Well seeing how many people are having trouble with a bright screen at night I've decided to help everyone out.

Made a program that'll decrease the brightness in half (depending on the OS)

Made it to fit the Z (after all, I'll be using it in my car too) 3 buttons (matching the 3 dot's theme) and an Amber glow when button is pressed (trying to match the stock HU glow)

best of all ITS FREE!!!

seeing how I whip this one up in a few hours, no point in really charging for it.

Can Download it here:

http://www.taylormacintosh.com

just click on Programs
Click on the eclipse banner to go to the eclipse's page
and download is on the bottom of that page.

Can also watch the demo too before you download.

Heres' a pic. Let me know how it works out

 

did you invent this yourself?

interesting for sure, does it work as well (and easy) as you state?

 

well not 100%. the concept has been around for a while. I just made it simple and cater the look towards the Z.
you can dl it and see for yourself.

 

I downloaded both exeec and setup files. Unzipped file. Doubleclicked the Eclipse exec file. I could see an application window in the start bar and it is minimized, but can't maximize it.

 

Same here. I have the little black eclipse "e" icon on the taskbar but can't do anything with it.

 

ok, fixed.

Desktop PC resolution was 1024x768. Had it load on the lower right hand corner.

Fixed it so that it pops up in the middle of the screen now.

Also no need to download both. if the exe don't work then used the full setup version. the exe is included in the setup files.

 

small update on the program. added command line option and keyboard controls to it (for those with remote controls) Also add a small help file that explains how to use these.

So how does it work so far? Haven't got a chance to test this in my car yet, still installing.

Oh, just download the exe file, no need to run setup again.

 

Works very nicely. I have an icon sitting on my desktop so it's easy to get to. That up-arrow button is bizzare though! Sort of like an LSD trip or something!

Thanks Alphared!

 

Does anyone think that the brightness setting of your screen can be tied to the dashboard dimmer?
Do you, guys, know, if the stock nav screen brightness follows the dash setting, or is it adjusted separately?

Just a side note: why the heck that cruise control light doesn't get dimmed with the rest?

 

possible, but don't think it'll work for the Xenarc screen since its menu driven. Other you can wire the brightness up/down to the dimmer up/down. For Xenarc screen you would need an extra button to trigger the brightness menu.
I just went for the software route since hardware would've been hard and expensive (expecially if I blow the screen) So, rather than risk blowing up my screen testing it, I rather crash my pc. I can always undo (or reinstall) stuff on the PC.

 

alphared,
Thanks for the reply. I've only seen pictures of Xenarc. Don't know why I thought that two of Xenarc's buttons were brightness up/down.

I guess, another way of doing it is having a daemon monitor the brightness setting of the instrument panel through some port and adjust the screen brightness accordingly.
If only I knew electronics!

 

Hey alphared thanks for this prog.

Perhaps you could try to connect the program to the system clock of the PC.
The Evening you start to dimm the screen and in the morning you set it brighter.

This will not work perfectly, for example bad weather in winter, but then you could still adjust manually.

just a suggestion.

Rocker_lx

 

way ahead of you there. All I can say is keep your eyes open for next few weeks