I worked on the instrumentation tonight. I'm still using the Nexus S as a 'dash' / data logger, and adding the LED shift light, but now that I have somewhere to mount it, I wanted to get it off the steering wheel, and actually run power to it.
I picked up a 12v to 5v USB power converter made for motorcycles (ie: water tight) that has a handy SAE / Battery Tender connector on the battery end that can plug right into the existing battery-tender wires that are hard-mounted to the battery. The converter is the gray box on the kill-switch wiring (which I still need to shorten significantly & clean up). You can also see the red cover for the USB plug just behind the post for the dash mount.
This is the phone cradle. I can use a zip tie at each end to keep the phone secured so we don’t have any wandering electronics. I don’t think it’ll really NEED it, but it’ll make me feel better. It takes a good deal of effort to pry it out, but it’ll give me piece of mind. The cradle was an open source design I used and modified to give it a solid back with 1/8″ holes to use for rivets, and had 3D printed last year. As you can see, I also mocked up the LED shift light in what I believe will be its final resting location:
And here’s what it’ll look like from the driver’s seat. I really only want to see the shift light in my periphery, that the phone is visible is gravy.
And the battery-end of the cable, not plugged in because the Battery Tender is occupying that space.
EDIT: the dash placement already irritated me enough that I moved it.
EDIT#2: I got a few questions about glare and keeping the screen out of the sun. I threw the dash cover so you can see that unless the sun is pretty low and directly to my back, it shouldn't be an issue (and if it's directly to my back, it'll be in the driver's shadow). It should do a pretty good job of keeping it mostly in the shade.
I picked up a 12v to 5v USB power converter made for motorcycles (ie: water tight) that has a handy SAE / Battery Tender connector on the battery end that can plug right into the existing battery-tender wires that are hard-mounted to the battery. The converter is the gray box on the kill-switch wiring (which I still need to shorten significantly & clean up). You can also see the red cover for the USB plug just behind the post for the dash mount.
This is the phone cradle. I can use a zip tie at each end to keep the phone secured so we don’t have any wandering electronics. I don’t think it’ll really NEED it, but it’ll make me feel better. It takes a good deal of effort to pry it out, but it’ll give me piece of mind. The cradle was an open source design I used and modified to give it a solid back with 1/8″ holes to use for rivets, and had 3D printed last year. As you can see, I also mocked up the LED shift light in what I believe will be its final resting location:
And here’s what it’ll look like from the driver’s seat. I really only want to see the shift light in my periphery, that the phone is visible is gravy.
And the battery-end of the cable, not plugged in because the Battery Tender is occupying that space.
EDIT: the dash placement already irritated me enough that I moved it.
EDIT#2: I got a few questions about glare and keeping the screen out of the sun. I threw the dash cover so you can see that unless the sun is pretty low and directly to my back, it shouldn't be an issue (and if it's directly to my back, it'll be in the driver's shadow). It should do a pretty good job of keeping it mostly in the shade.
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