My Roomate and I were talking about this the other day. And the recent posts about LED's has sparked my interest...
I remember back when I had my 84 Nissan 200 SX it had a digital tachometer... and you all know how those little lights turned from green to yellow to red on the tachometer.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a cluster that was backlit a similar way?
What I mean by this is that as you increase in revolutions per minute.... The cluster goes from... say.. a white color.... to a yellow.. to an orange... and then closer to red. as you go higher. Of course chances are you won't see Solid Red, that would be bad, but you would probably see a Red/Orange at the track. But you know what I mean? One color fades into the next as your RPM's go up.
Just thinking out loud....
You're telling me all of the great minds of the Interior forum can't think of anything?
hmm.. Maybe this post would have been better served in electronics.
Either way, Anyone else have any other input? Maybe I should send some e-mails to a few companies that deal with installing colored LED's into our Clusters....
I sent an e-mail to black cat customs...
Quote:
Alright I had a question for you guys, but don't exactly know if you'll understand the nature of this....
I used to own a nissan 200SX with the Electronic Tachometer option... and I liked how it worked..
The way it worked was that as you increased in RPM's The color of the tach bar would proceed from green to orange to red if you took it up too high. I liked the design.
The other day I came up with this idea..
Now think of this.. I have a 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier...
Would it be even remotely possible to somehow install leds that read the tach signal and changed colors of the cluster numbers as the rpm's increased?
For example... 0- 1500 rpm's would be white... 1501-3500 would be a soft yellow.... 3501- 4500 would be a more solid Yellow..... 4501-5700 would be orange, and anything after 5701 up to 7000 RPM's would be Red.
And it would work like this. It wouldn't be a drastic color change, but each color progressing into the next and becoming more intense until you reached high revolutions and the cluster's numbers turned red.... sort of like the effect you'd get if you started heating up metal.. it'd turn yellow.. then orange. then red. Each color gradually progressing into the next.
I'm not looking into an overlay. I'm looking at this as a custom LED setup that will change the color of the numbers on the gauges....
For example
http://www.j-body.org/forums/read.php?f=45&i=68183&t=68183
How feasable would this be? C'mon guys, help me out here. Hope this is something worth looking into
Honestly, it sounds like you'd be using the same principle that the air/fuel gauges use. I'm sure if you put your head together with an electrical engineer (I know there's a few on this site) it'd be relatively inexpensive to do.
hahaha I don't know any electrical engineers on this site. Maybe they'll read this and comment...
You have anyone in mind Omega?
There was a guy who posted a thread in the boost forum about making his own turbo timer. That's the first person off the top of my head--I'll see if I can find the thread.
i remember about a year ago someone had this done. they had the WHOLE cluster put into digital. i dont remember who it was, or where the pics are, but it has been done, and it looked amazing!!!
I think the easiest way would be to use a red/green bicolor LED and vary the amount of current to the green and red terminals to change the color as RPMs changed.
By using a red/green bicolor LED, a mix of colors fading from green to yellow to red can be produced. All that has to be done is getting a tach signal from somewhere and converting into something usable for modulating the LED.
For everyone who doesn't really have a background in electronics I will simplify this for you.
A bicolor LED is like having two different LEDs inside one case. Each LED is a different color and the colors can be mixed to achieve different shades. A bicolor LED can have either two or three leads. A two lead LED has the internal diodes connected in reverse parallel so that changing the direction of current on the leads changes the color. When operated on AC, they appear a mix of the two colors. A three lead LED has either a common cathode or anode connection with the other two leads being the opposite poles of the diodes. By applying current to only one of the leads will produce only one color, but if current is applied to both terminals a mixture of color will result.
New sig in the works.
not a bad idea at all........
let me look into this......... and no, i'm not an electrical engineer
BTW....... i know what you were talking about, but i dunno if anyone else got the "simplified" version !!!
wait for it... wait for it... NOW GO!! ---> '02 LS Sport <---
Yahoo IM : buzz122 AIM : buzz122cav
okay well we're on our way to... something....
haha No reply yet
wait im a lil lost here! are you talkin about the backlighting changing the shades or what? also what about changing the stupid shift idiot light into tell you to shift at a higher rpm!
i think to do this you will need a few resistors and some color changing leds!
Who needs a sig?
www.sinisterimages.com
You could run a variable dimmer switch inbetween two leds. That way one would fad, and the other grew in brightness. Like a christmas tree.
This is what I'm thinking:
It would start off as full current to a green bulb. Then as the rpms increased, the electrical signal to the green led bulb would decrease as the power increased to the red bulb. Untill eventually it would be completely red at the redline, and the power would be cut off from the green LED. With this principal, you could use other leds. Although for simplicity I wouldn't go past three colours.
*Here is a crude paint drawing
I like that idea,
5000 hours in MS paint eh man?
I like that idea. the entire cluster, and maybe my HVAC could be backlit with LED's to give that sort of effect.
but how would the LED's be able to read the RPMs? How would that connection work?
black cat must be on break. nothing yet.
Will post later...
fastcavalier wrote:I think the easiest way would be to use a red/green bicolor LED and vary the amount of current to the green and red terminals to change the color as RPMs changed.
By using a red/green bicolor LED, a mix of colors fading from green to yellow to red can be produced. All that has to be done is getting a tach signal from somewhere and converting into something usable for modulating the LED.
For everyone who doesn't really have a background in electronics I will simplify this for you.
A bicolor LED is like having two different LEDs inside one case. Each LED is a different color and the colors can be mixed to achieve different shades. A bicolor LED can have either two or three leads. A two lead LED has the internal diodes connected in reverse parallel so that changing the direction of current on the leads changes the color. When operated on AC, they appear a mix of the two colors. A three lead LED has either a common cathode or anode connection with the other two leads being the opposite poles of the diodes. By applying current to only one of the leads will produce only one color, but if current is applied to both terminals a mixture of color will result.
here's an LED that we use here at work that fastcavalier is talking about:
http://www.avagotech.com/products/product-detail.jsp?navId=H0,C1,P91710
however, as it says on the website, each LED has to be independantly pulse width modulated for different colors, and wiring up a circuit like that would be a PITA. if you're that serious, I'd look at finding a junked 200SX, ripping the gauge cluster apart and seeing if you could use it in your J cluster.
Desert Tuners
“When you come across a big kettle of crazy, it’s best not to stir it.”
is anyone familiar with the LEDs in an xbox ring? the light up between green, yellow, and red. just thought i'd mention that.
you mean like
THIS
2006 Black Cobalt SS Supercharged G85
13.91@102.77
I'm an EE, I've got an idea how to do this, but absolutely no time for the next 4 months or so.
-JaysonZ24- wrote:you mean like THIS
YES! almost exactly like that. but the effect extends to the numbers and the needles. not just the needles.
Can you tell me more about this?
And nothing from black cat. I'm serious about following up on this because well... you saw that GTO's cluster, it has a cool look to it.
I WANT ONE!!!
once we figure out the circuits, i'm sure bolt can help with gettin it in the cluster
i can talk to my bro tomorrow and see if he knows anything, he should
but yes i love this idea!!, def gonna keep up on this topic
