I made a real case for the mpguino. This is a hard plastic 4x4 junction box from work. It is a great fit into the area that I wanted to put the mpguino in the car. A lot more solid and looks a lot better too. 2 pieces of weatherstripping top and bottom hold the unit firmly in place between the fixed part of the steering column and the lip of the gauge cluster.
KF 8040, Liquid Tight Polystyrene Enclosures (Indoor/Outdoor Installations): Smooth Wall (No Knock-Outs)
Here is the box I used. We use quite a few of these at work so I just used one, the system says we paid about $5 so thats my cost. I had to trim the lip off the top so it would fit where I wanted in my dash. I also had to carve out some spots on the inside with a dremel, and of course make the openings. The boards are held in by screws and rubber hose on each side of the screw, hopefully will give some stress isolation.
Its the same components in post 484, with the reset button added. But if I did it again, Id put it on the side away from the other buttons, still might do that. I also might add a switch to go between USB power and car power. And maybe a switch to turn the display on and off, rather than running another wire for a relay or transistor.
__________________
Winter daily driver, parked for the season, except used occassionally for junkyarding
I have read way too much of this very long post, and I realize that there is already a Wiki, but I have to say there really is not info there, and digging through all this data is very cumbersome. If you all agree, I would like to take a shot at organizing this info in a wiki page based on wikimedia software, which is the same software used for Wikipedia.
I do not want to waste my time if I do not get a positive response, and I would need to get help from all of you to get as much info as possible into the site.
This is great! A quick search of my car's manual and I've found the pins for VSS and the injectors on the ECU, so it shouldn't be too hard to hook up.
A question, though. Is it possible to customise what data is displayed? I would only need, say, instant L/100km and L/100km-since-reset (per tank, really). Would it be possible to set it up so that only these two figures are displayed on startup? If I could tap into the reset button on the trip meter it would be good, too. Only one button to push, then!
Secondly, is it possible to rig it to adjust the backlight brightness to match the instrument brightness? That way I wouldn't have a bright light in the middle of the dash at night. I could always set it to a decent night time brightness and let it shine on during the day, but it would look more professional if the backlight came on and adjusted with the same control as the rest of the cluster.
Ideally I'd buy a 3 or 4 x 2 character LCD and stick it between the speedo and tacho on my dash, so it looks like Subaru put it there. But I haven't really seen anything other than 16x2 out there. I'd rather it wasn't taped to the dash with wires running everywhere.
I'm still not 100% on exactly how this works, but I like the idea, and it'll be a good project until I start my EV conversion. (Speaking of which, could this be reworked to provide Wh/km data?)
iduino and radioshack 4x2x1 case. Not perfect, but as close as I need it to be.
This required a lot of cutting not only to the enclosure, but I also had to cut the LCD board's corners off to get it to slide between the parts inside the enclosure that accept the screws. The rear terminals are for +12v, ground, Injector, VSS.
Last edited by drivenByNothing; 08-17-2008 at 06:24 PM..
Scoob - '05 Impreza Outback Sport SE 90 day: 25.28 mpg (US)
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by drivenByNothing
iduino and radioshack 4x2x1 case. Not perfect, but as close as I need it to be.
This required a lot of cutting not only to the enclosure, but I also had to cut the LCD board's corners off to get it to slide between the parts inside the enclosure that accept the screws. The rear terminals are for +12v, ground, VSS, Injector.
4x2x1, huh? I assume you're using the iDuino for your MPGuino (that and the 7805 sticking out the rear). Can you take some pics of the boards themselves inside the case? I just built my iDuino and was about to start on the rest of the board, and would love to see how you set up your board to get it to fit in the case. Thanks!
Any pictures of the creation?
I'd rather it wasn't taped to the dash with wires running everywhere. 
