Found a great spot for my MPGuino

[McTimson]

I ordered all the parts to make an iDuino MPGuino, all of the stuff came yesterday, but I'm still waiting on the iDuino to get here. So to get through the wait, I thought about where to put this thing in my car. Luckily, the clock for my car is pretty much the perfect size for this LCD.

Here's the normal clock:


And here's with the LCD instead of the clock:


The back:


And the wires from the original clock:


The LCD actually wedges in there, it would probably stay there on it's own, but I'll probably screw it in or something.

The clock is easily removable, it's only clipped in, so you just pull and it comes right out.

The wires leading in are battery, accessory, ground, and something from a taillight relay. I'll use the battery and ground line, and use the other 2 wires for VSS and the injector signal.

There's also a pretty decent amount of space behind the clock in the car, I think I'll definitely be able to fit all the components in there.

The original clock even has 3 buttons, unfortunately they're the type that connect 2 spots on the PCB, but I can still use the holes in the plastic to make it look like it's somewhat stock.

Now I just need the iDuino!

[gasnmyveins]

Good thinking, that's going to look great. If you get some black plastic, you could cut it to size for the opening between the guino and the clock housing, and it would look like the factory put it there themselves. You could even mount the lcd to the plastic and then mount the plastic to the clock housing. Might be a good bit easier. Good luck.

[wagonman76]

Wow thats cool. +1 on the black plastic. Looks like it could be made to look good on just about any car just sitting on top of the dash, just get the right color housing from a junkyard Tercel.

[McTimson]

Yea, I'm going to try to just cut out a hole in the original plastic for the LCD screen. You can see the original black plastic in the last picture, it's upside down there.

If I leave the screen behind the plastic, it'll probably be too dark, but I'll do some testing to see if it'll be visible enough. I am going to use the original buttons, I'll just have them push my new switches, to make it look cleaner.

I hate having this stuff just sitting on my desk, I need my iDuino to get here!

[McTimson]

I cut up the plastic today, and got it to fit in nicely:
LCD off:


LCD backlight on:



I think it looks awesome, hopefully I can get everything to fit in the space in the car.

I really want to see what it looks like with symbols on the screen, because right now I can only get the backlight to turn on, I don't feel like making a circuit to control all the other inputs.

[i_am_socket]

Very awesome

I'm still trying to figure out where to stick mine once I get it assembled.

[McTimson]

The iDuino came yesterday, and I wasted no time getting it put together. Spent most of the day yesterday soldering everything, and today making it fit. I still need to get it in the car, I'm pretty sure I have the wires I need, but it's too cold right now to try messing around with it outside. Anyway, here's the finished product (hopefully):

[TomO]

Congrats and very slick looking installation!

[MetroMPG]

Awesome. Soon you'll be selling Guino mounts on eBay along with all the SG blend mounts.

[wagonman76]

Cool, looks great!