I am in the (slow) process of putting in a turbo engine in my car along with a MegaSquirt 2 computer. I am going to be wiring up a wireless adapter to the MS computer allowing me to feed all of my car's vitals to a tablet. I was going to go down the path of figuring out gauges for my dash, but decided to look into putting a tablet in the dash instead. I have seen people modify their center console/radio pod to fit a tablet/monitor in there, however I do not want to have to look down there for the information I will be feeding it.

What I am wondering is, has anyone put a tablet in their dash instead of gauges? I have not had the opportunity to measure it, but to me it looks like even a 7" tablet will not fit between the steering wheel and dash pad. If I were electronically smart I would look into dual monitors and have some information where the speedo is and some where the tach is and just leave the middle blank, but I'm not.

A tablet tablet probably wont fit in the gauge location...

Two droid based smart phones probably would though. If you could load both with an app to work with megasquirt, you could probably figure out a way to use them.

But it might be difficult to get ALL of the info you need. Like fuel level, unless MS has an input that will take it and transmit it with the wireless info.

You could def set up a tablet over in the center of the dash somewhere, and have it read axillary info. And just use traditional gauges for the main stuff.

There is a really nice Android application for MS that gives you everything you need and that is why I was looking for solution to mount at least a 7" tablet. I might look into a way to daisy chain two monitors together and use a Raspberry Pi to drive everything. That might be a simple solution. I was just really looking for the easiest solution and a tablet would be perfect. Kind of like a RacePak only $10K cheaper.

My understanding is that communicating with a Megasquirt isn't as straightforward as communicating with OBDII. Plus, you'll also have to wire up separate circuits for things like fuel pressure and fuel level, unless you stick gauges somewhere else. Then you'll also have the issue of having to "boot" your tablet(s) every time you start the car. Overall, I think this approach will be clunky at best.

I think a better approach would be to use an embedded microcontroller to get the required info from the megasquirt and then drive a display. I'm building a similar setup for my IROC for when I convert to LS power with the OBDII ECU. I'm planning on starting a thread soon, but I want to make some more meaningful progress first. I know that there's a guy on gearheadefi.com that's doing a similar project to drive a small OLED display with vitals that he gets from his megasquirt. He's using an Arduino microcontroller just like I'm using. I think this approach may prove to be more successful.

I think that you still have the mechanical speedometer. If so, your VSS signal is generated at the speedometer in the back of the cluster.
If your replacement transmission doesn't have the digital output, then you should be able to swap the gear for a sensor along with a cable and use that instead. Otherwise you might consider some kind of hybrid with the stock speedometer and a digital display on the other side. That would help you retain your odometer.

I have the white housing and inner metal face for a cluster that should fit in yours if you're interested(The circuit board is shot). I was going to use it to test fit something like that and would work for what you need. To me it seems like you could fit two screens vertically and possibly a smaller across the middle. It might also help you see where the electrical connectors are in the back in case you want to take anything from that.
IMO, I would do a carputer and run cables up to whatever screens you end up with in the cluster area. I'd hardwire everything too, no wireless.

Mount your speedo unit only integrated with the steering column, then put your tablet wherever else you wanted.

However, there are more things you haven't considered, legal requirements for indicators, high beam, oil warning lamps etc... a lot of other items integrate with the cluster more than just ecu if applicable.

You need something like this instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

http://www.altronicsinc.com/data-rec...-system-1.html

I have been looking into this. It should monitor just about everything I need. Booting up is not a problem to me. I live in the frozen north of Minnesota and get to drive my car only a couple of months out of the year. I will have the tablet removable, so I can boot it up as I am walking out to my car. There will be a few things I will need gauges for and that is not an issue to me, I just want the majority of it handled by the tablet. The radio will probably be removed completely, so I could put the gauges there. Or I can use the open area around the tablet for a few of them.

With the 4th gen T5 I will have an electronic vss, so the MS will be able to read it and send it to the tablet without any problems. I am planning on building a new surround to fit everything I need, so all electrical connectors will be removed. The whole system will be run off of a bluetooth connector and I have never had any issues with a lost bluetooth connection. The carputer is still a thought, I was going to piece one together, but for what I want to do a tablet will work just the same. I just need to figure out where and how to mount it. Also it will be a whole lot cheaper.

You are absolutely correct. I am still in the planning stages of this and have not made up my mind completely. A lot of those items will not be that big of a deal with integrated LEDs. I appreciate the heads up.

That looks like an incredible unit, but I am not trying to spend $1K on that. I might as well just buy Autometer gauges and use my current 10" tablet to datalog everything from the MS.

shadowdash works. AlkyIROC's suggestion is geared more towards race cars that need standalone recording. Megasquirt supports CAN, meaning any dash/display/hud that supports CAN will read all the gauge inputs from the MS.

Keep in mind MS1/2 doesn't have native VSS support. (it can be added, but their is no spare input that will read frequency. So you need a frequency to voltage converter). MS3 will work with native VSS and wheel sensors. However your shadowdash can display speed with GPS, so that's also an option.

I'm not really all that into gauges and heads up displays. I keep my laptop in the car so I can log what I need, and I go back and review later. But a LOT of guys (non thirdgen guys) are doing megasquirts with all sorts of displays.

-- Joe

Thanks for the info Joe. I might have to look into the standalone a little more. It might end up being more cost effective in the end.

I apologize for being wrong about the VSS support. I could have sworn I saw that somewhere. I am still very new to MS and am learning as I go. Luckily I have plenty of time before I get to that point in my build and I have a local MS guy that can help me out.

Can you elaborate? I haven't heard too much about this since I only frequent these boards and the MSIII boards.

Lot of Foxbody guys. When I first got into megasquirt I found like almost nobody on here was into it, so I had to search the net. Found corral, hybridz, and all sorts of forums with good info. Even youtube has some cool heads up display megasquirt videos.

Products known to work:

http://www.aimsports.com/ (CAN bus)
http://www.magneti-marelli.com/product.php?id=117 (CAN bus)
http://www.extremeengines.com/cgi-bi...wprod_EXT20002 (CAN bus)

Then of course, shaddowlogger and the other android stuff.

-- Joe

my acer 10 inch tablet has gps built into it.i have an app that tells me my speed if im patient.[not instant.of course] this won't work for rapid acceleration.

After seeing those prices I would def choose shadow dash MS with a tablet instead!

Haha.

On ebay you will find some canbus dvd/dash combos for low $300s that should work as well.

I was gonna go canbus for my aftermarket gauges (boost, wideband, etc) but at $80 each it was cheaper to buy chinese gauges at $20 each shipped.

-- Joe

I believe speedhut makes gauges than can use canbus. But then that's not a tablet or heads up display.

I am using shadow dash on my sony MP3 player. The screen is only 3.5" (diagonal) but it fits right on the steering wheel. I do a screen orientation lock to hold it on portrait (so it does not flip to landscape while I am steering.) I also have the external 10Hz GPS device that is recomended on the tuner studio site. If anyone is still interested in this thread, I will take & post a pic later tonigh. The best part for me is changing the color of the shadowdash screen to match the backlighting on the factory gages. (Well... close to matching.)

I didn't want to read through all the old posts but I'm glad this thread came back to the top.

Another option for using a tablet. Buy one that has bluetooth. Install an app such as Torque or Dash command. The downside is that you need an OBDII connector in the car. Installing an ELM327 (search on ebay) into the OBDII port allows you to monitor engine functions.

I use an ELM327 in my 2004 Superduty with an android phone to see things my gauges don't show. Also lets me view and clear fault codes.

Since our cars don't have OBDII, this option might be hard to do but the technology is out there to do it.

Really would like to see some one do this....personally would love to do the same.

I too have been thinking on how to put a tablet in my dash, instead of gages...S10wildside on hear has a company that sells OBDII conversion for our cars...but I'm going LS1 and would like to use the OBDII from it to feed info to a tablet or 2 in my dash...maybe have one where the speedo is and one where the tac is...I know they sell blue tooth transmitter that plugs in to a OBDII port...so if you have bluetooth tablets you could set both to receive the data...then put what info you want them to show....

There are several apps (on the android side) such as torque that grab data from the blue tooth OBD2 connector and give you a wealth of data. you can also customize the display (more or less) as you see fit. It also has a menu for charting drag times (if you are so interested.)

I would be interested in seeing it. I have not completely given up hope on this idea, it has just been too damn cold to do anything. I am patiently waiting for the weather to break to work on my car.

Here are a few pics of my Shadowdash Steering wheel display

So is that just Velcrod on the wheel? Why not just get a little caddy for it that mounts on the windshield or dash?

I did the velcro wheel mount because it was cheaper than getting a suction cup mount, I can reach it easier, and the install is cleaner.

This might be an option

That is an idea, but the problem is the distance between our steering column and the dash pad. I am in the process of getting my motor and transmission in and situated, so I haven't measured anything, but I doubt that anything would fit there.

I would surly go for some furstic digital gauges in the dash but a tablet should and would go with in easy reaching distance while driving, behind steerign wheel aint a good place to reach while driving.

think cockpit, strapped in, can you easily reach things while in combat

This is what I am using with my LS swap. But it is OBD2

http://api.viglink.com/api/click?for...ge%2Findex.htm

That's pretty cool, but wouldn't work in my case.