With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

all engineering mockups should have duct tape

2008 September 30 19:55

My art class continues. It's continuing to be fun and cool.

Our first project of the semester must involve "motion", either literal or thematically. I've been thinking about building a concealed James-Bond-style instrument panel for my Beetle. The reason I want more instruments is to be able to monitor more things about the engine and the electrical system. However, I also admire the extreme austerity of the Beetle's instrument panel. Two gauges, speedometer and fuel gauge, and two warning lights, generator and oil pressure. So I'm torn, so I want to have both.

So for my motion project for class, I'm going to build my concealed instrument panel. It embodies motion literally, by extending and retracting in response to the drive flipping a concealed switch, possibly in the ashtray or under the seat. It will go under the dashboard on the passenger's side beneath the glove box.

I won't have the panel entirely filled with gauges when I present the project, because I don't want to buy that much stuff for the car all at once, but I do want to have a couple of gauges mounted. I have everything for the first version of the panel on order, and the first gauge arrived today, an oil pressure gauge:

Here's the back of the gauge. The bottom three terminals are for the gauge itself. They are power, ground, and then the sense wire that comes from the oil temperature sensor. The black thing at the top with two terminals is the internal gauge light, which I will connect to the lighting circuit in the car so that the gauge is lit when the lights are on.

I was concerned that with the instruments over on the other side of the car, they'll be hard to read properly because of the angle. I got the gauge today, so I made a cardboard (and duct tape) mock-up of the panel in its extended position so that I could look at the gauge in the car to see how easy it is to read.



Here's the panel mock-up with gauge in the car. Having seen this, I think it'll be fine. Oil temp is the indication that will change the least, and so I think it's fine if it's the farthest gauge away from the driver. Basically, if the needle is straight up, then the engine is as hot as it needs to get.