Heads up Display?

[moorecomp]

Maybe the following can be adapted to a HUD? Simply shine the light through from the front side of the upside down lcd?

Projection clock

[dcb]

FYI, mouser had a 2x16 VFD for $38, interface looks similiar at first glance (with synchronous serial option available too).

M0216SD-162SDAR2-1

I'm kinda tempted to stop by newhaven and pick one up
http://www.newhavendisplay.com/pdf/m...162sdar2-1.pdf

An inexpensive graphical VFD would be nice too, no mirror required. But an additional $38 is pretty cheap for custom HUD mpguino that takes little to no extra programming

[mrcs007]

on the LCDs, could you just switch the pins that are getting excited to be reversed?

[i_am_socket]

Seems the mirror trick would work rather well with the reverse polarization of the LCD to do bright characters / dark background...

[winkosmosis]

To reverse an LCD you use polarizing film mounted at 90 degrees to the original orientation

[dcb]

Sort of. There are two polarizing layers, one behind the LCD glass and one in front.

First you have to cut the top layer off, or tear down the LCD and strip off the top layer.

Then you have to find replacement polarization film, or cut your original to fit.

But then in your HUD you will be shining blue light in your eyes, which is like the worst color for night vision.

I'm not sure which plane will be polarized at that point but you would want to avoid vertical for glare reasons. The bouncing off the windshield should give it some horizontal polarization which would attenuate the image if it is vertically polarized from the LCD.

[dcb]

I think the ideal HUD color would be red. So to that end, maybe just a 3 digit large LED numbers and a small mirror would be a good experiment. Ideally it would be a first surface concave mirror to reduce ghosting, but it would have to be enclosed if used for long.

Perhaps using an atmega168 to drive the LED numbers and read the serial output from a mpguino, a-la remote display. Haven't seen one of those materialize yet (unless you count daisy chaining mpguinos).

I did pick up a couple some LEDs from the local sciplus.com for $0.75 a piece (they quickly ran out of stock), and picked up the largest stick-on convex mirror I saw at the store (couple bucks) and carefully removed the plastic. The trick now is to strip the tan stuff off the back of the mirror (paint stripper?) and I should be left with a first surface concave mirror. And of course some electronics/wiring/programming to sort out.



It isn't a priority for me at the moment, but if one or more of you think it is a good plan and feel reasonably confident you can pull it off, then by all means help yourself. Let everyone know how it goes and if you get stuck.

[2003protege]

totally subscribed to this thread. always dreamed of doing this, never had the motivation. good luck!

[2003protege]

how about some pictures of real-world HUDs?
Found these on YouTube. Not mine obviously. I'm not sure what he's using, but I'm sure we're all interested in a more integrated approach - not something sitting on the dash. Plus, I would want the display a bit closer to the hood level, not hovering straight ahead, maybe that's just me though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5w9m...eature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBKH5JxgD5M&NR=1

I recently purchased a digital alarm clock, and plan on gutting the LED screen for use with a MPGuino-type setup. I'm looking forward to working on it!

[FastPlastic]

Looks good

It's too bad it's against the law in most places to put tint below the first few inches of the top of the windshield. A super light tint would remove most of the double image your getting from the display. I tried the trick with my cell phone in my Jeep. Works great with the tinted windows.