Circular Display for custom Gauge - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: IDSKoT
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 27, 2019, 03:02:42 am
content: Hello, all! My car has a dummy gauge for the oil pressure. I'd like to replace it with a gauge setup that can monitor various additional sensors around my car. The current list is, at minimum, oil pressure, oil temp, and coolant temp. Additionally, I'm going to research into adding fuel pressure, narrow band O2 sensor (for air-to-fuel ratio), boost pressure, and I might also throw in voltage. My idea is to have a list of displays that can be scrolled through, so you press a button and you can get an active read out of the oil temp, press it again and get active coolant temp, etc. But also to have displays surrounding that can give you some info. For instance, if your oil temperature starts to get too high, an icon on the surround will turn yellow, then red if it's too high. I'd like for this to be true for every sensor that is being monitored.Here is some pictures of the actual gauge cluster (Missing the gauge that I'd like to replace)https://imgur.com/a/NPeIGCkThe actual displaying of these values isn't overly complicated. I'm more than likely going to use some sort of Arduino variant, as I have a boat load of experience with them. My real hang-up at this point (other than finding the sensors that will fit my car, which is just time and buying parts) is the actual display. Since I'd like to replace the gauge, I'm looking into ways of doing a round display.There are two options I'm kind of thinking about now, but I'd love your input/advice:1. Try to find some sort of watch that is comparable size, then 3D print a surround/mount. (Opening in the gauge cluster is 43 mm)2. (More than likely my choice) Create some sort of silk-screened plastic to fit in, and have a 7-segment (or starburst display), or a small OLED in the center. Then RGB LEDs for each of the items that can be monitored. However, I'm not sure of the best way to silk screen or print onto something, and I'm also not sure of the type of material that I could use.Do any of you have some insight on what method I could use? Or what the best way to approach this would be?I own a 3D printer, and I have an EE degree, with tons of experience with various little projects. So the rest of the hardware implementation won't be difficult for me. It's just this dang display!P.S. For now, this will be a one-off. But, if it drums up enough interest, I might turn this into a product/kit to sell. So, for now I'm looking for cost effective for one-off. But I'm also interested in what a small-scale production-level implementation might be.Thanks!

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2019, 04:36:12 am
content: Figure out the largest square you can fit in a suitable housing for the hole, find an LCD of that size,Make a piece of plastic to mount your dial decal to (to make the areas the screen doesn't cover blackThen mount a pointer to that plastic, and use something like a small servo motor to make a pointer Over LCD gauge.This way you can adjust the scaling, via the LCD, add some flavor text if you wish, and still have the benifits of a pointer (approximate value at a glance, rather than taking 2/3rds of a second to read and process)

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2019, 04:38:26 am
content: otherwise plenty of round LCD's out therehttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/Real-AMOLED-Display-1-39-inch-400-400-Round-Circle-Circular-OLED-LCD-Module-Screen-H139BLN01/32920802388.html