Gauge Cluster Calibrator

[goldnsx]

Very nice project.

[Heineken]

.. and a lot of work - Thank you very much

[RedCarsGoFaster]

This is outstanding - first time I’ve heard of something like this being produced outside of Japan. Good work!

I have been thinking of refreshing my gauge cluster for a little while, but the challenges of calibrating the unit have put me off a bit. Of course, complete replacement tachometer gauge and minor gauges are available to bypass this process, but the UK mph gauge seems to be out of production and unavailable everywhere - the only course of action would be to refurbish the UK unit and recalibrate.

I think this deserves some recognition - if all was right with the world you’d receive a couple of quiet enquiries for duplicate units from a handful of NSX specialists. Have you cross-posted to NSXPrime as well?

[Heineken]

Thank you very much :-)

The post to prime was just completed and both posts now contain links to the sources (GPLed) for those that would like to try to build something completely on their own.
Two requests have already been received. Need to check with everyone individually how the result should look like.

Nice improvements would be:

• Add information on pinning for all the different build years (currently missing information on >2002 and <1997)
• Provide km/h and mph support
• Provide support for limited and non-limited (>180 km/h) clusters in one box (maybe need to re-think the user interface)

Considering the costs for replacement parts (which are nearly as old) a capacitor replacement and re-calibration should be the preferred way to go.
Note that only the large gauges need calibration, the small ones are not intended for calibration.

As the calibrator is now ready to be used, the cap replacement will be next. It's going to be based on a digikey order which can be re-used (after checking for compatibility, of course).

[britlude]

Nice to see someone else making gadgets and widgets to test nsx systems. With the age of the car now, the knowledge base for original test equipment, and the availability of original test equipment will be naturally falling off, so it's good to see people developing new kit. Now you have the basics sorted, can control the pulse levels at will, it's a small programming step to a showboat sweep display or automatic stepping between defined levels!!!

Oh, and note that 2 caps in the dash are bipolar electrolytics....

[Heineken]

Nice to see someone else making gadgets and widgets to test nsx systems. With the age of the car now, the knowledge base for original test equipment, and the availability of original test equipment will be naturally falling off, so it's good to see people developing new kit. Now you have the basics sorted, can control the pulse levels at will, it's a small programming step to a showboat sweep display or automatic stepping between defined levels!!!

Oh, and note that 2 caps in the dash are bipolar electrolytics....

There are certainly options for a little extra Bling but probably won't increase usability
Maybe adding a "long-press" demo-mode in the future .. who knows .. ?

PS: The caps have been identified and the BP ones detected successfully

[britlude]

There are certainly options for a little extra Bling but probably won't increase usability
Maybe adding a "long-press" demo-mode in the future .. who knows .. ?

I was thinking more along the lines of once the calibration process has been carried out, it would be a nice satisfying double check for it to sequence automatically between the 1000's rpm levels or 10/20mph on the speedo....

It'll also be interesting how much changing the electrolytic caps makes on the calibration, or if they are just for power rail smoothing and heavy duty signal conditioning

[ozon02]

it's great that you wanted to share the idea on the forum and shared the documentation.
Congratulations!!!

[Heineken]

I was thinking more along the lines of once the calibration process has been carried out, it would be a nice satisfying double check for it to sequence automatically between the 1000's rpm levels or 10/20mph on the speedo....

It'll also be interesting how much changing the electrolytic caps makes on the calibration, or if they are just for power rail smoothing and heavy duty signal conditioning

Once the caps are exchanged, maybe some of these questions can be answered.
One large cap is very likely for stabilization, most of the others seem to be part of the pulse-to-voltage converters that are used to drive the dials. The remaining ones could be related to the timing of some of the warning lamps (brake light circuit), maybe?

To bad we don't have the full schematics. That would be a nice reverse engineering job but if we start with that my caps will probably be never exchanged ..