Neo98

Well guys i've played around a lot with these and had some somewhat disappointing results. First, here's a picture of the most recent prototype:



The bad news follows:

First of all, I was under the impression that the tach could rev past 8,000 rpm (hence, the 9000 stretch shown above).. but in reality the needle physically stops when it reaches 8000 rpm, so, looks like I'm going to have to revise this back to stock form (ending at 8k)

Second.. the backlighting in the cluster SUCKS. The rotor only lights up in some places, because there is stuff behind the face that blocks light from shining through. Aside from this, the light distribution over the ticks and numbers is poor at best, meaning there are bright spots and really dark spots (looks like crap!). When I darkened the blue, it looked a lot better, but it was so dim it was hardly readable in low light, decent but still dim in pitch dark.

The needles aren't lit--this translates to deleting the lighting from the front yields no needles, cause you can't see them at night.

So... I think as far as where I'm going here, the best choice is to leave the cluster lit from the front. Now, I am playing with the idea of using blue or red coated bulbs for the front lighting, to see how it will look-- but the illumination of the numbers and ticks probably will be hardly noticeable since it's so dim.

The rotor will not be backlit at all--sorry But hey, it still looks awesome.

So.. based on this, does anybody still want these or should I scrap the project while I'm ahead? They look great during the day, and at night I am unsure, the results so far (with blocked off front lighting) were disappointing). As before, pricing would be likely $70 a set.

-A

live4boost

iTrader: (2)

I may still be interested. Take a pic of how they look at night. I have a aftermarket tach and other gauges, so the only thing I need to see is the spedo. I would like to see how visible they are at night though

Supermac

i wanna see a night pic when you get all done ill probably be interested. anyway to replace the needles with something that glows?

flubyux2

check it out man, youre doing great. every one-off fabricatoin project hits it snags. trust me i know. i make LOTS of parts for my cars, cuz im too cheap to buy the real thing. lucky for me, they work out. i guess im just good like that.

anywho, dont make the rotor that big, make the rotor smaller, oriented ABOVE the needle. i still wanna see a "SAVANNA" below the rotor logo too, we could all use a little J-spec touch in our cars.

is there anyway to remove the light blocking objects behind the guages? say, grind it out w/ a dremel?

also, for the front- lit option, go to APC, or Nopi, and order the different colored bulbes, instead of coloring them. ive tried to make clear tail lights work w/ red painted bulbs, and it doesnt work. the paint is either too thick and wont allow much lighting, or will just burn off in an hour. you can pick up Amber colored lights at autozone, and blue ones. but for Green, or purple, or whatever, you will have to order them, cuz they arent in high demand.

chris

id still like to see Silver faces...

Mallard Duck

They look pretty neat. You might want to make all the text/images on the face a little bit bolder, I could easily see them getting washed out as you drive away from the sun.

Audiofight

I agree with the other comments already stated:

Looking good so far!
I am still interested myself. $70 is a good price. I will pay it.
Silver may be an option.

About the lighting problems:

Is there anyway to fab your own lighting w/ parts from say, Radio Shack? Make adapters to plug into the previous locations but have better placed back-lighting? Or, hard-wire new plugs into the old wiring? Hell, use the old spots and make a new lead to plug in to add more bulbs!

I don't mind running some extra power and ground wires in order to make the rotor light up. I really think that would be cool to see. Also, post an in-the-dark pic with that lit up the way it is. Maybe we can add some suggestions. Also, what wattage bulbs are you using right now? Might want to look into higher wattage, brighter output.

ItsNiceToBurnRice

Ill take a set-if you figure out the lighting and make that rotor smaller. Ill definetely take a set then

flubyux2

LEDs from radio shack. tell them what u wana do and what u have to work with, those nerds should be able to point you in the right direction.

the rotor doesnt HAVE to light up, altho it would be cool, but like i said, id like to have it a little smaller above the center needle, w/ "SAVANNA" reading right below the rotor logo. we all need to return our RX7s to their roots.

chris

chaos7

iTrader: (2)

how do you remove the needles without breaking the connecting rod? im interested too.

TonyTurboII

Pretty good idea though.

Node

iTrader: (1)

lmfao thats hilarious
point you in right direction to LEDs, those nerdy bastards don't know ****

rico05

Give us a night pic when you got one! Hell, it looks good so far bro! I'm down for a set if you can get most of the bugs out! Keep us posted!!

Agent_D

iTrader: (2)

looks good i made my own set a few months back, if you use a RED permanant marker on the needles it will glow through in the night, i had red needles, used the red marker, and blue backlights, you can get them at any local auto store, it lit up pretty good, not too bright, but good enough to see, the red needles would turn an amazing blue color at night, kinda like an anodized blue was purday perm. marker should work on the needles just fine, did on my car, and you can use any color you want.

to take them off without taking out the little rod also, i had to learn this the hard way on 3 sets of gauge clusters lol, you pull up the needles just a bit, if the rod is coming with it, you will know, its much harder to pull off if the rod is still attached, get a pair of needle nose pliers and hold the rod and pull off the needle, if you get the rod out of there, it is a ROYAL pain in the *** to get it back in right, took me about an hour and a half to get the damn thing back in there right lol, and i had to do that for two of them so i was pretty pissed off

MikeL

I'm surprised to hear that your tach actually stops at 8k. My '87 TII tach doesn't seem to stop at 8k. I'm not sure though. Is your's a n/a tach? I guess they're different. Isn't this the '89-'91 n/a tach showing 9k rpm?



Here's some templates:

DJChunter

I agree the the above state but your doing great. I would pick up a set when available if you fix the tach and put the redline on it with say red/orange needles.
Thanks Dave

flubyux2

so when you get this thing down pat, are we gonna have to send our guages to you so you can apply the vinyl, and color our needles w/ permanant markers?

i like the permanant marker idea.

the other idea i heard of was actually spray painting the needles a bright red-orange. but you have to mist it on, w/ a couple coats to get a uniform color. otherwise, the paint will collect on there, and weigh down your needles. and then your tach and speedo and other things wont read correctly.

OOOHHH, i got a great idea! do you guys think our bright white speedo needles are UV active?? would the glow under a Blacklight?

they make little 6" neeon tubes, i bet a black light would fit inside the cluster housing, and sit in front of the guage faces. that would be TIGHT.

hell, even iff the needles DONT glow in the black light. PAINT them w/ some TIDE laundy detergent. that **** glows like a Motha fukka!

damn im a genious. besides, that wouldnt be Stir-fry-ey at all, cuz no honda-boys have UV-glo guages, they just got Indi-glo guages.

chris

Node

iTrader: (1)

If you're handy w/ electronics at all you could do this yourself :-D
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bi...529&type=store <---12v inverter
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bi...350&type=store <---- 100mm UV bulb (4")
I know where to get bigger, like 12"

I have a red 12" cold cathode (like a neon just smaller and brighter) that is about 1/6" thick, theyre pretty incredible.
I wonder how it would look at daytime? I know it would be badass at night.

And you could also just make it out of Electroluminescent sheet, I have a 2"x2" sheet sitting right by me, white when not lit, and light blue (indi-glo) when lit. Very nice stuff, and you can get it in different colors. White w/ Pink tint when not lit but white when lit.
This stuff also needs a 12v inverter

Node

iTrader: (1)

can anyone give me a rough number on how wide and tall the guages are on an FC.
I only need what can be seen and try to just get from edge to edge of gauge cluster (giant rectangle)

flubyux2

Node, i wouldnt mind doin that myself.

if i can get the Needles to glow purple from the Blacklight, and the guage faces to stay Silver (not glow) id do that, and not worry about the needles bein white. not to mention, it wouldnt matter if there is Insufficient back lightig frome the stock bulbs.

did you happen to see an actually light element called "blacklight" or is there just the UV light, cuz im not sure what differences there are between a blacklight and UV light.

Audiof: how do you get the Guage faces on? do you remove the needle, and apply the guage to the cluster, and replace the needle? do you float on the guages like window tint or large decals w/ a soapy solution? or do you just Aim, and stick, and hope to hell that the sticker is lined up?

chris

Neo98

Well, I don't have an rx7 personally-- it's my friends. As of the moment he has the one pictured above in one car and an earlier prototype in another car. The cluster pictured about looks absolutely horrendous at night, and a picture is not worth posting. I can prob get a picture of the older cluster at night, but like I said the blue is very faint and the front lighting is blocked off so you can't see the needles.. I'll ask him about this.

At the moment I'm testing the waters with red text/#/etc and going to try to make the rotor smaller and maybe put it between the needle and the top numbers on the tach. If nothing else, it will be an option, and won't be back-lit.

I have a good feeling that the red will look much better when back lit. But, I don't know if anyone will want this now that you know it can be done with blue but just comes out really dim lit.

So.. I'm going to make one with red. I'm thinking that I will end up making both red and blue font versions, with the option to make them opaque or allow backlighting. The only solution I see with the blue is to add auxiliary lighting to make them brighter, but I'd let you guys deal with that, I just don't have enough time to go that far with it.

One other problem I ran into-- the 0 and 9 on the tach are overlapping the shift-up light and bright indicator (lighting), so I've moved them to the left and right a bit for clearance. My friend's car is an NA, and the tach just stops at 8k. If the sweep-factor is the same for the 9k tach (same number of degrees for each 1000 rpm) then I can probably go up to 10k without a problem by shifting things around--but that might run me into another lighting problem. Likely I'll keep things at 9k, whether the needle can sweep that far or not.

So.. I'm going to go start on the new one now (red), wish me luck Yeah I know it's taking me forever to get this together, but the end of the semester has a way of really kickin ya in the nuts.

Neo98

oh yeah, forgot to mention, removing the needles is not -that- bad, my friend didn't seem too have much problem with it. If there's no howto I can probably get one together.

Thingol

Well, as said above you are still doing great. And I am still interested.

I think I would actually prefer having red to blue (everything else in the car is red or orange ), so if you can figure the bugs out, $70 is sounding like a very good price. I will definitaly buy some.

Personally, I really like the big rotor (like it now) as well.

dcamcoTII

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/Album...a=13778907&f=0 some T2 faces I made

flubyux2

Neo, i havent been inside my dash cluster yet, but im willing to bet that the lighting is supplied from the Wedge-type bulbs that just push in and out of the plugs.

if this is the case, and they original ones arent supplying enough light, sylvania always makes High intensity lights, or higher output. just like for turnsignals and parking lights, there is always an option for High Output bulbs right next to the original bulbs. ive got High Output bulbs in my front turnsignals, amber colored. i use them with my clear lenses, and when i hit the turnsignals, its almost Blinding. if i use it on the freeway at night, road signs 1/4 mile down the road light up as if i hit my high beams. the same applies for In-town driving too. all the directional signs posted above the intersection light up like someone is shining a spotlight at them. its amazing how bright these things are.

chris

nikedope

Hey man those gauges are awesome. If you can, email me cuz I'm interested in some 87 Turbo II gauges. nikedope98@aol.com