I'm neck deep in the rebuild of my 73 cougar and I've hit a wall. I have a vision of the interior being a little more futuristic and it seems like I nobody makes what I'm looking for. I've looked through Prosport, Dakota Digital, Intellitronix and all the other google results, but nobody really sales what I'm looking for. I've called and emailed the "custom" gauge manufacturers, but they don't really customize anything for you.
What I'm looking for is a gauge kit thats blacked out when not in use, has a digital readout of whatever its measuring, and a "sweeping" needle that "gradients" as the value goes up. The closest thing I've seen is the Prosport digital series (Digital Gauges-Digital Boost gauges-Prosport Gauges, EGT, Water temp, etc..) but they don't make a tach/speedo in that model.
In my searches, I found a company that made exactly what I wanted (Nordskog), but they went out of business many years ago.
Here is the vision: Imgur
Here are the Nordskog gauges IRL: Imgur
Someone told me to look into making my own with something called Arduino . . . After some hardcore google work, I realized that I wouldn't be competent enough to do that (I don't even understand if/how its possible)
Will I never realize my dream? If its possible through Arduino, I'll gladly pay someone to make a kit. I feel like the technology should be simple enough . . . I need help.
The Arduino is capable of processing information, but can't display it without the assistance of other hardware. It sounds like you would need some sort of LCD screen that the Arduino can output data to, which will fit in the area that you are working with. Have you found such a screen?
Sounds like something I would be interested in tackling, but there is a lot of information I would need even to just narrow the scope of work a bit. Building a gauge cluster is one thing, the hard part is making sense of all the different signals heading to the dash. If you want someone to tackle this job you need to outline what signals you have to meter, their ranges and correlations. There is also form factor information(shape and size). I would say power but being a vehicle I am assuming 12VDC is available If you still need help with this project send me a Personal Message.
I don't know if what i am doing with the WIKKISPEED project is relevant but I am building a "soft" dashboard. This is using the Arduino to read the sensors and then sending a protocol packet through Blue Tooth to a tablet device that renders the dials written in java. This would allow you to make your dashboard look like anything you wanted.
If you want any more information on this or any other of my current and past projects have a look at my website WWW.EmbeddedAT.com or drop me a PM.
If you still need help with this project send me a Personal Message.