Bruce In Philly

2009 C2S 201K miles

I think I would buy one if it was down there in the cubby. Yea, not that visible, but I don't think I would stare at it like I do with my RPMs. It is more of a quick check when I know I am in hot conditions or driving hard. Another nit, is the graphics are dissimilar to the dash graphics and if you put it low in the cubby, there is way less aesthetic clash.

Peace
Bruce in Philly (now Atlanta)

Sporty

To be clear, you do mean oil pressure and not temperature? ( your gauges do not also display oil pressure -correct?)

Sporty

I am of different opinion - why waste the cubby space for this, (usually throw my wallet, phone, glasses, etc in there) plus I do constantly keep an eye on my water/oil temp so nice to have right in front of me.

Hatzenbach

Hey, ignore my earlier comment. I just had an idea how to make a *very* compact gauge with a small rectangular display (I had the idea while in the shower, where I usually have my best ideas, I should shower more ;-)
Give me a few days and I have something to show here.

Hatzenbach

with the exception of the 987.1 they also display oil pressure

Boggus

First photo I posted has the car running and shows the gauge (at least water temp)

Wayne Smith

The difference isn't significant IMHO. I always figured the rom gauge was important, but next are oil temp and pressure. Having those note blocked by the steering wheel is critical.

I love mine but still will be interested in what shows up next.

smrpr

Let me know if I can help in any way, would love to be involved!

Hatzenbach

Here is the promised update. Sorry it will be a bit of a longer read, but I want to cover all the bases here.

As you all know, the project started as a replacement for the SportChrono clock.
And for that I used basically the same kind of display that is in smartwatches, it has high resolution, color, can be dimmed at night and - well - it's round.



Currently I am working on the "standalone" gauge and I figured let's keep things simple and I simply used the same display and put it into a separate gauge:


I still think that this is the best solution, but there were requests to be able to mount it right in your view on top of the steering column, and the smallest I could make it was this:

Not bad, but it partially blocks the information screen, so not ideal.
So the idea, that some of you had was: hey, why don't you use a rectangular display?
Not a bad idea, but here are the challenges.
A "normal" square displays actually take up almost the same real estate as the round display, but it has a much lower resolution.
The display itself is smaller but it's on a printed circuit board that wastes all the gained space.
So there's no incentive to use that.



Does that mean we're out of luck?
Not really, there IS one display that works, it's black & white only and has a resolution of 128x32 pixels, and it's very - let's say "compact"



And here is how it looks (this are all just prototypes, so don't get hung up on the design and the orange color of the housing):




It sits on the steering column and doesn't block the view.
The font is about the same size as the font in the Porsche display, but better readable
And we can display the 3 most important pieces of information
- Oil temp (on the left)
- Water temp (on the right)
- Oil pressure (the bar on the bottom), the markers are 1,2,3,4,5 bar oil pressure

So, let's summarize the difference to the round gauge:
- very small, but still readable
- works just as good as the round gauge
- it's black & white
- no graphics
- it doesn't dim

Let me know what you think. If I put this into production I am thinking of offering as a separate option at a lower price.

Sporty

Looks like a good option' but does the housing have to be so big/thick on the sides and top? Also the gauge is reading 172 while the stock gauge is barely at 150 - surprised that much difference; but i guess that's the impetus of this whole endeavor?

Hatzenbach

Good catch, It's currently not reading anything, it's just in demo mode
And the case can be made a little smaller, but it still has to house the display + the CPU, so I need some space

Boggus

Any way to tie this into the obd plug rather than tagging the can + - wires? Also, can it display other information, basically things that transmit thru obd? Just thinking out loud.

Hatzenbach

Unfortunately many of the Porsche specific signals are not available on OBDII, only on the CAN bus

smrpr

I'm assuming the issue now is the size of the Arduino Pico or whatever board you're using rather than the screen board, right?

That's a tough one indeed. I think that given the small size of the new screen you're "losing" the ability to put it virtually anywhere, and although the case is smaller than the round one, it's not as small as it could be.

The reason I asked was because the other day I came across this:

https://www.opentop.fr/

It's a similar solution to yours but it goes in one of the vents. The way they were able to make it so small is by installing the screen and the arduino board in a 90 degree angle. That way you can use the depth of the vent and reduce the footprint of the screen encasing.

You can (barely) see how it's done here:


Personally, given it's not something that changes as quickly as say, the RPMs or the speed, I wouldn't mind having to look at left vent for half a second to get the temps info. Maybe this is very specific to me, but I really love OEM+ / retrofit solutions and having that dome on top of the steering column looks a bit "Fast and Furious" to me. But as I said that's personal preference

Hatzenbach

@smrpr Yes, you;re right, when i use the mini-display, now the footprint of the Arduino and the board it's mounted on are becoming the limiting factor.
By the way: I am using the same Arduino as they are using in the video, it's a XIAO-ESP32-S3. It is a pretty powerful processor which has the smallest footprint there is.
The air vent in the video looks like from a JDM car and is way less complex and way more sturdy than the side vent in a 9x7.
I simply don't want to mess with that tender example of German engineering.
As I said these vents are expensive and removing and replacing them is a major pain. It's not as easy as in a JDM car, where you simply pop them out and back in.
Well, I guess with that I put the whole "rectangular mini display" experiment to rest, it was a fun learning experience anyway.
Next step is to take a swing at making a housing that goes into the cubby.
By the way: I totally hear you: I also don't like the "fast&furious" look of additional gauges on the A-pillar.
But there's really not much choices here, short of cutting a hole in the middle of the dash and retro-fitting a SportChrono wart.