Speedometer visibility issues

[doug]

Well, a quick Google search finds a few commercial products using this same idea.

Even a smart phone app, which I assume is just using GPS.

 

[Doug_G]

Yeah, okay. I found some apps that do this, if you don't mind leaving your phone on the dashboard powered up...

 

[NigelM]

The 2.x cars have the speed on the VDS, but down at your knee is not usable (not to mention it is still obscured for those of us with long legs).

The 2.x cars with the Alpine can also use this:

 

[Lloyd]

I expect you'd need some kind of lens for that to work.

BMW uses a special windscreen to reflect the information from the projector to the driver.

 

[Doug_G]

BMW uses a special windscreen to reflect the information from the projector to the driver.

I could see using a thin ~5% reflectivity aluminum coating on the glass, with SiO2 overcoat for durability. That way you get a clean single reflection; otherwise the reflection off the front and back surfaces are of similar brightness and you see a double reflection. Also you wouldn't need as bright a light source for it to work, since it would reflect more light.

 

[markwj]

Even a smart phone app, which I assume is just using GPS.

Night time, dark black background: easy. Not so good in bright sunlight.

The 2.x cars with the Alpine can also use this:

But, not in a tunnel, or under an overpass, or in a built up area with skyscrapers.

Am I being too negative? I guess this has been pissing me off for months now. I've tried the Alpine and radar detector with speed display in the windscreen approach, but the number of times I've been in a tunnel with the displays showing 70kph indicated, then move my knee and look down at the VDS to see 90kph actual...

The solution is easy - digital speedometer in the dashboard where the (duplicate, redundant) amps and/or trip counter is. They could even do it with the little push button toggle (one push for odometer, a second push for trip, a third for speed). Not hard for Tesla to do.

 

[doug]

The solution is easy - digital speedometer in the dashboard where the (duplicate, redundant) amps and/or trip counter is. They could even do it with the little push button toggle (one push for odometer, a second push for trip, a third for speed). Not hard for Tesla to do.

This has been on the firmware upgrade wishlist for quite some time.

 

[NigelM]

But, not in a tunnel, or under an overpass, or in a built up area with skyscrapers.

Correct. I'm too used to driving in a State where we have no mountains and therefore no tunnels. Having been to HK a couple of times I do see the skyscraper problem with GPS signals, although I never seem to have a problem in built up areas.

I'd still prefer the trip counter screen option you describe.

 

[markwj]

I'd still prefer the trip counter screen option you describe.

If I can just work out the can bus message VMS->LCD, assuming it is on the right bus, I'm gonna do it myself. We've already found the speed message - just need to work out how to force it on to the LCD.

 

[vfx]

Eric,

OK, I understand this now. I misread it first and thought Tesla had provided you some firmware that showed your speed above the steering wheel when you were going >45mph!

The 2.x cars have the speed on the VDS, but down at your knee is not usable (not to mention it is still obscured for those of us with long legs).

To clarify, the analog cluster is the one that gives the speed readout behind the top of the steering wheel. The new firmware gave us a digital readout on the VDS screen that we never had till that upgrade. On the 1.5's the location of the screen is down at the driver's left leg.

 

[markwj]

Yes. I have successfuly overridden the LCD display. I replaced "trip" value on the LCD with mph since trip is also available via the VDS. The LCD still shows "29.5 mi Trip", but "29.5" is actually the current MPH. I don't know if the CAN controller on the tattler is fast enough to make it work without the LCD flickering. but it is on my todo list...

I've been working on something similar.

Spoofing CAN bus message ID#0x400 B1=0x02 (which is the source of the dashboard display for battery meter, range and amps), we can display the speed on the little orange dashboard display, but a lot of flickering can be seen. I've no doubt that this can be optimized, but I can't see how it will ever be perfect (but could end up better than the nothing we have now). Frustrating, as it shows just how easy this would be for Tesla to do themselves (being the source of those CAN bus messages in the first place).

The trip display may be more suitable for this, as it seems to update only once every five or ten seconds (vs 1/10th a second for ID#0x400 B1=0x02). Of course, that may be because the display is only updated once every ten seconds (as opposed to the CAN message only transmitted once every ten seconds).

So far, we've found three trip/odometer messages, on ID#100 B1=0x97, ID#100, B1=0x9C and ID#402 B1=0xFA - but none seem to be the source of trip/odometer in the little orange display.

Ongoing... [please see next forum posting in this thread for up to date status]

 

[markwj]

I've been working on something similar.

Spoofing CAN bus message ID#0x400 B1=0x02 (which is the source of the dashboard display for battery meter, range and amps), we can display the speed on the little orange dashboard display, but a lot of flickering can be seen. I've no doubt that this can be optimized, but I can't see how it will ever be perfect (but could end up better than the nothing we have now). Frustrating, as it shows just how easy this would be for Tesla to do themselves (being the source of those CAN bus messages in the first place).

Ongoing...

An update. A pretty cool update.

I switched to use the AMPS part of the display, and tuned the transmission timers (using the interrupt-driven code one of the developers recently added). The result is very usable and seems to be very stable:

It seems that the AMPS area is updated much more frequently than the range, and suffers less from the jittering problem I had before. As I have it now, there is hardly any jumping around of the numbers at all, and response to speed changes is more than adequate. I also find the AMPS area slightly more natural to see while driving, as it is nearer the centre of the displays in the dash and more in the line of sight while driving. I got used to the AMPS display (rather than Kph), pretty quickly - it helps to imagine 1 Amp per Kph of speed ;-)

My code for this is now in the OVMS github, and I'll do a short technical write-up on the OVMS site.

Regards, Mark.

 

[mpt]

The perfect location IMO, will this find its way into the OVMS device?

fyi: Youtube video is marked as private.

 

[markwj]

The perfect location IMO, will this find its way into the OVMS device?

It is in OVMS code now. On github.

I'm going to run it for a while (as it transmits onto the CAN BUS, we need to ensure it has no affect on other car systems - but I can't see any so far and analysis of the bus while it is running shows nothing untoward).

fyi: Youtube video is marked as private.

Grrr. Fighting with the new youtube video manager... Can you try again and let me know?

 

[mpt]

Video fixed and link in post updated.

 

[markwj]

Video fixed and link in post updated.

Nice. I learn something new on TMC every day...

 

[Dragon]

Hmm, at 50 seconds it suddenly shows 30 AMPS while you were going under 10 km/h. Why is that?

 

[markwj]

Hmm, at 50 seconds it suddenly shows 30 AMPS while you were going under 10 km/h. Why is that?

The logic in the firmware shown on the video was that if the car was traveling <1kph, the real amps is shown (i.e.; no spoofing). I think that 30amps was me touching the accelerator from a standing start ;-) If you try it in your car, you should see the same. From a standing start, the AMPS jumps about a lot. Actually, even the slightest change on the accelerator pedal and the AMPS jumps around a lot - which is why it is so useless for anything other than seeing how many AMPS the HVAC consumes when the car is idle.

The change I just made tonight was to use a door status can bus message that tells us if the car 'ignition' is ON or OFF to control the feature. The AMPS will now be spoofed if the car ignition is ON and the spoofing will stop if the ignition is turned OFF. That should work better. [ P.S. The original logic was there because we were trying to control the trip display (not amps) and it would be nice to show the real trip when the car was stationary. ]

I should say that it is still possible, and probable, that a real AMPS message could sneak in and be momentarily displayed. We can't stop the car sending these AMPS messages (without hacking the Tesla firmware) - all we can do is quickly follow them up with our own version of the message (showing the speed instead of AMPS). The approach seems to work 99.99% of the time, but I guess we're still going to see a momentary jump every minute or two. If you look at the previous video, I was getting a jump once every five or ten seconds. I've now got it down to once every few minutes. We can get more aggressive to make it even better (flood the bus with spoofed messages), but that is probably not a good idea ;-) It will never be perfect. But, perhaps, good enough.

Regards, Mark.

 

[dsm363]

Awesome job Mark. I had been asking Tesla to add that to the firmware for a year so I'm glad you and your team were able to do it.

 

[hcsharp]

Mark that's impressive. I'd like to work on a small 7-segment display I can put up there. Your eyes must be a lot better than mine because I can't read my amps when driving unless I bend down and squint... I have too many irons in the fire to do it now but if nobody has done it by May, then I will. Thanks for all the great contributions you have made!