My custom gauge WIP (shaun_king)

[gt5shaun]

***STAND UPDATE***

I managed to sort out the 3D model for the desktop stand. The WIP CAD model was too tail heavy, it looked very odd. It still needs some tweeking. Some surfaces need remodelling and i need to adjust some lines. Popped out some renderings to visualise the design properly; overall I reasonably happy with this Jonny 5 / Wall-e theme [LOL] so I’ll probably stick with this theme for now.

 

[Carson79]

I love it!

 

[LogiForce]

Younger folks might say wall-e. Us old guys know the truth.

God, I feel old now. Why'd you have to say that?

Anyway, as some might not know and ask "who's Johny?" (Nice theme song)... here goes.

[Youtube]NiQULdHVPew[/media]

I love it!

I second that, Mark. Looks great.

Talking about funny things. This just needs a car clock in the same design for on the desk.

 

[gt5shaun]

Cheers guys

I'm just about to start the design of my steering column and thought id bounce an idea of you guys.

Has anyone ever enclosed a G27 FFB steering unit? does it need a lot of airflow. Below are some sketches that I've been thinking of producing. They have different sized vents on each side but I wonder how big they really need to be? Maybe some of your experiences can help me decide. Cheers for you comment in advance.

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

This is one of the most incredible builds I have seen on this site. I love seeing custom work but this in on an entirely new level. Seriously amazing work! 👍

 

[Carson79]

I've never used a G series wheel but LogiForce has I'm sure and could offer better technical advice I'm sure.
But on an aesthetics note I think it's a great idea, really amazing!

 

[Rallywagon]

With ffb set high, the g27 has a tendency to get quite hot. You will probably want the vent about the side as your last sketch. I think the bigger event looks better too, at least in the sketches.

 

[gt5shaun]

Cheers Carson79, I have sent him a PM

Mmmm, Rallywagon for the big vent. Okay! Cheers RW.

 

[Jet Badger]

You could make a collumn extension. It also would take the most of the stress to the support bearing rather than to G27's internals, especially with a dished wheel

 

[gt5shaun]

Hey, nice set-up... how about air venting? We're talking about air venting the unit in an enclosed set-up. You got any experience with enclosed set-ups

 

[Jet Badger]

Nah, that's not my setup, though it's definitely nice! It's one guy's on TWIP: http://www.thewayiplay.com/mainforum/index.php?topic=2133.0

I have no experience with that but common sense would say that there should be ~inch gap between the wheel base and the enclosure plus a fan to make airflow thingy around it Sorry, not much I can help :/ Anyway, keep up the good work! Love your craftsmanship and skills. The dash looks absolutely fantastic

 

[gt5shaun]

*** CASE UPDATE ***

Final case part is back from the machine shop, look okay when assembled. Just the stands to produce now.

Successfully mounted the switches and I’m happy with the placement and the look of the them on the rear of the unit. With near enough all the electrics mounted all is, waiting for now are some short USB cables to arrive from my eBay shop in Hong Kong. This is for two reasons. Firstly, the current wires plugs on the Revburners collide with the switches, so elbowed plugs will be on the new cables. The 12v DC power plug elbows have already arrived as seen in the photo below. Secondly, I want to reduce the length of the cables so they hold bettering the cluster case. I also want to reduce the amount of wires that come out of the cluster so I intend to join the 4 new short USB cables from the two Revburners, the GI-Max Gear indicator and the SPI-D digital speedometer together with the hub in the photo below so only one USB cable adorns from the cluster. I want to experiment with the DC power cables too to see if I can join the two together so I only have one Power cable coming out of the case.

 

[djslofstra]

It looks very clean! Nice job!

 

[Johnnypenso]

Great work OP:tup:👍 You should seriously consider small scale custom manufacturing, special order type of stuff. Lots of money in the high end market for this type of stuff.

 

[gt5shaun]

Cheer guys. This just a hobby at the mo. I'm scared I'd ruin the enjoyment to model making by taking it too seriously. Also the cost of rapid prototyping is very heavy if done commercially. If I get my own 3D printer I might go for it. I think they are pretty cheap nowadays. I'm still thinking about it to be honest. I'd need to redesign it though this is still too complex for a production cluster. Next time I'm going to try to do it in as a 2 case construct not 3. I really need to get the price point down first before think about small volume production.

Thanks for your enthusiasm though, it's great to know that if/when I get my act together people might like it.

 

[gt5shaun]

Just me again... I got bored waiting for the china USB cables to arrive so I decided to make a quick flash object to visualise in an interactive fashion. Click the image below to check it out.



Please wait for this 5MB SWF Object file to load. This SWF Object needs Adobe Flash's plugin to work. Download here to make the SWF Object work if you are experiencing problems.

 

[gt5shaun]

I managed to finally install the LED lighting. As seen in the video below they work relatively well. Over all illumination is good on the dials and there is no over spill to effect the red LEDs of the GI-Max and SPI-D components. I really like the way that they make the car feel more realistic when they are pushed up against the screens.



The covers are desperately needed on these as the LEDs are extremely bright if you look straight into them. Production of those will have to start ASAP.

However, there are some drawbacks to using soft materials, the major one being that light can shine through it because of it's low density. The picture below show this problem. One proposal that I may try is to use some blackout tape on the inside of the front cover to block out the light then paint the tape white to help reflect the light back onto the dials. Gaffer tape of graphical line tape might do the job. Think bit of experimentation won't hurt.

 

[wajdi1977]

This looks really brillant!

 

[readyfe]

I'd love to see this with two ProParts SPEK PRO Gauges running off the symprojects PRO Gauge (upgrade over the REV Burner)... And as they illuminate you wouldn't need the LED bits.

But overall very cool design..!

 

[Carson79]

Looks great Shaun, really impressive mate!

 

[gt5shaun]

Cheers Carson79 & Wajdi1977... getting there slowly but surely.

Readyfe, I did have thoughts about using some stock parts with the illumination attached, but then I'd have had problems matching the fonts with the Symprojects gear indicator and digital speedo... I really didn't want something that looked custom made with donor parts evidently visible. A cohesive design was my objective here.

I had many thoughts about it though. One of my thoughts was to strip back the unit and rear projection lighting system on a custom gauge but the shine through aspect was more complicated to produce then the simple option I eventually chose. It would take an extremely good aesthetic mask for the graphics and then a second layer to tint the LED's of the gear indicator and digital speedo (to increase visibility in daylight) and then diffuser layers to ensure the light spreads evenly, and a final blackout layer. You can see a multi-layer production like this in the Kawasaki ninja gauge below. Eventually option I opted out of multi-layer spraying option because it was too complex and inefficient to produce at low volume. Instead I used simple tint vinyl and the spray on letters to do all the different jobs of aesthetic graphics, black outs and tints.

you can see some different blog entries here that ponder elements of the decision making process here:

http://hutchinsonsimulators.wordpre...increase-number-visibility-experiment-2-vinyl

http://hutchinsonsimulators.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/gauge-lighting

http://hutchinsonsimulators.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/tint-spray-black-out-for-leds

 

[OdeFinn]

Great looking gauge, wondering is there on RPM side some a little bit too big/slow capacitor what makes small delay to needle? Or just running slightly low voltage?

 

[gt5shaun]

Great looking gauge, wondering is there on RPM side some a little bit too big/slow capacitor what makes small delay to needle? Or just running slightly low voltage?

Really don't know. In previous posts i have had to admit that it might be because I have never calibrated the clocks properly. I just whacked some values in to get me started. Later towards the end of the production of this prototype i will get my calculator out and work out the proper incremental values for each step.

However, to tell you the gods honest truth, i don't notice delay when racing. most of the time my eyes are on the road and on other drivers. I only look down to grab bits of info from the rev counter here and there

 

[OdeFinn]

I understand, I'm just listening revs mostly my self.
That delay can be seen when revving up and it gives me signal of too long loading capacitor - due too low voltage or just too big/slow capacitor.
My reason why to bring this up was your perfect gauges can be perfect on all ways if that rev-needle reactions are bit quicker
Really sweet looking packet anyhow.

 

[Zsadist33]

Please could you tell me which cluster models except ZX6 could be used to build? Any suzuki,yamaha ?Thanks

 

[LogiForce]

Looks great, Shaun. Must cost quite a bit if you were to make a few to sell with a 3D printer as you mentioned. The SRH Monsta display already isn't the cheapest. So... yeah, not expecting this to be a cheap project to put to market.

Always considered getting some gauges or a display though, just never get to taking that final decisive step. Same with getting/making hydraulic pedals, and all sorts of other sim related things.

 

[sagaper]

I'm speechless