Tutorial Diy switec Dashboard with menu

Hello,
i want to show how I build my Dashboard so you can build your own or maybe get some ideas.
My Cluster is not 100% finished, so i'll keep update this thread. Maybe you have some ideas or improvements

I tried to build a dashboard with servos some years ago which ended in a totaly desaster.

Now i found a supplyer in Germany for switec motors and also there is Racing Mat's very informative thread. Also i learned much about electronics and arduino.

http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/driving-diy-cluster-gauges-with-gamedash.5896/ Thank you for your work. Also thanks all others on this community for help.

Also many thanks to Guy Carpenter for his switec Library I used.

Also thanks to some unknown person who made the schmeatics for drive the 7 segment with cd 4543. I've got this some where about 4 years ago and used it in another Dashboard. I only added the shift register to save some pins



I will not take care of needle lightning here, take a look in above mentioned thread of Racing Mat. He made an excellent tutorial.

The plan is to build a fully customazible dashboard at low cost, compatible to Game Dash and many games as possible.
The Dashboard has an LCD screen to display the Menu. You can interface it with a rotary encoder.
You can select your car, which will set the RPM lights correctly in red like ingame, and also sets the car specific shiftrpm for shiftlight.
Brightness and colour are fully adjustable.

Here are some videos of the current work.



I tried this with Arduino uno and Nano.

You'll need:
1x Arduino Nano/Uno

1x Old/defective Cluster (optional to have a housing and needles)

2x Switec x25/27 http://www.ebay.de/itm/Schrittmotor...04?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item33a4016494
2x Needles (If you don't have an old dashboard)

1x 7 Segment Display Common Anode www.ebay.de/itm/Avago-Technologies-HDSP-C2E3-7-Segment-Anzeige-LED-56-8mm-Hohe-Rot-Neu-/311119641342?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item48702cfafe
1x 74HC595 Shift Register http://www.ebay.de/itm/5-x-74HC595N...32?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item2ee2390be8
1x CD 4543 BCD Latch decoder http://www.ebay.de/itm/PMIC-CD74HC4...19?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item5d562cd373
1x Rotary Encoder KY-040 http://www.ebay.de/itm/Drehregler-D...34?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item28010c9502

1x Lcd Display http://www.ebay.de/itm/IIC-I2C-TWI-...05?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item4181f9d955

1x Superflux Led red http://www.ebay.de/itm/LED-Superflu...=LH_DefaultDomain_77&var=&hash=item258f018b2b

1x High power Led lens http://www.ebay.de/itm/1Stuck-Linse...=LH_DefaultDomain_77&var=&hash=item4d096e3b0f

1x 5V Power supply

1x Powersource for your 7 Segment display. I used a huge 10cm one and a 9V voltageregulator with 12v Powersupply.)

WS2812B leds (the number dependes on your individual lighning, but take care to have a powerfull enough power supply if many leds are used.)http://www.ebay.de/itm/171571132093?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=470577601966&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Some resistors and diodes

Some Plexiglas (c.a 6mm)

For doing your own clusterfoils you also need some overhead foils, paper, printer and spray glue (transparent)

Please don't use my links as advice where to buy. They are only for demonstarting. Some prices are really high.

For basic wireing take a look at this schematic. I will make a complete Pcb later.
The Pinouts here are for my code. You can adapt it to your needs. You have to connect all grounds of powersupplys to arduino Gnd.



Im curently matching the lightning and cluster together and clean up the code. So i post it if I'm finished.
First you have to make some clusterfoils.
There are two good tutorials for that.
Messure the length of your needle, and draw a cycle with this as radius in photoshop and then start with this tutorial
http://www.photoshop-plus.co.uk/speedometer-design-from-scratch/

http://www.projekt-mx5.de/eigene-tachoscheiben-leicht-gemacht/
This one is in German but look at the pictures. The reference points are very recommended to glue the foils correct together.
You have to print this two times on the overhead foil. One time horizontal flipped. I include my Rpm design as a demonstration here.


Now cut it in the middle. The reason for flipping is, i got some strange behavior with toner and sprayglue when it is between the two foils. Use the sprayglue and glue both foils together so that the printed side is outside.
For a nice lightning from the leds i glued the last design on paper from behind. After the glue is dryed you can apply some cooking oil to the back layer ( paper) where the scales are to get it more transparent.

These are some testfoils, you can see the difference.



Here is my first finished Rpm foil with motor and led mointed in housing. It's not perfekt but i didn't the accept the design anyway



Now you can build the plate to hold the leds, motor and foil.
I used plexiglas, because you can lay it ontop of your foil and easy mark where to drill the holes for the leds.
I drilled one hole for each number. For speed there are maybe 2 needed because it's got a big scale and the light don't looks good.I'm currently experimenting with the lightning there and ordered some more leds.



Now you can place the motor behind and foil ontop.
You can make it for speed aswell.

For the shiftlight I used a superflux led with resistor on a little peace of protoboard. These high power led lenses snap on the superflux leds very tight. I will integrate this into the cluster where water temp and fuel was. Also Lcd will be placed there.




for now i have no more info. Like i said above this will be updated if i recieved my leds and have cleand the code.

I'm glad you find my tutorial useful @tombo !
very good job! thanks for sharing all this

Hello,
sorry there is still no code avalible. But i recieved the vid6606 driver chips, and still have some problems to get them working right.
With this chip there are more free arduino.
Here I found some information about using it with arduino.
http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=131052
This well made tutorial is for Arduino mega and 12 gauges. I'm trying to make this work on arduin nano with only 4 gauges to have pins for other things like gear indicator, leds, ...
This chip seems to be very time sensitive.

Hello,
I got some news. After some Tips I could make the Vid6606 work. I decide to use a Library for this chip now, because i never got a good result with my own written code. The Library used is the accel stepper library https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_AccelStepper.html
I think more and more of the construction of my Dashboard and decided to build each gauge as a single device. So there is more flexibility in mounting it to the rig.

My plan is to use some waterpipe in different diameter eg: http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=...ved=0CCwQ9QEwAWoVChMI1tOV-6jbxwIVS2waCh0VawEN
and glue a plexiglas plate on top.
At ebay I found single Vdo instrument rings for the front so everything will be nicely covered.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/121431486157?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
Behind the plexiglas plate is another plate where the motor is attached and the foil is on top. But I'm still not 100% shure for the led mounting. I also thought of mounting the leds on the pcb where the motor is attached, but since the Motors have rear conacts they will be far away from the foil.
I hope all parts will arrive until the weekend so I can start building.

I also ordered some switches where I will try to make them work with the Led at 5V and make some symbols with the dial foil technice above. http://www.ebay.de/itm/281738861052?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT



Since i didn't find some footprints for eagle for the switec x27 i made my own. If in somecase someone needs it. There is also some Demo code for the Accel Library and switec motors for gamedash.

Today I was in my local hardware store, but they had only 110mm tube avalible. Maybe i can drive to the next city tomorrow.
Since I also want to make some 52mm instruments for fuel and water I startet with this one.

I only orderd the piece for one 100mm and one 50mm Instrument for testing.
For every gauge there are two plexiglas plates needed. In this case I used 50mm ones and 50mm tube.

Cut out a piece of the tube and drill a hole in the center of one plexiglass plate. I used my dremel tool and a file to make this one fit inside the tube.
The last picture show the way it will finally attached. the second plate will be glued on top of the tube.

So the first test gauge is nearly finished. It looks very good.
But there are still some improvements to made.

First you can see the new fuel foil I've created. It was very hard to glue and isn't perfect. I'll take a look at letting them print and cutoit professional for a cleaner look. But at the momemnt this is enough.



Here you can see the back of the gauge. Its really tiny and limited space, thats why i haven't placed leds at the bars between the numbers.
I will add a led to the fuel symbol later as it looks really dark. Everything is hold together with good old hotglue



The tube gets painted black at the inside. The outside will be covered with foil later. I placed the gauge in place and loaded a basic light test sketch. The white looks a little bit blue, but only because it's not calibrated yet.
Now it'*s time to order some smallo leds for needle lightning.

So the first test Gauge is nearly finished. I found one small led for needle lighning which is glued direcktly to the motor neer the shaft.
I masked the outside with some isolation tape to prevent light from the background come trouh at the edges.
Also I included two more ws2812B leds for the Fuel Symbol. The smaller bars are now lit up a little bit more by the needle led.
The Frontglass is glued with some small dots of second glue. This will be coverd by the rings later when they arrive.
The gauge inside can be easyly pulled out from the backside. The frontglass looks a bit messy but there is still the security foil applyed.


The positions are typed in by hand in Serial monitor.

Hello,
thanks for your compliment.
I hope I can finish the other ones as fast as possible.
The video should now been watchable.

Hello,
today the outer cover Rings arrived. Sadly the small one isn't fitting very perfect. Its 2mm to big. The problem is that it is hard to find a 52mm tube so I need tu put some extension ring in between to make the black surface 2mm bigger. This would be easy.
The 100mm Ring will fit perfect for my application.
Here are some pictures. The speed foil is only printed to paper at the moment for testing purpose.





Finally i got myself into KiCad and found a way to arrange the leds in a circle according to my skala.
I printed a copy in low transparancy onto an Overheadfoil and taped it to my computer Screen.
Here are some 3d Drawings of the final pcb for Speed and Rpm gauge.
The Foil and Pcb are designd to be the same for Speed and Rpm.
It provides a Data In and Output so you can change the colours of each dashboard.
I will change my motors from x27.268 to x27.589 with front contacts to mount it to the pcb from behind.

Edit: totally forgot the needle lightning Here is the updated picture.

Great job @tombo !

I'm back at home ad did the first prototype PCB. Sadly my etching fluid semms to be at the end because the pcb rested pretty long in the etching batch. The big Gnd areas doesn't look good. But for a test it's good enough.

I'm only watiting for some resistors and the motors with front contacts. But this can take a while as they came from china.
The needle Leds are missing at the moment too. I will solder them when the Resistor arrives.
The plexiglas plate will holf the foil and is filed down to 96mm to fit in tube like at the small gauge.

I worked a little bit more on the Speedo Dash.
I made an outside frame of isolation tape to prevent light come trough the edges. After that i applyed some of the sprayglue with a bit of wire to this ring and pressed the speed foil plan on top.

The result is nearly no backlight is coming through the edges.

Really nice work!

Very impressive Tombo.

So out of sheer curiosity, Did you build the PCB yourself ? Any further explanation as to how you did that exactly ?

Hello,
yes I build it myself. Bud it is the worst looking I ever made
It's done with Toner Transfer Method. I print my Pcb with a laserprinter to some "special" paper. Then I put it ontop of the blank chopper Pcb and run it a couple of times through a laminator.
Now the toner is transfered to the pcb. I put it in water and peel up the remeaining paper so only the Toner rests on the pcb.
Now I will etch it in "Natriumpersulfad" in my etching machine.

Here you can see a picture. On the right is a aqarium heater which heat the fluid up to 49°C for perfect results. On the bottom there is some aqarium bubble stone attached to a aqarium pump to make some air bubbles so there is some waterflow.


For the paper the name in germany is "Gestrichenes Papier". I tried many sorts of paper but with this you get a very good result.

For more Information you can search for "Toner Transfer Method Pcb"

There are other chemicals for etching avalibe which require no heeting but the are more dangerous.

If there is some Interest I can make a Tutorial next time I make one.

I would very much like to see the process of making a PCB. Thank you Tombo.

Ok I will collect some Information and start a Thread

Here it is:
http://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/make-your-own-pcb-with-toner-transfer.7343/

There are some News on the Dashboard.
I recieved the Needles and Motors. As you can see they have front contacts now.


I did a first test about the Lightning. I did some small fixes and now everything looks well. I'm not shure about the needle Lightning, as it is very Bright at the momemt. Maybe iw ill take some higher resistor to dimm a little.
I give a detailed overview later.