Yep seen it done on the new Aston Martins and on another European sports car ( just can't think of the name ). Very swish looking.
Also did someone mention removing the speedo needle and just laying a strip of LED's around the tacho or speedo?
I believe if you need some ideas you can look at the early eighties Mazda 929. They did have speedo's and tacho's rimmed in LED's that changed color the faster you went.

nah i think the needles look better! i perfer the look of an analoge ish dash

Well here's what I had in mind...

I'd do a blue led dash conversion.
Then the tacho and speedo would vary in colour depending on my revs.

(ie if I was doin 4000RPM both my tacho and speedo needles would be orange)

Now me and a mate wanna give it a go cause he knows what he on about and we'd be prepared to let others know how its done. But you'd have to wait for a while cause we're both busy as all hell now.

this all sounds like a s**t hot idea... let us know how you go, if you get around to doing it all

Ryan, sounds like a great idea. Keep us all posted

/me prods Ryan

Any progress mate, you alude to something in another thread and point here, but theres nothing

yup progress has been made.

in the middle of writing a doco with pics and all that, and still doing a bit of testing in the car to make sure there isnt any bugs or nuthen.

basicly i used a 'frequency counting' kit from jaycar that counts the pulses from the speed sensor and tacho then activates a relay when a certain level is reached, then voila! the led behind the needles lights up it all fits in the cluster, just need to hold it down with silastic to keep it all in place.

and i cheated a bit with the fuel, temp, volt and oil.. i just wired the leds to the idiot light next to the gauges. MkII of the project will have the led change from green=full fuel/normal voltage/normal pressure/operating temprature, yellow=half a tank of fuel/slightly over operating temp/NA on the others and red will obviously low fuel/overheating/overcharging and extremly low or high oil pressure.

so a comprehensive doco with step by step instructions are on the way people !


and data mine, i read you wanted the speedo needle to light up green when cruse control is activated? run a led with the cruse lamp?

ryan

Good to hear progress.

As for the cruise thing, I want it to light up when the cruise is actually DOING something (maintaining speed), not just on.

Dunno if you've seen a recentish commo (my work cars are commons, so I've been in a VX-VZ), they have another light/LCD that activates when the cruise is active in addition to when it is on/set.

Dunno if the cruise module has anything we could use???

But so far what you've got sounds good - idiot lights is probaly enough.

Another idea for the speed alert, would be to hook it up to the '(S)' in the trip computer. When it flashes, the LED will flash with it.

im sure there would be a wire from the cruse control module that would have a voltage coming out of it when its activated, just gotta find the time to test em all!

the frequency switch from jaycar should be useful for this. it has an adjustable pot for switch on point and another pot for the hysteris (or how ever you spell it, it decides how long the thing stays on for after the revs drop from the preset amount). I used this kit on my jackaroo (after gunning it in first out of a corner i looked down at the tacho and it read 8000 rpm so i decided i needed a shift light to warn me of my revs), i ended up setting it to 5500 rpm and it worked well. All i did was remove the insulation from the wire going in to the tacho that had a rising frequency when the revs were raised. i then soldered the input wire from the frequency switch to this exposed wire. To activate the led (an extra bright directional green one) i connected a 10ohm pot (i was hoping to be able to adjust brightness but the led i bought was not dimmable) in series with this led to the ground wire coming out of the frequency switch. I then mounted the led in a spare section of the dash where all the other warning lights are next to the diff lock light. looks good when it comes on otherwise you cant even see it. If you can work out how to illuminate the needle this kit would be good though i dont know how you would be able to trigger different coloured leds as the frequency increased without buying a couple of frequency switches and at around $30 a kit i dont think it would be very cost effective.

this kit can also be used for the speedo and depending on how you set it up it can switch on at rising or falling revs/speed or any other frequency output device in the car.

10Ohm won't be enough, get a 10KOhm pot, that'll do it.

sorry yer i meant a 10k ohm pot and its set somewhere around 8k ohm. I have it as a dial mounted next to the cig lighter but turning it has no effect unless you lower the resistance soo much as to blow the LED. 3 LED's later and ive learnt my lesson. i would advise getting a dimmable led just so you have more control.

no such thing as a dimmabel LED. Did you have a (fixed) resistor inline anyway, to prevent blowing - ie. by setting maximum brightness with it, and the addition of the pot will allow dimming.

ie.

-----POT----RES----LED----

that way even if the POT was set to 0, the res will stop the LED blowing, and with it's 560Ohms (that'd be about right for most LEDs, but do the calcs yourself) will allow the POT to do it's work.

i didnt have a res in series with the pot and led i just had the pot and the led. you said there is no such thing as a dimmable led then how would having a pot and a resistor give you the control to dim it? If you just had the pot set above 560 ohms then it would have the same effect as a 560 ohm resistor but increasing the resistance did not affect the brightness of the led. correct me if i have gone off on tangents or have the wrong idea.

Oh by the way jaycar sells those dimmable LED's i was talking about but they are not cheap