Custom Gauge Design and Creation

Drakivaz

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I've looked around the internet a bit and the places I've found that make custom gauge faces (for LED, not Electroluminescence) are less than satisfying. Some companies don't make Honda, some cost horribly high amounts, some cannot print with high precision, and some never return e-mails.

I took a shot at creating custom gauge faces and did a passable job with $7 and about 10 hours in Adobe Illustrator.

I'm making my second attempt and I want to post it here in the DIY forum to get advice and possibly provide some myself. The discussion in this topic is centered around making full replacements for gauge faces, not overlays.

First edition problems:
-Black not thick enough. (allowed shine through on the seatbelt/check engine/other square lights.
-No filter on the back (Brighter where the bulbs are, darker near the centers.
-Did not account for the yellow tint of standard bulbs (Not all of the cluster is LED, even with the well-performing cluster kit from LEDautomotive.)

Second edition goals:
-Thicken Black (I've heard that Staples has a thicker transparency that soaks up more ink)
-Implement filter (Based on stock gauge filter)
-Configure design for all white LEDs (I will find a way to make the entire cluster into LEDs)


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Please, post your feedback, advice, comments, and questions. I would love to hear from you.
 
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Accord281

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This sounds like a very unique and interesting way to customize your car. I will subscribe to this and look forward to hearing about your progress. Do you have any pictures of your first attempt? I would love to see how it looks in the car!
 

vorin

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i def. want to keep tabs on this. i'm better at illustrator that i am with cars, and this could have a really sweet result. how are you printing?
 
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Drakivaz

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I'm printing using this man's http://www.revlimiter.net/mods/gauges.html method for his Mazda Miata, except I have no shine through color layer (his blue layer) as I am just shining white and I have the additional experimental filter layer which can be seen in the first post's picture.

I'll try and get some lit and unlit pictures of the first edition tomorrow. The first edition was very close to the stock gauges, except I changed some of the colors around and made the KMH scale shine-through. Also, the holes in the center are too big (as I did not know how to remove gauge needles at the time) so the needles do not light well.
 

98ExAccordwv

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Thats pretty cool man. Good luck with it, hopefully it will work out for you.
 

Drakivaz

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Well, I have the gauge faces installed. They still have some uneven lighting, but they are much better than they were with no filter at all. I'll post pictures once I get everything working. the only problem I am having is with the gauge needles.

Does anyone know or have any expertise in calibrating the gauge needles on a 2002 accord?

The Tachometer seems to work properly and I haven't been able to test the Fuel and Temperature well. The speedometer is the biggest problem. It doesn't seem to be descending naturally, it only goes down when I hit the brakes. Because it doesn't naturally descend, it gets progressively misaligned in the upwards direction as I sustain a speed on an uphill.

The car is still safe to drive as long as I stay with the flow of traffic, but I need to get these calibrated right.

Any help is appreciated.
 

Drakivaz

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I'm back finally with a second edition and now a third edition being worked on.

0321091403.jpg


Note: this picture was taken in artificial darkness (I.E. blanket over me and the cluster) rather than at night.

Second edition goals:
-Thicken Black (I've heard that Staples has a thicker transparency that soaks up more ink)
-Implement filter (Based on stock gauge filter)
-Configure design for all white LEDs (I will find a way to make the entire cluster into LEDs)

Second edition results:

-Staples did not have a thicker transparency and their printer left streak-marks on the transparency layer. (booo).

-Filter was ok... but it really did not cut it. You either have to meticulously pixel edit on a pattern that changes from squares to circles in random places or you have to use gradients which are not easy (for beginners) to control in photoshop. This added to the fact that experimenting damaged the filters in my case and we have lots of problems.

-I was successful in changing the drive indicator lights into white LEDs. This will be covered in another topic at another time. (since Nate from LED automotive never got back to me about his interest in knowing first, I might as well tell the world.)

-Some of the patterns got cut off by the bezel.

-My gauge needles don't work entirely properly anymore.

-The blue filter parts on the pattern do not fully light up. (Since some of them still have stock bulbs and not LEDs)

-It's really hard to see what drive indicator light is on when there is bright light around the cluster (daytime) but I think this is true of all configurations including just stock/normal. I don't remember if I could see the DI before I did mods because I never paid attention to it.


------------------------------

Third edition goals:
-Forget the filters, just use more black
-Thinner paper layer so more light shines through where it is supposed to
-Attempt to find a way to give the gauges a matte finish like the stock faces
-Get the gauge needles working
-Get the rest of the cluster converted to LED

Third edition so far:

-I have the faces printed and glued. The transparency layer turned out very good (from kinkos this time). I used a total of five layers of black (Layer order: Mask-Color-Lightmask-Lightmask-Lightmask). The lightmask layers are black where i don't want light and clear where light is ok.

-The seatbelt light may be slightly misaligned (Layers out of phase). I hope not since it's already glued

So now, I have to get the LEDs and figure out how to get the gauge needles working so that I can do this all in one swoop on a weekend rather than pulling the gauge face apart five more times.
 
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