Economy gauge to Oil Pressure conversion

[TobyB]

There is more to making this work than most people anticipate

I was thinking the same- one would want it to be relatively accurate, right?

t

[MC Hammered]

Here is his reply to my email I sent back in June.

After reading the information he provided, I decided to come up with a different design which does not reuse the econometer motor core. However, this project got bumped as I have other gauge designs I need to complete first.

Hi Winston,

As much as I would love to keep making these gauges myself, I think I am definitely coming to the conclusion that passing it on to someone else to make will be best, as my free time seems to only get sparser.

For now check this document out:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a1qhmrft4c426hk/econometer%20gauge%20project%20v3.pdf?dl=0

I posted it a while back trying to share some of the process of the latest redesign of the gauges. It is nowhere near complete, but has some interesting insights on how I control the gauges.

I will say that is not particularly easy to build these gauges and there are a lot of hours in each one produced (In retrospect I probably wasn't charging enough, but it was what my time was worth back then). Do you happen to have any experience taking apart e30 gauges, specifically the tachometer (removing the needle, the motor, etc)?

Also, I was never particularly happy with how I had to make the gauge faces. They end result was good, but required a lot of labor and did not always reliably come out good causing rework. Anyways I see there are some gauge faces on your website, perhaps you have a better way or better source for having them made. That would help, as the way I see it, the two biggest hurdles in making these gauges are making the gauge faces and being able to disassemble the tachometer and reassemble it without damaging it. Also required is getting the circuit boards made, soldering the components on (mostly surface mount), machining the enclosures (I can supply these if needed), and general care and attention to detail and quality.

Let me know how this sounds,

Justin

[mr2peak]

Honestly, it doesn't need to be 100% accurate. Accurate within 5 PSI is more than enough. I just want to be able to confirm that the needle is in the right place when idle, and make sure nothing crazy happens at revs.