I have been wanting to do this for a while but I've only just got some spare money to do it; I plan to totally digitalise my dashboard / instrument panel / what ever you call it to add additional functionality and bling. I am going to remove the guts that control the speedo and rpm meter and get the fuel, speed and RPM readings using an Arduino which is a programmable micro controller, it will output the readings to various 7 segment displays (for speed and RPM), servo motors (for the analogue speed and RPM needle), LEDs (for fuel level) and an LCD display (for various advanced functions). I'm going to program the Arduino to perform various functions such as read the fuel level and calculate an accurate volume in litres and mileage possible on the remaining fuel, average MPG, top speed record and best 0-60 time which will be outputted to the LCD display. I will also have some LEDs to indicate fuel level (going from green to orange to red) which will flash when the fuel gets low. I would like to keep the analogue RPM and speed needles so to make them work without their OEM internals I will control them with servo motors.

I can simply get the speed by measuring the RPM of the front or rear wheel with a magnet and a hall effect sensor then convert that to RPH then times that by the circumference of the wheel in miles which gives me the speed in MPH. To get the engine speed there is already a hall effect sensor / magnet setup inside the engine which the existing rpm counter get's its information from so I can just count the pulses from that to get the RPM. The fuel gauge will be a bit tricky as I will have to calibrate the reading by draining the tank and adding fuel bit by bit while taking readings until it's full.

This system should be much more accurate and responsive than the crappy OEM one and I think it will add a coolness factor too. I have mocked up a crappy concept picture so you can get an idea of what I plan to do.

dash.jpg

I will post updates as they happen.