Google takes a few days to review the submitted material apparently. Looks like it'll upload in a few days. Anyways also uploaded on youtube.com

Search "MINI shiftlight" and it should pop up by tomorrow

EDIT: Looks like it's live on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12rraSrPshI

 

Cool

 

very very nice indeed

 

Good work theyre barnabas...i bet your neighbours loved you while testing

 

Thanks for the comments guys Doesn't look that impressive now but once I get them mounted in the tach should be alot better

 

Haha yeah, I got alot of weird looks from people passing by. I did alot of redline runs near where I live so I wouldn't have to rev my motor while just sitting in one spot.

Once I build in a voltage regulator the hard part will be done. Next is to mount the LEDs in the tach. I'll probably change out the background LEDs in the tach while I'm at it. This is costing me more and more lol. I think I'm up to $60 now bah.

 

are your done, are you going to sell a kit...

 

Sorry, but no its taking longer than I thought. I keep running into problems but should be completed soon as the hard part is finished. As for a kit...I'm going to put up a very thorough DIY so anyone can do this, and for those who can't I *MIGHT* sell soldered boards to recoup some of the cost of building it, but I don't know yet.

 

It WORKS!! I fiddled around w/ the settings and figured out my problem.

I found out the max output voltage of the freq to voltage converter is 6.4V. That voltage was being reached by the time I got to 6k RPM. So when I adjust it so the last LED would light, it would light up too early, and when I adjust it for the RPM, the last LED would never light up.

I had the voltage scale at 1V/1kRPM, so I toned that down to 0.7V/1kRPM, and now it works flawlessly. I just tested it by driving, and it seemed to start lighting up at 6k, and the last LED lit RIGHT before I hit the revlimiter.

I'm esctatic if you can't tell so by next week I'm going to try to mount it in the tach and get it working! Woooooo!!!

 

Alright! so how much are you going to sell the kit for?

 

"One MILLLION dollars!"

 

hell ya. i would love to have this.

 

lol practice soldering if you don't know how and you can make this for about $40.

A full parts lists with a how to sometime next week if I get my parts

EDIT: Update. http://youtube.com/watch?v=SFSJsa72to4

 

Well the lights are in the tach. This is by far the most difficult part of the process. Mainly due to the size of the LEDs I'm working with and having to keep the lights separated and not bleed into each other. This took me 2 full days, and after trying 3 different methods, this came out the winner. Also was the cheapest lol. The video should be up on youtube.com soon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlURHNt8H7g
Not currently live but maybe in a few hrs. The 3rd "bar" isn't working due to one of the LED controller IC's being broken off, and the other "missing" bar is due to poor connection. Shiftlight was acting a bit strange due to the temporary setup (I'm using both the breadboard and part of a soldered board together), and some wires are getting crossed. Either way I just wanted to make sure all the lights worked which they do.

Basically I am finished, as all I have left to do is mount the components onto a board permanently. But here's a DIY for those who are interested...it is definitely NOT easy. Alot harder than I originally anticipated.


First, open up the tach. Remove two screws in the back, and then pull up on the black tab at the bottom. It's covered by a sticker.


Something to note. The redline is lit by 3 red LEDs. Once you look at the white plastic piece you'll know when you put it over the circuit board. If you seen the video you'll notice that my redline is one single line at 8k RPM. I kept the last LED and moved it a bit to position it so only the last line is lit. You have to remove the other 2 LEDs but the LEDs are in a series, so you have to bridge the 2 pads together to get the current to flow.

Note on the gauge face the black lines which separate the different sections of the lines. There are 11 bars, and I have 10 LEDs for the shiftlight. 1 bar is lit by the stock LED, and the rest by the shiftlight. So the challenge is to make it so that each bar lights up and not have the light bleed into the other bars. So separating these bars is necessary.



I used foam dividers to separate the bars. Most of them are cut from steak n shake foam takeout box. Cut them up into a shape that fits nicely with the white plastic piece. Alot of room will have the LEDs bleed into each other. Attach the cut foam pieces to the gauge face using superglue.

Now the hard part begins...now this is only the method I used. There's many ways to do this so you can do whatever you feel is easier, more simple etc. I tried gluing, but that didn't work out well due to the bleeding and the spotlighting effect.

So now I soldered the LEDs on the wires and placed them in their individual slots.



Because the LEDs are ground controlled all the power is wired together, with separate wires for the ground.



You also need to cut out some of the white plastic to make room for the wires. If you fit the circuit board on to the white plsatic you can see areas where you can route the wires through w/o removing too much.



I didn't have a dremel or a drill so basically had to cut it out w/ pliers and scissors lol. Having the right tool helps alot!

Once all the wires are routed and LEDs in their respective slots you can fit the circuit board over and route the wires out through the back near the tach connector.

That's basically it. Using the schematic below you can solder the components onto the board and mount it behind the parcel shelf w/ double sided tape or something.

I'll post a parts list in a few days.





EDIT: Edited youtube.com vid link. Vid live currently

 

Awesome mod Thanks for the DIY write up

 

Hey no problem. Seems like I'm going to be scrapping it and starting over lol.
I fiddled around w/ something and figured out a LOT easier way to do it and get it bright. That was one of the issue....i wanted it brighter....ugh, this is neverending...

 

I got mine installed yesterday.

 

i'm curious to know what method you used. I'm thinking of redoing the whole thing as it isn't all that bright.

 

I bought mine from a guy who did his.

It has 3modes and stuff, I'll try to get video as soon as possible.

 

how much did you pay for the modded one.

 

See https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=63890

 

Any updates? This thread seemed to went to sleep....

 

hey sorry for the lack of updates lol. Well I've been on and off w/ the project, and been slacking as I got distracted by other projects lol.

I have soldered everything on to a board, and it's done, except I redid all the LEDs and put in regular bulb type LEDs. There's some issues with the board when I tested it yesterday so I need to do some troubleshooting to figure out why it's not working.. :\

I am pretty sick of working on it though lol. Ready to move on to bigger and better things...like a turboed e30

 

Update Update Update :-d

 

Done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlURHNt8H7g
old vid, and there are some kinks in the vid which is all resolved now.