Speedometer visibility issues

[hcsharp]

Thinking about this as a long-term evolution of OVMS. Put a 2.5" touch screen LCD on it and have it on the dashboard. As we're on the can bus, there is a wealth of information that could be displayed. The modem would allow remote control. The displays are not that expensive, but a nice housing is tricky.

This is a great idea but probably won't be available for a while - although I'm willing to help. I also don't think a 2.5" touch screen would fit in my line of sight while driving. In the mean time I'd like to work on a small 2 or 3 digit 7-seg display to mount near the top of the cluster. I'm not sure if it's better to implement this as an accessory to the OVMS or as a separate system.

 

[markwj]

Why not use the display of your smart phone, where it already has a nice housing and existing in-car mounting solutions.

Alternatively, Roadster 2.5s could use the display of the double DIN Alpine unit (like Coda is doing).

For the smartphone, we'd need to interface to it. Bluetooth/hardware. That works out more expensive than a display, and phone-specific.

For the existing display, our overall goal is to make OVMS vehicle independent, not Roadster specific.

Still only thoughts at this time.

 

[markwj]

This is a great idea but probably won't be available for a while - although I'm willing to help. I also don't think a 2.5" touch screen would fit in my line of sight while driving. In the mean time I'd like to work on a small 2 or 3 digit 7-seg display to mount near the top of the cluster. I'm not sure if it's better to implement this as an accessory to the OVMS or as a separate system.

William3's post early in the thread is the most elegant solution I've seen, although a lot of work...

Speedometer visibility issues

If you want to get the data from OVMS, we have real-time speed and unused processor pins are available as jumpers on the controller board. However, if speed is all you need, it might be easier to use one of the aftermarkets displays already designed to display it from the vehicle speedo wire directly.

 

[doug]

For the smartphone, we'd need to interface to it. Bluetooth/hardware. That works out more expensive than a display, and phone-specific.

You could interface through the headphone/mic jack, which should be low cost. Of course you'd need to make an app, but you guys are already familiar with that.

For the existing display, our overall goal is to make OVMS vehicle independent, not Roadster specific.

Video input on a headunit would be some standard, not Roadster specific. Output only, though.