, you must be blind dude. It can be 110* outside with heat mirages inside the car, while sitting in traffic at 3pm in Dallas, and I can still see the gauges and warning cluster.
If it makes you feel better, I have occupational hearing loss.
A digital display is already slower transferring info to the driver (compared to an analog gauge), so you must locate it where it doesn't move the drivers eyes too far from the road. Probably the best "stockish" option would be the warning light cluster, not great but far better than on the center stack.
That location, convenient and semi-stealthy as it is, does suffer from glare issues however, I find it frequently washed out by the sun.
Does this display have strong enough backlighting and crisp enough resolution to remain legible in adverse lighting conditions?
Pretty certain an OLED screen would be extremely bright and sufficiently so for the application. From what I've seen, screen dimensions and color options aren't the best, but it seems to be better than nothing. If nothing else, you could fiddle with the contrast using a potentiometer and play with positive and negative backlighting. Your standard, run of the mill basic LCD probably won't have powerful backlighting and won't work well unless you have all black interior trim. That being said, I remember going to CES and seeing 3M's anti glare film that's designed for the new glass screens on all of those new touchscreen laptops. Don't remember if it's being sold already, but that could work as well.
I'd probably go the oled route the more I think about it. For kicks last night I drew up .bmp indicators and converted them to bitmap. For example, see attached picture.
Drawing up the stock indicators would take maybe an hour to do, then it's just a matter of arranging them in their stock locations on the oled lcd. I the code I'd set the void setup() to flash all of them for a few seconds like when you turn the key on, then when a sensor registers a problem and would normally light up that indicator in the stock unit, have that wire go to an input on the chip, then it would be something simple like if pin 1 is high, then display bitmap (fuel). Any of this can be arranged with sensor info, a clock, oled temp/psi/fuel level, etc.
Don't have my rx readily available at the moment, but I'll probably order up a suitable LCD for experiment sake, tonight.
Reviving an old thread due to finally getting an FC back in the garage.
I'm looking for a a cluster to test on since I don't really want to keep taking mine out to test with. I'd prefer an '88 cluster, since it has the Smoked cover, and it will hide the electronics behind it better.
The plan is to use something like this:
Going OLED for a number of reasons, and I'll probably see about getting an orange film to put over the red to make it match the interior lighting a little better.
As of right now, taking all the idiot lights and muxing them together into a chip won't be very hard. I could make it really easy on myself and have each error spelled out, or spend time in Photoshop copying the original icons, perhaps both.
Future updates would be nice to have an integrated vac/boost gauge, and maybe a volt meter. Hard to say how many GPIO's I'll have left until a larger chip would be necessary.
I'll probably design a nice little 3D printed enclosure, so it can bolt right into the factory space. Who knows, maybe there's room for two displays.
It will definitely say "Mazda RX-7" across the screen, like the RX8's do.
I'm sure everyone knows this, but wanted to point out that the incandescent bulb for the alternator warning light provides a necessary load. You'll need to either retain it, or emulate the load (probably a resistor will work even though the incandescent resistance is weird, starts out low then increases once lit).
Had not though about that actually, still getting my brain back into 80s technology. I'll have to think of a work around for this.
Little side project I'm working on since my idiot cluster surround is cracked, is 3D printing a sloped housing that fits a small oled display sort in the center, thus covering the crack too. I put together a small i2c oled boost gauge with peak for my friend's WRX using a simple Pro-Mini. Think about building a smaller one for myself.
-so much tinkering, so little time. Kinda like your Cosmo build...
01-31-15, 01:13 PM
