looks pretty chill

 

hmmm... man acree.. you got a good rep here.. lol..

hmm... i really need to break open *cough*.... take apart a Z's gauges and look inside...

i'm been able to do the needle changing on other cars... but yeah... that whole orange plastic needle thing you told me about sucks....

hmm.. most you can do easily at this point i can see is to have the orange turn to red.... as the red led will bleed well... you already should know.. lol..

hmm.... and rgb leds? hmm... very interested in what you come up with... i've been trying to make color changing gauges but i don't have the money to work with...

 

Actually the stock gauge needles are red, but the plastic is bright orange. Now I need to find replacement needles. Hmm... Lexus gauge needles are clear... hmm...

-Acree

 

You don't need a microcontroller. You just need one general purpose transistor and a couple of resistors (at most).

Feed the + end of the rev light LED to the base pin of the transistor. Emitter pin goes to ground. Connect one end of the resistor to the supply voltage and the other end to the + end of the LED. The - end of the LED connects to the collector pin.

The transistor becomes a switch. Optional is an additional resistor connected to the base of the transistor to maintain optimum "activation" current feeding into the transistor base pin.

Just look for LED transistor switch and you can find a very simple circuit.

[EDIT] Oops... yea microcontroller if you want to vary colors for an RGB. I was thinking about how to interface the rev LED to a brighter LED (more power)

 

well im glad i could bring this new project to your attention

 

ohh.... baka!!!?!?

 

You may be able to make your own needle out of acrylic or even lexan sheet. If you use lexan sheet you could do it with a dremel tool then you could polish it clear again.

 

Hahaha Team America?


I might have to look into something like that, but hopefully I can find a suitable needle from another car.

-Acree

 

hmm? naw..

but yeah.. i was thinking lexan as an alternative... some nice cutting and polish would do wonders...

 

what about using the GTO gauge needles since thats what car it was in the video. Just an idea

 

True, but finding a wrecked GTO somewhere is not too likely. Not to mention they might not even be the right size.

-Acree

 

Any updates?

 

long time no read Acree... just a thought... even if the GTO needles are slightly larger... you might be able to trim them a bit... (if they are larger)

 

True, but getting ahold of GTO needles is the problem.

-Acree

 

next time I see one at the mall.....kidding of course.....hell I'll call pontiac parts for you so long as if I buy the needle I can get one at a discount...btw I have my AAM plenum spacer off my car if you wanna trade for those sequential LED Turn signals we spoke about a year ago (used to work @ altered)

 

The problem is if you go through Pontiac, almost gauranteed you will have to buy the whole gauge assembly.

As far as the AAM spacer goes, I've decided to go a different route with my mods.

-Acree