- Sat Mar 04, 2017 1:08 pm
#193745
I'm building a project that utilizes various sensors, including thermometers like this one: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/245. I'd like to display the temperature with an analog needle gauge, much like automotive or aircraft style gauges. I could do it with a panel meter, but the face plate would be weird. I'd like for the project to have an authentic finished look and a panel meter wouldn't be appropriate. I was thinking a generic gauge perhaps with a stepper motor on the needle, where one could make their own, or have custom face plates made, silk screened or however they're made. I'm not even sure where to look for something like that. Ultimately I'd like for the gauge to look something like this: http://www.univair.com/instruments-gaug ... 2-000-fpm/ (link to an aircraft rate of climb gauge). The gauges are similar to this forum post: https://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.ph ... es#p181361 I can worry about getting the bezel for the gauge to finish the appearance that I want, but would be nice to have a generic gauge that I can drive from an Arduino.
Background on my project, so that there is context. I'm building a flight simulator cockpit. It will be fully enclosed and have several displays. The controls and rudder pedals will all be built in. It'll have a custom dash (where the gauges will go). The Arduinos will interface with the computer as a USB HID device and various dash switches and buttons that will be available as joystick axis and buttons (usable in the simulators). While I could make a custom computer app that drove the gauges, ultimately through the Arduino, I do not intend to have data from the computer represented with the gauge. I'd like for the gauge to display temperature readings that the Arduino is sampling, like computer temp, inside and outside temp, stuff like that. Ideally, I'd like for the Arduino to regulate the internal temperature in various compartments within the cockpit like the computer case compartment and most importantly, where I'm sitting via variable speed fans.
SparkFun has plenty of sensors, like temp or 3 axis gyros, etc, which could be processed and output on an analog (or digital if you prefer) style gauge.
I considered using automotive style gauges, like the glowshift ones http://www.glowshiftdirect.com/tinted-7 ... gauge.aspx. I've already driven these specific gauges with Arduinos on previous projects (including the speedometer gauge), but gauges that start at 100F aren't in the appropriate range for ambient temp. Thats why I was thinking that if I can make a custom faceplate with my own scale on and text on it, then just drive the needle appropriately.
Thanks for reading and look forward to see how others solved this problem.
Background on my project, so that there is context. I'm building a flight simulator cockpit. It will be fully enclosed and have several displays. The controls and rudder pedals will all be built in. It'll have a custom dash (where the gauges will go). The Arduinos will interface with the computer as a USB HID device and various dash switches and buttons that will be available as joystick axis and buttons (usable in the simulators). While I could make a custom computer app that drove the gauges, ultimately through the Arduino, I do not intend to have data from the computer represented with the gauge. I'd like for the gauge to display temperature readings that the Arduino is sampling, like computer temp, inside and outside temp, stuff like that. Ideally, I'd like for the Arduino to regulate the internal temperature in various compartments within the cockpit like the computer case compartment and most importantly, where I'm sitting via variable speed fans.
SparkFun has plenty of sensors, like temp or 3 axis gyros, etc, which could be processed and output on an analog (or digital if you prefer) style gauge.
I considered using automotive style gauges, like the glowshift ones http://www.glowshiftdirect.com/tinted-7 ... gauge.aspx. I've already driven these specific gauges with Arduinos on previous projects (including the speedometer gauge), but gauges that start at 100F aren't in the appropriate range for ambient temp. Thats why I was thinking that if I can make a custom faceplate with my own scale on and text on it, then just drive the needle appropriately.
Thanks for reading and look forward to see how others solved this problem.
