FridgeFreezer Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 As much as I'd love an LCDash like Nige's, my wallet said no - so I got on eBay and won three Palm pc's for a total of £25 including the postage - bargain! two are Palm Vx which seem to be ideal - small, cheap, simple, and with plenty of RAM. Download the (free) software, and connect the serial cable to the MS output - voila: "Everything" display: Display for the poor of eyesight: Most useful IMHO, selectable 4-value display: You can select what's displayed on the two "big" screens by tapping the display to cycle through all the different options, it remembers what you last had selected on each. Not as bling as the LCDash, but for me it's cheaper than buying a new temperature gauge or rev counter so I'm happy. Just need to work out a way to charge the Palm in the car for longer outings, although the MS Palm forum suggests they're good for a couple of hours datalogging, maybe more when they're just displaying info. I had to make a crossover serial cable (2 connectors, 3 wires) that converts my laptop serial cable to the Palm, you could just buy a null modem cable in the first place. I need to make a dash-mounted cradle for this now, perhaps even a waterproof box would be wise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sotal Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Sorry for my dumbness but what does that plug into on the vehicle? What vehicle are you plugging it into? Will something similar work on a disco? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted October 3, 2007 Author Share Posted October 3, 2007 It plugs into the Megasquirt ECU, so on a Diesel it won't work, no. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sotal Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 ah, is there anything you know of which you can get to show some of that sort of stuff? I presume all the data is there especially with it being the EDC disco Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark90 Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Fridge, not sure you'd get much longer out of the palm battery just using it for displaying, isn't the screen the biggest power draw? Anyway if you want a PDA/Serial cable with power input check out here. I just bought the same thing for my IPAQ from them. And for waterproofness an Otterbox would be nice, but hardly a budget solution (well mine was but that was cheap second hand ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted October 3, 2007 Author Share Posted October 3, 2007 ah, is there anything you know of which you can get to show some of that sort of stuff? I presume all the data is there especially with it being the EDC disco If it's OBD-II then it may be doable with LCDash. Mark - Serial comms is a big draw apparently, although I'd suspect lots of memory access during logging would take a bit of power. I've actually ordered a cheapo car charger and extra serial lead from eBay, grand total about £8, so joining the two should be easy enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonr Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Looks good John. For a waterproof enclosure, go to an electrical factor. They sell nice clear fronted boxes for junctions etc. Many even have a spring loaded flap for accessing switches etc. Cheap as chips too! For a more universal digital dash, for later vehicles Td5 onwards, there are plenty of OBDII scanners including one called Scan-Gauge which sells for about £150. It will show four readings but, better than Megasquirt, it can show speed as well as a host of other engine & vehicle info. For the morte adventurous, there is a thing called NanoCom (soon to be re-sold by a certain well known supplier ) which gives you a digital dash plus the ability to clear fault codes, re-program settings and even up/download fuel maps. It's about £250. None of the above are as bling as LCDash and similar - but they generally do a better job and give you the ability to see what's happening through the eyes of the vehicle itself rather than third party sensors. Invaluable for fault finding & fixing. Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sotal Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Does anyone know if a 95 Disco 1 ES Auto EDC would have an OBDII port?? I've had a quick search on the net and couldn't find anything conclusive, all I could find is that some vehicles did and nearly all vehicles after 96 have got them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted October 3, 2007 Author Share Posted October 3, 2007 Simon - granted it doesn't show speed but I'm confused what you mean by "3rd party sensors"? Talking to the MS is no different than any other vehicle ECU, it knows all the engine info 1st hand because it's running the engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonr Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Simon - granted it doesn't show speed but I'm confused what you mean by "3rd party sensors"? Talking to the MS is no different than any other vehicle ECU, it knows all the engine info 1st hand because it's running the engine. Don't worry John, I wasn't dissing MS! Many of the digital dash solutions come with their own sensors which may or may not agree with those attached to the ecu. The readings will be more or less the same, but not the faults if they occur. Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandyManLuke Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Does anyone know if a 95 Disco 1 ES Auto EDC would have an OBDII port?? I've had a quick search on the net and couldn't find anything conclusive, all I could find is that some vehicles did and nearly all vehicles after 96 have got them If it does, it will be only for the basic emissions data for EGR etc. the engine is still mechanical so won't have anywhere near the sort of data throughput an 'electronic' engine has, like a td5 or MS'd V8 etc. Fridge, very cool, I'm liking the budgetry aspect too. Assuming the Palm sits there as a passive listener, what about running two off the ECU, twice the data to look at then, one for graphs, one for numbers ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted October 3, 2007 Author Share Posted October 3, 2007 Fridge, very cool, I'm liking the budgetry aspect too. Assuming the Palm sits there as a passive listener, what about running two off the ECU, twice the data to look at then, one for graphs, one for numbers ? Not sure how doable that is - but then I'm not sure what you're describing is entirely necessary? The first screen shows everything the ECU is seeing/doing (well, everything you'd want to know anyway), for bigger display you use the other two screens. For actual graphs you use the log viewer on the PC - the Palm can data-log quite a few hours of running whilst displaying any of the above screens. If you need really high resolution logs it will freeze the display and log as fast as the Palm can manage, about 10-20 logs per second is reported. The LCDash can do real-time scrolling graphs, gauges, numbers and also "pass through" data to a PC, but it's more money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandyManLuke Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Not sure how doable that is - but then I'm not sure what you're describing is entirely necessary?The LCDash can do real-time scrolling graphs, gauges, numbers and also "pass through" data to a PC, but it's more money. All i was thinking was, for the cost of the Vx's, if the software could do it, you could have one with data, and one with plots, just for the hell of it really, no real need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Hiatt Posted October 4, 2007 Share Posted October 4, 2007 Looks cool B) A couple of thoughts on waterproofing - at that price you could afford to risk failure and replace. If mounted on the dash it should be reasonably dry except for the drip from the leaking roof (which I assume it has as it is a genuine concours rebuild ) to protect from the drip you could mount a cocktail unbrella above it which will also raise the bling factor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted October 4, 2007 Author Share Posted October 4, 2007 If mounted on the dash it should be reasonably dry except for the drip from the leaking roof (which I assume it has as it is a genuine concours rebuild ) to protect from the drip you could mount a cocktail unbrella above it which will also raise the bling factor. love it Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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