John McGraw

I saw a neat new product at SEMA this year, that some will probably find useful for their hybrids. The product was a module that wires into the OBDII wire, that drives a standard gauges without the need for sensors. It reads all the OEM sensors and outputs a signal to the gauges. It will be interesting to see which gauges it will drive, but the demo at SEMA had an array of gauges being driven by it. Sure would be nice to drive gauges such as trans temp,oil pressure, coolant temp. and the like, without having to mount sensors and run wiring.

I can't wait to see the full cut sheet on it, to see what it is capable of. The module was from Painless Wiring.


Regards, John McGraw

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

Cool!

gofastwclass

iTrader: (2)

I'm surprised no one has already done this. I know there is (or was) a company making gauge modules that work that way but they aren't cheap and use a small proprietary integrated display.

Regretfully, coming from Painless it won't be painless to your wallet.

It would be cool and I would buy one if it was affordable.

Info from their site:


"PAINLESS GAUGE CONTROLLER

This controller is the easy way to interface aftermarket gauges with the late model GM LS engines. The CAN (Control Area Network) buss found on today's newer vehicles has a large amount of information regarding the engine and transmission. To use aftermarket gauges on these vehicles it is necessary to add additional sending units for each gauge. Why do this when all this data is available at the OBDII port ? By using this Gauge controller it eliminates the redundancy of adding additional sensors to your engine and it allows full programmability of whichever aftermarket companies gauges that have been purchased."

xb9rumble

Sounds like a Aeroforce Technologies gauge but with the freedom to use whatever electronic gauge you want. My brother has been using these on his LSxSyclone and Typhoon

http://aeroforcetech.com/products_interceptor.html

aknovaman

iTrader: (7)

we use this on some swaps when guys dont have a huge budget and want to hide their gages. cant beat the price:

http://www.ultra-gauge.com/ultragauge/index.htm

Note: OBD2 data will only report the existing sensors and most older PCM operating systems (pre-2005) dont report engine and trans oil pressure data.

Squeezer

Interesting alternative on gauges, I had never seen this before now.
Thank you for sharing,

RenoReno2

iTrader: (2)

Very Nice, just what I was looking for

bettonracing

iTrader: (3)

Not to diminish Your finding but these OBD gauges seem to have been cropping up out of the woodworks the past few years.

At one time I was considering the DashDAQ, primarily because it allowed the end user to create his own gauges from scratch. Colors, gauge size, 270deg sweep, logos, bar graphs, etc.

There are also apps that allow You the same real-time readouts (in a variety of displays) on the popular smartphones - most being done through a wireless/ bluetooth transmitter. Logically speaking You could use these apps on tablets (particularly the Android apps)...

My fantasy setup would be a tablet that sits in a docking station integrated into the dashboard. It would:

• match the color & styling of the car's interior,
• act like a kill switch by requiring my Android-style swipecode to start the car,
• store multiple ECU calibrations to reflash while filling up (E85/ race gas/ etc),
• store (and/or display) datalogs while driving,
• store (and/or display) various mini webcams mounted on the car,
• act like a remote for a permanently mounted hard drive (for music),
• pull up the Trapster app in the background while the car is running,
• facilitate tuning the car without a seperate laptop
• ...
• detach & come with me when I get out of the car,
• do the everything again (w/o any hiccups!) when I get back in the car

Once I realized that the fundamental concept - fully integrating a computer into most of the car - is basically what most car manufacturers are doing, (w/o the portability) I felt dirty enough to scrap the idea. Plus I felt like I'd spend way too much time trying to be a techie, and my gearhead personality decided we didn't have time for that.

Food for thought.

Regards,

Kurt Betton

rsz288

You forgot to add in latte or espresso maker. And all for $99 right.

Pop N Wood

iTrader: (1)

There was an article just recently where some car manufacturer was building a vehicle with an ipad controlling everything. it sat right in the middle of the dash like suggested above. Can't remember the exact vehicle.

Geoff55

Very cool!

john j oliver

iTrader: (4)

I was thinking in the same terms of Betton but incorporating it into my Kenwood eXcelon DNX9980 Wide screen display that I have put in my 95 Camaro. I wonder, "Is there an App for that?"

tsnow678

iTrader: (3)

I just purchased a Scan Gauge II and it displays four real time outputs at once. You choose which four at any given time. Simple to use and is dead accurate on the speedo. Plugs right into the OBDII connector. The speedo has at least three times faster refresh rate than my Garmin GPS. I never realized how slow the GPS really is. It has the ability to have other parameters monitored that are not originally installed. The only drawback I see at this point is no oil pressure monitoring. If it had that I wouldnt need an external gauge. It is slim line and you can change the background colors to whatever hue you want. I ordered mine from Autozone for $160 and it was in the store within 2 days straight from the manufacturer.


http://www.scangauge.com/