I'm using a program to draw out the electrical schematics for our bus. I completed the easy page first and that was the exterior lights. Next is the Instruments on the dash, like the oil pressure and water temp, etc. So what do people have in their dash's? What would you want and don't have, what do you have and don't want? I'm going to have a gauge and a color changing LED for warning lights, such as low oil pressure, low voltage, etc. So here's what I am thinking;
Gauge - warning light comes on when....
Charging volts gauge from engine - Warning at 11volts (is that about right?)
Water temp gauge - what is too high? 200?
Trans temp gauge - what is too high?
Oil pressure gauge - What is too low?
Boost Gauge
Speedometer
House Batt volt gauge - 11 volts again?
Inverter ??? - What do I need to monitor here?
GenSet Temp gauge - 200? it will probably be a diesel
Oil Temp gauge - What temp to high?
Fuel pressure Gauge - What's too low?
Air pressure 1 - 60 PSI
Air pressure 2 - 60 PSI
Front air suspension pressure - Not sure what PSI yet, will have to weigh it, I want these just to be able to see it
Rear Left suspension pressure
Rear Right suspension pressure
Anything else? Exhaust temp?
I might install and inter-cooler but not sure yet.
It's a 4107 with a 77' DD8v71T with an auto, assuming allison
Thanks
Eric
hi Eric, wish I had a tach. lvmci...
Yes, a pyrometer for exhaust temp is interesting to have.
I would keep the house systems away from the dashboard. Up above perhaps?
Don't forget the steering wheel blocking some of your best laid plans.
And think about the ability to move them around, as you decide with experience which you wish you put in a different order.
Happy coaching!
buswarrior
Oh yea! Oops forgot a tach, lol
What do you hook it up to on this engine? And what is a safe red line?
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I'm installing one of those r and m fiberglass dashes so I have a blank canvas :-) I've also hooked up with a sign maker here in town to print me out a custom graphic to lay out under the gauges and switches. I'm going to use Plexiglas painted black with spots left unpainted for my lights to shine through with the printed vinyl stuck down on the Plexiglas. Does that make sense? Lol
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When I laid out my dash I did it twice. I used a temp layout and took a trip before I did the final set up. Someone mentioned to put the "important" gauges to the left and less important on the right. I'm not sure why but I did that an it worked out well for me. An example fuel on the right and pyro on the left. Speedo on the right and tach on the left. Oil pressure on the left and voltage on the right. I also discovered what gets covered by the steering wheel and needed to be moved. I also made the dash in sections that can be lifted out to change bulbs so I don't have to dive under the dash for that.
HTH
YMMV
Melbo
As far as house stuff I'm going to make a few redundant things. I want to run the front rooftop a.c. while driving so it will be powered by either the inverter and/or genset so I will be able to start and stop and monitor them from the dash plus else where in the house while parked
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I drive a kenworth now and had an international before that so I have some exposure to where for what but those are great ideas. I'm really looking for information on what I'm missing, like the tach lol, and the missing max temps and such
Thanks
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Like others, I wish I had a tach. Because my air cooled genny operates in an enclosure, I added a temp gauge to monitor oil temp. I also installed a redundant thermocouple which shuts the genny down if the oil temp reaches 200 degrees F. I watch the gauge like a hawk when I know I am operating the genny at max load. That gives me a chance to reduce the load before auto shut down and the 1/2 hr wait to restart the genny. Jack
I used black plexiglass and had a trophy shop engrave the gauge name and used back lighting for the gauge name worked good and looked nice, real nice at night. You really need 2 water temperature gauges on a v71 or v92 one for each head well worth the extra few bucks
Because my engine temperature gauge is the most important one of my eleven, I repositioned it front and center so I can always easily and accurately see it. The more peripheral gauges, such as turbo boost and transmission temperature and brake application force, are to the sides.
Definitely reconsider your house batteries' voltage gauge setting - at 11.0V they're close to dead: their SG at that voltage is so low that they can't produce much usable current. When fully charged they should read about 12.8V resting. A SOC meter for the house batteries is a good idea, as long as you get a proper one like the Trimetric 2025, or even better a SmartGauge - don't waste your money on a simple volt meter that pretends to be a SOC gauge!
John
If you don't have a tach, that should be number one to install-even with the automatic. I have a speedo with odometer, tach with engine hour meter, fuel gauge (that I installed since it didn't have one), oil pressure, water temp, voltmeter, 2-air gauges. That's it.
Now on my Kenworth truck, that's another story. Speedo with odometer, tach, water temp, oil temp, trans temp, front drive axle temp, rear drive axle temp, oil pressure, fuel pressure, pyrometer, front air pressure, rear air pressure, brake application pressure, fuel filter restriction, air filter restriction, altimeter. Good Luck, TomC
The only other secondary gauge that I can think of would be diff temp.
Outdoor temperature gauge - just nice to know, but also helpful when it gets near potential freezing
What about running a small computer with the screen mounted in the dash to show the values of all the sensors. The screen could then have different layouts to display what's needed.
Look at Raspberry pi projects, it's actaully fairly simple. People have done it in cars and planes for years.
Where would you install sensor on rear diff ? Would you just strap thermocouple on pumpkin ? I lost rearend a few yrs ago .that would have saved a lot of cash and almost burned coach to the ground .. Thank God I had big fire extinguisher....
The sending unit goes into one of the threaded plug holes. There should be one below the full level plug so that the sensor is fully submersed in diff oil.
I'm using a program to draw out the electrical schematics for our bus. I completed the easy page first and that was the exterior lights. Next is the Instruments on the dash, like the oil pressure and water temp, etc. So what do people have in their dash's? What would you want and don't have, what do you have and don't want? I'm going to have a gauge and a color changing LED for warning lights, such as low oil pressure, low voltage, etc. So here's what I am thinking;
Gauge - warning light comes on when....
Charging volts gauge from engine - Warning at 11volts (is that about right?)
If the altenator is working properly, it should read over 14V (12v system)
Water temp gauge - what is too high? 200?
Optimum operating temp for best combustion in diesels is 195. The light should come on about 205, the alarmstat should shut the engine down about 210.
Trans temp gauge - what is too high?
Anything over 300 degrees is too hot.
Oil pressure gauge - What is too low?
Mine reads 65+ at operating speed. 45-50 at idle when warm. (Most don't read that high.)
Boost Gauge
You probably will be about 7 lbs at normal speeds around 2000rpm. Something over 20 when working the engine hard in a climb.
Speedometer
80mph speedometer is best. It and the tach should be the same size and in the center of the dash.
House Batt volt gauge - 11 volts again?
As someone pointed out, 11 volts is a dead battery. It normally should read over 12V. (12.7 is fully charged)
Inverter - What do I need to monitor here?
You monitor the inverter if you monitor AC voltage.
GenSet Temp gauge - 200? it will probably be a diesel
190 is better.
Oil Temp gauge - What temp to high?
If you observe water temps, oil temp will take care of itself. I don't monitor it. If I did, I would figure out what it is normally and be concerned if it rose much.
Fuel pressure Gauge - What's too low?
If mine fell to 45 lbs I would change the filter. (Hasn't ever happened) It's about 65psi.
Air pressure 1 - 60 PSI
Air pressure 2 - 60 PSI
I would probably be concerned if I saw air pressure below 90 during normal operation.
Front air suspension pressure - Not sure what PSI yet, will have to weigh it, I want these just to be able to see it
Rear Left suspension pressure
Rear Right suspension pressure
I don't know much about air suspension, but why wouldn't they be the same?
Anything else? Exhaust temp?
See the other discussion topic about that.
I might install and inter-cooler but not sure yet.
It's a 4107 with a 77' DD8v71T with an auto, assuming allison
hi daddy of ten, I would search for LED Bulbs in my instruments, instead of regular bulbs. no heat, no changing of bulbs. but I think I would get a two big screen tablets, load it with gauge software, put one on either side of the steering column, and arrange the software gauges any which way suited me best,including your gps, heck you could even insert your rear and side camera monitors on the screen,and zoom it out when your backing up! lvmci...
p.s. Phone could blue tooth thru it too!
Moosemanusa, I like your idea! I've thought of doing the same myself, someday.
Tell us more.
Ted
Eric,
About a year ago I changed out my original factory gauges using the same panel layout. One big reason for changing them out was night visibility. The gauge background was black the indication levels were white. Now White on Black sounds like a good plan. This may have worked IF the bulbs were brighter. In the daytime it was less of a problem to read the gauges. I found a source for gauges where the background during the day was White with Black indicators and at night the background changed to a light blue (my choice, other colors were available). Now that the gauge face colors were sorted out the other original feature I did not like is the factory gauges were not full sweep.
I found that a full sweep of the indicator and positioning the gauge so that the normal indication is vertical (toward the top of the panel) made it easier to glance at the gauges and assess if any problems were emerging. The only gauge I did not change, because a new gauge was not available compatible with the new faces/background, was the Twin Pyrometer gauge in the dead center of the dash. So now I simply make repeated sweeps from lower left around the top of the panel to the lower right and finish at the one gauge that remains troublesome to read at night, the pyrometer.
Early on, I bought 5 different colored 50ft 3 wire extension cords, bundled them together, and ran them from the engine compartment to the driver's compartment. Now have 15 wires to add whatever. Have used 2 for tachometer, 2 for cruise control. Good Luck, TomC
Sensors send Ohms, a sensor is just a range of "x" ohm to "x" ohm, the gauge is calibrated at the factory to translate send "x" ohms into a numerical numbers on your steam gauge (sorry aviation term there)
So using a tool like this:
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Advantech/ADAM-4150-AE/?qs=HSwFsqQPTVMtvXppLy%2Frtg%3D%3D&kpid=1209998227&gclid=Cj0KEQiAgMKmBRDMjo_F9OfUubABEiQAp8Ky15RkIpIE1Unyt5HJlWVjS8c9jMlH7lhxmrOUaZhavCMaApzX8P8HAQ (http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Advantech/ADAM-4150-AE/?qs=HSwFsqQPTVMtvXppLy%2Frtg%3D%3D&kpid=1209998227&gclid=Cj0KEQiAgMKmBRDMjo_F9OfUubABEiQAp8Ky15RkIpIE1Unyt5HJlWVjS8c9jMlH7lhxmrOUaZhavCMaApzX8P8HAQ)
Then linking that to say a GPIO on a Raspberry PI to read those ohms from a pre-setup GPIO port/pin.
use a simply Python and PHP script to read that current value and translate into a graphical format.
I just did this project using relays, i did it in a day and found all the examples code online (i'm not a code person) but it was common logic to edit it how I wanted it..
Raspberry PI is $35 computer, they just released a new quad core version that will run Windows 10 (free)!
Here is a complete page to how someone did it in the past!
https://learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-11-ds18b20-temperature-sensing.pdf (https://learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-11-ds18b20-temperature-sensing.pdf)
How do convert for it to read analog gauges ? the electronic engines are a snap Martin @ SilverLeaf has that covered
how do the analogues read from the sensors?
I was under the impression it was still ohms to a guage. (since the 50's for sure)
or is it more old school than that?
not in the dash but just to the right of it is my prosine invert er remote control + the tri-metric 2025a to see how the eng. and house batteries are doing .
<a href="http://s1280.photobucket.com/user/crane66/media/82e7e93e-0a3b-4666-a6c8-753894ecbcde_zpsbe0486ac.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a484/crane66/82e7e93e-0a3b-4666-a6c8-753894ecbcde_zpsbe0486ac.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 82e7e93e-0a3b-4666-a6c8-753894ecbcde_zpsbe0486ac.jpg"/></a>
dave
love it! semi glass cockpit there!
The Raspberry Pi's can also be made into a $100 portable camera system (think backup camera with a magnetic mount) that could be moved anywhere, simple wifi connection from your phone to view it. you can power it with a cell phone battery charger.
WOW, Thank you all for the great ideas and reply's. I'm quite busy with work right now and will read more detail when I have time. But thank you!
Go digital! The ability to resolve engine temperature to a degree will enable you to manage your hill climbs and the ability to resolve your oil pressure to a couple of psi will tell you when your oil level is getting low.
-RickBrown in Reno, NV
Here's an idea for gauges - both analog & digital together:
http://www.glowshiftdirect.com/MaxTow-Truck-Gauge-Series.aspx (http://www.glowshiftdirect.com/MaxTow-Truck-Gauge-Series.aspx)
FWIW & HTH. . .
;)
George -
At Arcadia I saw a great simple layout for a dashboard. It was a pretty natural wood dash with a water temp , air pressure, tach and oil pressure gauges and dead center in the middle of the gauges was a Garmin GPS screen for speed and map. It was very simple and put more focus on the dash woodwork which I thought was well done.
Just an Idea to keep it simple. Currently I have the same gauges working less the tach. But my dash is a mess right now :)
I'd go with the same setup on the primary part of the dash and maybe have a secondary dash with smaller gauges for the additional stuff.
If I could keep all the info on a single 10" digital flat panel then that's what I'd do :)
-Sean
RE the differential temp sender. You will have to drill and tap a sender hole in the diff housing (below oil level). The only other option is in the drain plug at the bottom. If you go that way you will probably knock it off and burn up your diff, not the way to go. Never seen more than the fill and drain plugs on a heavy rear end.
Simple job to drill and tap, both my buses I went that way. I also check my diff temp with an IR gun every couple hours when under way.
Lots of stuff to cover here. First off, what do you want? What would you like? Not quite the same. What format? Old "retro" SW analog? Cable connected tack and speedo? Something more modern but traditional?
Gages or meters? Dials or electronical readouts? Many small cluttered round gages? How how about just one big state of the art digital with 100 features, all programmable with near infinite variety and customization?
Consider separating the Chassis stuff from the House needs? Close by, but non confusable. Yep ... do you drive at night? Is that important? Do you want to keep it KISS or do you want all the bells and whistles and do dads? More ...
Hot or cold weather? Air suspension or leaf spring? What engine and tranny? Does make a difference. My feeble point here is that perhaps it may be best to just sit down and dream a bit? Big decisions for sure regarding this.
Little things become important. We tried to select gage values that centered the needle up and down at normal operating levels or amounts. Easier to "eye sweep the cockpit". You are going to have great fun with all of this. HB of CJ (old coot)