Main > Driving & Racing Cabinets
Real Instrument Panels
Howard_Casto:
Ok let's bump this Necro thread and get some new ideas rolling.
TwistedSymphony mentioned that he has played around with this stuff a little more than me, so maybe he can chime in.
After a year of looking the options I've ran into are basically the ones we all suggested to each other at the start:
1. Hook up real instrument panels via a AVR
2. Use a secondary display and fake it.
3. Spend a lot on sim-centric hardware that is essentially a turn-key avr solution.
Most of us are either converting a sega cab or using a sega cab as the basis for our design. That makes our options in terms of the dimensions rather limited. Motorcycle gauges are around the same size, or you can of course roll your own by pulling the stepped motor and needle out of a large speedometer.
I also ran across this article a few days ago:
http://hackaday.com/2014/04/14/a-7-touchscreen-tv-remote-control-from-scratch/#more-119852
What does this have to do with gages? Well if you are going the secondary display route, the vendor mentioned in the article sells all kinds of displays for well under 20 bucks. They would need an avr to control them (I'm a bit lost as to exactly how these work), but you could get a few smaller screens that fit just behind a dial cut-out on your dash.
I'm still up for suggestions. Honestly I wish we could just find a good supplier of real speedometer stepper motors for a reasonable price (under 5 bucks a pop). If that were the case then I could write avr code/software just for those particular steppers and we could all use the same ones.
vandale:
How about squeezing a 7 inch tablet inside the dash, lay the gauge bezel over the top and fake it. I am sure somebody can drum up an android app that connects via wifi or usb and fakes the needles and allows the gauges to be placed per x,y coordinates.
Simple dual core tabs are $50 new.
Or if we are limited to PC based app then how about a 7 inch asus, acer, msi netbook. Easy to hide, no fancy interface etc.
Or a small LCD with external power but has a video board with vga etc, no like a laptop panel that does not.
Chur
SegaOutrun:
they make usb monitors that arent too expensive. 16" for 90$ isnt bad. You could get a 2 decent sized dials in there and imagine it would be easier than making it work on android or ios.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AOC-15-6-Widescreen-Flat-Panel-USB-Powered-Portable-LED-Monitor-Piano-Black-/191117636450?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item2c7f7fb362
Howard_Casto:
It's not bad, but I'm not sure it would fit.
I mean here's a Daytona cp for example:
Like most control panels the shaft of the wheel is in the center and the fake gages are positioned around it. Of course behind the cp is all the mechanics for the wheel.
So unless you can figure out how to cut a hole in a monitor I'm not sure it would work. A person would probably need a series of small displays, thus the article I linked to (they sell them as small as 3.5 inches).
I don't have my cp yet... still designing that part..... But I'm sitting here holding things up and unless the monitor is really tiny I can't see integrating one without the cp looking funny.
I tried the tablet route, but the only way I could hook it up to gain any amount of flexibility in terms of what I could display was via those virtual desktop apps. Those lagged like hell unfortunately. But if anyone can suggest an app that would fit the bill that would work on low end tablets (or else it would defeat the purpose) I'll try it out.
Generic Eric:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on April 19, 2014, 04:04:11 am ---
Like most control panels the shaft of the wheel is in the center and the fake gages are positioned around it. Of course behind the cp is all the mechanics for the wheel.
I tried the tablet route, but the only way I could hook it up to gain any amount of flexibility in terms of what I could display was via those virtual desktop apps. Those lagged like hell unfortunately. But if anyone can suggest an app that would fit the bill that would work on low end tablets (or else it would defeat the purpose) I'll try it out.
--- End quote ---
I thought I saw that Google had a remote desktop?
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