Dash Guages Anything new available?

[Lwanmtr]

Ok..so I finally got to checking the lights on the dash in dark...and wow....i mean kinda ick...The whole thing is lit

I've been spoiled by the slick backlit guages on modern cars...Wondering if anyones swapped out gauges for backlit ones? Is there a kit or something?

Yeah, I got a ways to go before I really change all that (you can see my thread on my car...hehe)..but just curious after I seen that.

[sdg3205]

IIRC Jim reeves has been been developing a backlit gauge for a while. Run a quick search.

[Lwanmtr]

Did a quick search and nothing came up.

[DMC5180]

IIRC Jim reeves has been been developing a backlit gauge for a while. Run a quick search.

Jims project is on hiatus.

[Lwanmtr]

Awe..thats too bad

[sdg3205]

Talk to Toby. His car runs either backlit or some other wild concoction.

[Lwanmtr]

Ill have to ask him..hehe.

Thought it'd be cool to make a digital dash using a tablet to replace the cluster...but I have no idea how to do something like that.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Jims project is on hiatus.

I warned Jim his project was going to be very extensive and take a long time. Jim wanted to make all new electronic gauges and with that, LEDs to light up a new "decal" for each gauge. It's a great idea but I knew would be really to extensive for a one man job.

I just bought a spare gas/oil gauge to do some fuel gauge testing. Looking at the gauge face plate, it looks like a cast black plastic with white silk screened letters/lines. Not much room behind that face plate but maybe could do custom LED back lighting. Maybe 3D print new clear plastic that could be used as light pipes with LEDs sourcing the light.

If someone did that, it looks like all you would need to do to install the new face plates is pull the gauge pointers off and install them correctly located after replacing the plastic "decals".

By the way, the fuel gauge is a dual coil design witch uses quite a bit of current to run. I think they use that design so the gauge stays accurate with the cars variations in the 12 volt values. I can see why new fuel senders have problems burning out with the high currents used.

[Lwanmtr]

Hmm...I hadnt thought of printing new faceplates...with correct dimension would be fairly easy to do on a dual extrude...though Im sure of the light transmitting properties of any of the 'clear' filament I have (which isnt truly clear).

[Bitsyncmaster]

Hmm...I hadnt thought of printing new faceplates...with correct dimension would be fairly easy to do on a dual extrude...though Im sure of the light transmitting properties of any of the 'clear' filament I have (which isnt truly clear).

I use to fix commercial and military aircraft systems. These had clear plastic face plates that ere painted gray or black and had engraved outlines for lettering and lines. Then the plastic face plates had little incandescent bulbs on an machined recess on the back. That made the whole face plate a "light pipe" with fantastic results. If you have ever seen a cockpit at night with all the instrument lit you would drool over the results.

[Ras12]

How about reprinting the guage face numbers/letter and lines with Glow in the Dark print and painting the needle with Glow in the Dark paint? Sounds cheesy but during the day the letters/numbers and needle will appear white with the back background and at night they will glow?

[Ras12]

Check out this cool thread...

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?30877-DIY-LED-Instrument-Gauge-Cluster-amp-Glow-Needles

[Mario]

Seems like the easiest and cheapest way would be to use translucent plastic sheets, then get the front decals silkscreened on, not putting any paint where you want light to shine through. I guess that's a lot like what Bitsync was talking about. Relatively cheap and easy to do in large quantities. Then you just have to backlight them, but there a lot of different ways one could do that.

[jamesrguk]

Any reason why you can't just cut a vinyl decal negative in Matt black and stick it over el foil?

It would be a lot less involved, granted each unit would only glow one colour.

I have messed around with EL foil before, it's pretty low cost in the grand scheme of things, but I have only used it in silly little projects and don't really know much about its long term reliability, so quite prepared to be shot down on this idea!

Perhaps I'm being too low tec.

J

[Lwanmtr]

Another option could be the flat light strips used in modeling..pretty flexible and workable (though I havent personally tried it)..alot use it on star trek enterprise models in the nacelles

[Bitsyncmaster]

The needles on the fuel and oil pressure gauges sit pretty high off the "decal" faceplate. So I think you could get more room if needed to backlight a new "decal". You would have to check the other gauges for the same clearance.