Making custom gauge faces? Options

[mepstein]

Well that certainly explains a lot. If there is someone who is willing to do the graphics and share, it seems like this could be printed at home.

[burton73]

Well that certainly explains a lot. If there is someone who is willing to do the graphics and share, it seems like this could be printed at home.

Yes. The hard part is getting the film. I just bouight 45 more 1
8.5 x 11 sheets on EBay at $.50 per sheet delivered. . I have had in the past had to buy it from Germany or France. Like I said it is all over the world. I guess it was not a big item for Epson.

Bob B

[burton73]

My inkjet is somewhat clogged today and not printing 100% so I could not print out any samples but I know this works well. The blacks are very dark as are the colors. It puts printing on paper to shame. Super crisp. Clear.

Bob B
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif)

[914forme]

Yes Bob thank you for sharing this idea. I have another way of doing this on an inset, but you use pigmented ink, so not a standard inkjet. Printed on vinyl and then you laminate to cover it. That process shoals last 20-30 years. It is more equipment heavy than Bob's solution.

Mark sharing the files is not hard, I know I have hours in my files and they are still not done to my liking.

Also Epson now makes a replacement for the white film. I tis a clear film that lets you print white using one of their $8400 printers and the ink cartridges especially the whites are expensive.

Another way of doing this is just printing vinyl stencils and airbrushing them. Long process. But can be done at home still.

[burton73]

Yes Bob thank you for sharing this idea. I have another way of doing this on an inset, but you use pigmented ink, so not a standard inkjet. Printed on vinyl and then you laminate to cover it. That process shoals last 20-30 years. It is more equipment heavy than Bob's solution.

Mark sharing the files is not hard, I know I have hours in my files and they are still not done to my liking.

Also Epson now makes a replacement for the white film. I tis a clear film that lets you print white using one of their $8400 printers and the ink cartridges especially the whites are expensive.

Another way of doing this is just printing vinyl stencils and airbrushing them. Long process. But can be done at home still.

Sent you more pictures

Bob B

[falcor75]

I'l contact car-bone and see what they can offer.

I measured the Saab gauge today and it is as follows:

10 ohm: low reserve / empty
22 ohm: start of reserve
47 ohm: 50%, middle of range
100 ohm: 60%
150 ohm: 90%
172 ohm: Max on the scale
200 ohm: needle maxed

Then I did the same for the stock 914 gauge and got this:

10 ohm: 90%
22 ohm 70% (just below 3/4)
32 ohm 50%
47 ohm 30%
69 ohm Reserve (needle on the R)

So the scales are inverted from eachother, one way around this would be to get a VDO gauge and plunder the mechanism as defianty did. When I bought the gas gauge the seller asked if I wanted a Saab temp gauge aswell for the another $5 so I said sure, its not breaking the bank and he wanted to get rid of them both. So after realizing the scales were inverted I had a small stroke of genius.

I started testing the Saab temp gauge in the same way and got this result:



10 ohm: needle pegged on max
22 ohm: end of the red area
47 ohm: 50% middle of scale
100 ohm: start of the green area
200 ohm: 20% of the black area
270 ohm: start of the black area

So the temp gauge goes the same way as the stock gauge but with a different resolution. Dig up some old electronics books from university and taddaaa... if I connect a 100 ohm resistor in parallell with the sender I will get a pretty good match
in the range of the scale from 50% and below. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)