Tesla like display

[frank]

After visiting the Tesla showroom I had a thought to build a center console with an Android pad or iPad to serve as my media center and that got me to wondering if something inexpensive exists that could take readings from our 914 guages and sensors that could be displayed on a tablet.

I actually still need to figure out how to make a media center work. Tablets are so cheap these days that it makes sense to dedicate one to be a mobile entertainment system.

If anyone has information please share.

Tip: for those of you with smart phones, there is an application that I have been using since the Palm Treo days which will turn your phone into a mobile hotspot without having to pay the carrier's rediculous fee. This will enable internet access on your tablet. I plan to use it with my center console tablet to provide GPS navigation and internet access while on the road in my 914.

The app is called PDANet+ by June Fabrics (I know...weird company name but well established) It has a trial period before it disables password enabled sites. If you don't need to login to anything, then you can use it for free.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

The instrumentation and senders and such in the 914 are so old an primitive that they are not compatible with any modern stuff that's out there. You can, if you're motivated, rig up a break-out box for some of the electrical stuff, and hook up circuitry that will read those signals and convert them into something meaningful to a digital system.

But you'd have to be very motivated.

Although a 914 with a 1996+ engine swapped in, complete with all the engine management stuff, should be able to feed a standard OBD2 reader. There are quite a number of those out there now.

My feeling is that the Six swap is only a little more complex than putting together something to read and interpret the analog signals in the stock 914... (Though I might be exaggerating a bit. )

--DD

[CptTripps]

I'm looking at doing the same thing...but with a Subaru conversion where I have an ECU that can send all the data to the display through the ODB2 interface.

Doing it on a stock 914 would be next to impossible for a lot of the functions.

[GeorgeRud]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone doesn't eventually come up with some sort of conversion box that would do this sort of stuff.

Even though the sensors are old, they still basically measure voltage, resistance, or rpms. I don't know that modern sensors measure anything much different, so it would be a case of converting these values to digital signals that a computer can understand.

[frank]

George,

Those were exactly my thoughts when I posted my inquiry... I would bet a big fat nickel that there is already something out there. I was just looking for a good lead.

Even the mechanical-only gauges could be converted to digital rather simply... but not by me... someone way smarter than me... i just want to ride the coat-tails of their genius.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

On the D-jet cars, the main metering is done by varying the amount of inductive coupling between two coils of wires. There aren't many instruments out there that will measure that--it's just not common any more to need to measure that sort of thing.

I know of people who have looked into making a digital equivalent of the MPS (the Manifold Pressure Sensor, the part that supplies the varying inductive coupling). Very smart people, BTW. It isn't worthwhile to do; measuring the manifold vacuum is easy, but turning that into a changing inductance digitially is just too big of a pain. Pretty much everyone I know of who has looked into that has concluded that it was easier to change over completely to a digital system like Megasquirt, and pull the signals out of that.

--DD

[frank]

Well, darn it! :-)

I have my hands so full with must-have's on my car that I have no time to research this nice-to-have-but-not-likely-possible. :-)