New Shift Light

[MyElise]

Originally Posted by bluejae

i have this lying around the house brand new

http://www.autometer.com/cat_accesso...l.aspx?vid=134

would this work in the exige?

Do a search. You can plumb in a potentiometer to replace the pills.

[Dean NZ]

Nice job Turbophil....how do you find it as a driving aid ? used it on track yet ?

The guys in Ozzie have mounted it in a similar spot, but forward on the front of the dash. I have mine in the top of the stack dash, just above the wheel in the normal driving position. Thought it was going to be too bright at night, but the auto dimming works well.....so no issue.

Can't do without it on track and everyone who has driven my car has said it's great device.......let me know what you think of it in the heat of battle....

[turbophil]

I have not tracked yet... Probably won't be able to untill next year. We have winters here

The reason I didn't mount it as you did is due to my bad habbit of driving with one hand at 12 o'clock from time to time. I wanted to be sure that my hands would never block the light and that my eyes didn't have to travel far from the road to see it... Turns out that it's brite enough that I never have to actually look at it


The auto diming feature is a very nice. Very brite during the day and just right at night.

I'm still tinkering with the features. I currently have it set to first come on at 6200 and then light the last red at 8300. Finally it starts flashing all the lights rapidly (really gets my attention when it does that) just in time for me to shift prior to the rev limiter kicking in. It's nice that I can fine tune it down to 50rpms. I can tell that once I learn to trust it, I'll improve my smoothness and consistancy in my shifting...



Best,

Phil

[Assman]

This is all well and good and I would love to get one of these bad boys on my car - I'm tall and can't see the little red light period- but I also am compl;etely clueless about how to hook these sorts of things up. Would you go to a speed shop, or the lotus dealership to get this done? What do you guys think. PS I think the instrument cluster mounting would be better for me.

[turbophil]

Originally Posted by Assman

This is all well and good and I would love to get one of these bad boys on my car - I'm tall and can't see the little red light period- but I also am compl;etely clueless about how to hook these sorts of things up. Would you go to a speed shop, or the lotus dealership to get this done? What do you guys think. PS I think the instrument cluster mounting would be better for me.

If you're real tall, it may be too far for you. I've got short legs and at 5'10", Isit right up on the wheel- plenty close to see and operate the lights...

Regarding installation, I would try to rally the local Lotus guys and have an install party long before I would ask a dealer or speed shop to install it. You supply the beer and your local Elise/Exgie owner with some tools and know-how provides the skills... Just a thought.

There's nothing complicated about the install. It's just time consuming. I would argue that if you can change your oil and remove your stereo, you can install this light shift light. No fancy tools required either...

Best,

Phil

[rob13572468]

here is what i did for my shift light. i built it a bit differently in that it reads the rpm value directly from the canbus. because of this, the installation couldnt be simpler: on one end is the light, on the other is an obdII connector. plug the connector into the OBD port and you're done.takes about 5 seconds. it also monitors the engine temperature via the can bus to give you proper redline limits for both warm and cold conditions as well as providing a light indicator for when the car is warm and will now redline at the higher rpm.

the only thng that i want to change is the casing size; the next one that i build is going to be all smd parts so the finished piece will be about 1 x 1.5 inches and will fit just about anywhere...

[MyElise]

Very nice!!!

Programable settings for each light or a range?

Hope you are considering production.

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by MyElise

Very nice!!!

Programable settings for each light or a range?

Hope you are considering production.

each light is actually individually programmable so they can be set to run at any rpm level desired as well as the timing between each light and can be done for both the warm and cold redline levels. as far as production goes if there was enough interest in this i could arrange for the unit to go to manufacturing...

[ZakSkiGuy]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

each light is actually individually programmable so they can be set to run at any rpm level desired as well as the timing between each light and can be done for both the warm and cold redline levels. as far as production goes if there was enough interest in this i could arrange for the unit to go to manufacturing...

That's way KEWL, it sure sounds interesting enough that I'd be interested if you went to production!!!

[Dean NZ]

Mmmmmmm - how much $$$$, whens it going to be ready to buy.....

[MyElise]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

each light is actually individually programmable so they can be set to run at any rpm level desired as well as the timing between each light and can be done for both the warm and cold redline levels. as far as production goes if there was enough interest in this i could arrange for the unit to go to manufacturing...

Kit form would be good as well as a turn key product.

Street pricing for this type product runs from $90 - $180.

[ZakSkiGuy]

What's the status on this product/thread???

[rob13572468]

Originally Posted by ZakSkiGuy

What's the status on this product/thread???

right now the unit is going through beta testing of the current iteration. the rpm trip code needs to be rewritten; right now i adjust all of the trip points by changing the values in the source code and recompiling. the final product will have an rs232 interface and a small pc programming uploader. you'll use a laptop with a serial port to change the values as much and as often as needed.

the casing for the unit is actually the biggest issue right now... i found a company that can source the OBDII connectors so thats taken care of but finding a suitable casing for the LED display is proving difficult. ideally the finished product will look something along the lines of those varad LED scanners that you see in some cars. this will allow the display portion to mount just about anywhere since the dimensions will be very small. now i just need to find a company that sells them in 0-50 quantities....

an interesting side note to this project is that the bus module that i developed for this is actually working quite well as a cluster driver as well... this means that its not to terribly difficult to build a module that takes discrete inputs from an aftermarket ecu and will drive the stock cluster. the end result would be that anyone interested in hydra system could finaally have a complete plug and play system without needing to keep the half-working stock ecu. im not familiar with how many people are actually interested in the hydra but once again if there is enough interest it can be developed...

[ZakSkiGuy]

Thanx for the update. Your project sounds quite interesting and I am still quite interested especially since I will be adding a Hydra ECU this comming spring. Please keep me and the rest of the ET community informed and up to date.

[darkSol]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

an interesting side note to this project is that the bus module that i developed for this is actually working quite well as a cluster driver as well... this means that its not to terribly difficult to build a module that takes discrete inputs from an aftermarket ecu and will drive the stock cluster. the end result would be that anyone interested in hydra system could finaally have a complete plug and play system without needing to keep the half-working stock ecu. im not familiar with how many people are actually interested in the hydra but once again if there is enough interest it can be developed...

Excellent progress!

I just think you'd need to supply a MIL input that the Hydra can feed. That's the biggest complaint so far. I think it's crazy trying to spoof all the stock braindead ECU's inputs to try to make it not throw a code.

That way you could lose the Hydra daughterboard (the Hydra price could probably be abour $250 cheaper too - you'd just need the base Hydra + Elise plug-n-play harness)

Keep us updated!

[Buz]

Will the case be small enough to mount on top of the steering column and still see the gauges? I will get one for sure if it plugs into the obd II port.

[jeph]

yeah, steering column soiunds great. I would buy one too.

[steidley]

+1 I'd buy one too.

[mpsalm]

Just got my shift light installed. It's a sweet piece of kit. Very customizable, I'm super happy with it. Also if you do have any issues these guys are in Australia but they're super helpful over email in the off chance you do have an issue. I wish some places in this country were the same way. I'm still working on cleaning up the wires on the dash...

[9and3]

Originally Posted by rob13572468

right now the unit is going through beta testing of the current iteration.

rob13572468-- Do you have an update on your programmable shift light?