Cluster Display project

[S54B32]

As I’m planning to go FI on the M3 in the next time and I want to monitor some more sensors than supported from the factory, I searched for a good solution on gauges. But I don’t like these fancy “mikemouse“ ear pods on steering column and i don’t want to sacrifice a airgrill for a awron or canchecked display. So i saw from nextelbuddy the thread about the ZADA Display mounted in cluster. But as I have SMG car I need this display for SMG Gearindicator.
So I decided to build my own solution.
My current prototype has a 1.3“ Oled, canbus integration (switching pages with cruise control button over can), oiltemp,watertemp, TPS value, AFR from AEM UEGO, SMG gear and drivelogic. Maybe add the csl oillevel indicator (because my early cluster doesn’t support that) Have more free analog inputs than i ever need, so for future will add 2x IAT Sensor and MAP sensor.

At the moment I search a solution for the display color, because I’m not 100% happy with white. But most Oledˋs are only available in white, green, yellow and blue. But for the moment i stay with white. After that I will design&order a PCB and make the pages a bit nicer.

Let me know what you think!

Here is a short demonstration video, I converted a junkyard 330i cluster to test it, before I do it with my M cluster.

[timmo]

Very cool, I'm in the same boat where I hate adding external gauges, makes it look like a car from Fast and Furious. I have a non-M and I wanted oil temp, so I installed the eKombi.

As for the display colour, you could use the white display but overlay orange film on it to mimic the shade of the stock gauge cluster lighting, like shown here.

[nickpiper12]

Fantastic work here. Sent you a message!

[S54B32]

Very cool, I'm in the same boat where I hate adding external gauges, makes it look like a car from Fast and Furious. I have a non-M and I wanted oil temp, so I installed the eKombi.

As for the display colour, you could use the white display but overlay orange film on it to mimic the shade of the stock gauge cluster lighting, like shown here.

yeah, I saw that solution too. But that solution was not so suitable for me, because of the very limited features. I tried some orange and also red film like nextelbuddy, but was not so satisfied with the result with bright daylight.

[ProjectMoneypit]

Very cool!

[liam821]

Wow this is really cool. Nicely done. Keep us posted.

[Obioban]

... this should become a product.

[eml]

Awesome ... +1 for finding a way to do orange.

A thought: was wondering if using the "other side" (i.e., the door/trunk/faulty lights indicator) would be an option (not sure if the door and light fault indicators use the CAN bus, too). Doing this would allow whatever is being displayed (e.g., oil temp, water temp, etc.) to remain visible at the same time the SMG indicator does its job. The door/trunk/faulty lights indicator is normally "unused" anyway while driving.

[nextelbuddy]

way too cool. Yea i'm using the .96 inch OLED. i bought spare OLEDs on amazon. they appear to be rasberry pi or adurino type displays. I wonder if i can use a 1.3 inch screen instead or if my zada tech box has to be rescaled for the increase in pixels. the OLED displays are cheap on amazon.

my OLED seems to fit the black plastic surround well, was your 1.3 OLED oversized causing you to have to enlarge that black surround at all? i wonder if the 1.3 OLD is wider and taller than the .96 inch one.

[S54B32]

... this should become a product.

If someone has interest, we can maybe talk about that. But it will be never more than a very very small batch. Because that would bring the cost a bit down for the PCBAs. But this can never be a product for the open market, as every Display has to be programmed/calibrated for the needed sensors and the selected OLED display. So every display needs a unique code and that will be time consuming with testing and programming.

eml
Door/Light status should be also on Canbus, but i´m not shure if i want the display in this place. But a bigger and wider display should be possible in this Place

[S54B32]

way too cool. Yea i'm using the .96 inch OLED. i bought spare OLEDs on amazon. they appear to be rasberry pi or adurino type displays. I wonder if i can use a 1.3 inch screen instead or if my zada tech box has to be rescaled for the increase in pixels. the OLED displays are cheap on amazon.

my OLED seems to fit the black plastic surround well, was your 1.3 OLED oversized causing you to have to enlarge that black surround at all? i wonder if the 1.3 OLD is wider and taller than the .96 inch one.

As log as the new display has the same driverchip, same i2c adress and resulution as original it should work with the zada controller. I have various displays here from 0,96 to 2.8" i2c and SPI bus. All working, but you need to adjust it in code. Even have a full color OLED, but these bad boys need over 24 times higher hardware requirements than monochrome to display a nice and flickerfree picture.

The 0.96" do not use complete space of cutout. My current 1,3" Oled is slightly larger than original plastic surround, so i restricted the displayed area in code to complete fillout the possibile space in original cutout. I do not enlarge it.

[SteelGreyM]

I want one! I looked into making something like this but quickly realized that I don't know anything about this stuff. Orange would be amazing like nextelbuddy has. Im sure you could sell more than you'd be willing to program. If you do decide to sell them, ill be first to buy one.

[S14]

Wow, very cool! I like that SMG gear identifier much more than the factory one. It's more simple and easier to understand.

I'd definitely buy one if you decide to make a small batch of them.

[liam821]

Might want to talk to t3ddftw, he has a bunch of experience with what it takes to bring a "lower volume" product to market. I think you could easily make this into a product a sell a bunch. I'd buy one.

[terra]

Really cool. Makes me wonder about the feasibility of going further beyond and replacing the entire bottom area with displays. Or going super custom and building something akin to this: