Heads up Display?

[2003protege]

Originally Posted by johnsoci

Right. For the whole kit it is around $500. but I am thinking of the hud itself and what Iwill need to interface it with my Cobalt.

Can't help you there. I mean...somewhere all the HUD is doing is picking up VSS, RPM, etc. signals. Whether it's taking those signals at the HUD unit or the ECU is digesting the information, I'm not sure.

It would make more sense to me that the ECU is doing the processing, in which case, the cobalt would not be able to do it unless HUD is an option for your model.

[johnsoci]

yah I think you are right . My car never came with the option. I'll have to do some more research.

[DavidClark1967]

Hi everyone,

I have scanned through the last few posts and have not found this answer so please forgive me if it is further back in the list.

I have recently purchased an iPhone and use an application called HUD and yes it is free.

The biggest trick with HUD is that the display on the device you are wanting to see needs to be mirror imaged before you show it to the windscreen. This application does exactly that. All I do is load the application and sit the phone on the dash facing the windscreen and you see the following information:

Speed (km or mls) Approximate size is 1.5 x 2"
Altitude (m or ft)
Direction of travel
Distance travelled
Time Taken to travel that distance.

The distance and time taken can be reset to zero at any time on the same screen.

I find it very useful in driving at night (hardly see it during the day) as you can see through it without any problem as it is the orange colour and without really focusing on it you can see your speed.

[dcb]

rest assured I do not plan on working for proprietary apple for free If they had an open platform and didn't cripple the phones for non apple developers I would consider it, but we cannot get the data to the device without spending a small fortune in hardware and/or telling everyone to jailbreak their phones.

So apple, don't be evil.

I am looking at droids though, will see.

[2003protege]

I want it visible during the day. That'll take vacuum fluorescent displays (stock GM HUDs) or directional LEDs (my project). Sry, iPhone.

[ArtFox]

Found this in the Kiwi manual:

7.4.3
HUD Mode

This option allows you to “flip” the image for Heads Up Display Applications. Images viewed off of a mirror
or reflective surface can be seen in the correct orientation if this mode is turned “on.”

[bobski]

For those of you building your own LED displays, take a look at the SAA1064 display driver chip. It's capable of driving up to 32 discreet LEDs or two sets of 16 LEDs in common-anode display modules (the 16-LED groups can be divided up however you like). That's four 7-segment digits + decimal points, but they have to be single or double-digit CA modules... No common cathode or 4 digit modules. The chip has internal programmable constant-current drivers (0 to 21 mA in 3 mA steps) which means no external current-limiting resistors for the LEDs. In addition, the current can be changed on the fly, allowing dimming of the display.
The chip is controlled by I2C serial, so it only takes up two I/O pins on the Arduino, and multiple chips can be controlled on those same two wires... I2C uses device addresses.
The best part: Mouser sells them in a breadboard/protoboard-friendly DIP-24 package for $1.54 a piece.
Here's the datasheet: link
Just the bare chip will drive 16 LEDs. Add a 2.7nF cap and two NPN transistors (2N3904s have worked for me) to enable multiplexed output to 32 LEDs (only 16 LEDs are active at any given time, but the chip alternates back and forth faster than the eye can perceive, so they appear to be constantly lit).
This is a "dumb" chip in that it doesn't provide any number fonts, which is actually good for the HUD application... You define your own fonts in the code on the Arduino, so it's a simple matter of playing with a few values to get horizontal and/or vertical mirror-imaged numbers, or really whatever combination of display segments you like. In stead of four 7-segment digits, you could drive a pair of 16-segment (or 14 with 2 free LEDs) alphanumeric digits. Here's a wikipedia page if you're not sure what I'm talking about: link
Additionally, it can be used to drive a bar graph, an assortment of indicator LEDs, or unit indicators to go with a group of numerical digits. You could get nice unit indicator text by printing inverted text (white on black background) on transparency sheets, then cutting it out as a block and back-lighting it with LEDs.

Here's a vid of it running a bar graph I put together recently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM_XNEIQYxU

[random_variable]

I've thought about doing a HUD a few times.

Here is a very long thread at mp3car.com with a ton of ideas and testing on HUD's.

Project NiteVision - NiteMax + HUD + carputer - MP3Car.com

[meekin]

Whoever figures out how to do a HUD. My hat off to you. I would love to have a HUD. I find my eyes creeping more and more to my MPG monitor in town (i have it mounted below my radio). This would be a great safety improvement (at least for me).

[miket]

Wouldn't you get eliminate ghosting and significantly increase brightness if you used a combiner? A screen in front of or on the glass thats reflective to the exact narrow wavelength of the display but transparent to others?