3 Colour LED Charge Indicator - opinions?

[bakalorz]

Awesome, thanks Martin!

I've dumped the text and bitmap into a document so I can follow at my leasure.

I'm going to be getting some LED's for my guages soon so I'll get these bits and pieces at the same time.

This will give me something to do while I wait until I can budget for my exhaust and things.

And if you find those pic's, that will help me visualise it properly too, duct tape and all

Not sure if you saw it, but my exhaust mock up is cardboard...

The unit as built

 

[bakalorz]

Awesome, thanks Martin!

I've dumped the text and bitmap into a document so I can follow at my leasure.

I'm going to be getting some LED's for my guages soon so I'll get these bits and pieces at the same time.

This will give me something to do while I wait until I can budget for my exhaust and things.

And if you find those pic's, that will help me visualise it properly too, duct tape and all

Not sure if you saw it, but my exhaust mock up is cardboard...

on the bike installed in shock absorbing honeycomb cellulose based material, fastened using redundant elastic structural materials

this is not a mock-up ... this is the actual installation ... can you say ratbike ...

 

[bakalorz]

this is not a mock-up ... this is the actual installation ... can you say ratbike ...

Although to make it look "better" I eventually did use a black magic marker to make the cardboard black ...

 

[Guest]

Hahaha that's awesome! Did you ever end up doing something more permanent?

I like the idea and I have two ten LED displays from years ago but they're done with the LED's aligned lengthwise together so they're a lot longer than the ones you've used there.

I'm thinking maybe a small modification with some rolled up ribbon cable to get the LED's away from the circuit board and allow for a much neater integration maybe to the bottom of the gauges.

Probably be a week or two before I get to order anything, but I've got some other stuff to do in the meantime as well like painting the brake calliper and the carbs etc.

I'll have some of the components already, but I'll need to work out what I'm missing so I can have everything on hand ready to roll.

 

[bakalorz]

Hahaha that's awesome! Did you ever end up doing something more permanent?

I like the idea and I have two ten LED displays from years ago but they're done with the LED's aligned lengthwise together so they're a lot longer than the ones you've used there.

I'm thinking maybe a small modification with some rolled up ribbon cable to get the LED's away from the circuit board and allow for a much neater integration maybe to the bottom of the gauges.

Probably be a week or two before I get to order anything, but I've got some other stuff to do in the meantime as well like painting the brake calliper and the carbs etc.

I'll have some of the components already, but I'll need to work out what I'm missing so I can have everything on hand ready to roll.

I actually took it off the bike to make a more permanent enclosure but then blew it up ... I was going to check the calibration ... the PDF mentions that the inputs are protected against up to +/- 40 volts ... I misremembered it as the entire chip being safe against +/- 40v. So when I went to check the cal, I didn't check polarity ... figured if it didn't work I would just swap the wires around ... I let the magic smoke out ... OOPS

I don't know how much the ribbon cable would get you. Using those LEDs, the faceprint is pretty much determined by the LEDs as 2 inches wide by 1/2 inch tall ... if you don't care about depth, you can easily hide everything behind the LEDS if you go back 2 or 3 inches.
If you are willing to etch boards and hand solder surface-mount stuff (not that tough) you could reduce the depth by at least an inch too.

I guess that ribbon would let you make the depth only 1/2 an inch though, if you want to stick it on the surface of something. But you would have to route the ribbon cable, and it doesn't really bend or smoosh very well ...

when I redo mine I'll try to set it up so its only 2.1 inches wide, with everything behind the LEDs on an etched board.

 

[Matchless]

Pete,
I once made a voltage monitor, but found the flickering of the LED's a bit distracting.
Someone told me to rather design it only using a low voltage and over voltage indication. Meaning that when the voltage was correct no LED's will be on.
Thus when you switch the bike on the led will be say yellow for <13 Volts and when it say goes to >15 Volts it shows red. When you see no lights, its charging OK.
I never did this and just went for an analogue meter in the end.

 

[Guest]

I actually took it off the bike to make a more permanent enclosure but then blew it up ... I was going to check the calibration ... the PDF mentions that the inputs are protected against up to +/- 40 volts ... I misremembered it as the entire chip being safe against +/- 40v. So when I went to check the cal, I didn't check polarity ... figured if it didn't work I would just swap the wires around ... I let the magic smoke out ... OOPS

I don't know how much the ribbon cable would get you. Using those LEDs, the faceprint is pretty much determined by the LEDs as 2 inches wide by 1/2 inch tall ... if you don't care about depth, you can easily hide everything behind the LEDS if you go back 2 or 3 inches.
If you are willing to etch boards and hand solder surface-mount stuff (not that tough) you could reduce the depth by at least an inch too.

I guess that ribbon would let you make the depth only 1/2 an inch though, if you want to stick it on the surface of something. But you would have to route the ribbon cable, and it doesn't really bend or smoosh very well ...

when I redo mine I'll try to set it up so its only 2.1 inches wide, with everything behind the LEDs on an etched board.

Ooops! Sounds like something I'd do actually

The LED bars I have are probably 2 1/2 to 3 inches wide as the LED's are the opposite orientation to yours, so I was thinking of putting them on the bottom of the gauges, however I just realised that there's a cutout for the ignition switch, but maybe I could mount individual ones along the edge? It'd be a bit tedious but definitely doable and it would integrate it nicely with the gauges too.



Good point on the ribbon cable, although I could probably run it just for an inch or so and have the box mounted under the gauges depending on headlight clearance.

 

[Guest]

Pete,
I once made a voltage monitor, but found the flickering of the LED's a bit distracting.
Someone told me to rather design it only using a low voltage and over voltage indication. Meaning that when the voltage was correct no LED's will be on.
Thus when you switch the bike on the led will be say yellow for <13 Volts and when it say goes to >15 Volts it shows red. When you see no lights, its charging OK.
I never did this and just went for an analogue meter in the end.

I get what you mean Andre.

I don't think that will be an issue for me, although I guess I won't know until I try it.

I think if I integrate it into the gauges well enough, then it won't be a distraction.

 

[Guest]

I ordered the bits and pieces (minus the LED's) yesterday morning for this as I have very little aside from this that I can work on at the moment.

 

[Bill Alexander]

These LED type meters are useless to me and anyone else who is colour blind. Greem/red/orange...... bahh... all the same to me.

I am wondering if anyone else has thought of using a digital volt meter ? I purchased a very basic Digital Panel meter which measures DC volt frm 8 to 30. It is about 25 x 50mm and sits quite nicely on top of the instrument pod (at the moment I am just using velcro dots but may look at doing something more permanent).

It cost $30 at JayCar (our Aussie mates should be familiar with them) and just had to have 2 wires connected - can't even get them backwards because polarity is automatically sensed. I connected to the orange wire out of the ignition for + and one of the indicator earths for -. Comes on with the ignition and gives me a nice little constant display of the voltage. If any one is interested I will try and remember to get a photo to post.

 

[Guest]

That's a good point Bill, although with the bar type the location of the lit LED's should suffice.

I had a digital gauge I got from Jaycar years ago but found the backlight ineffectual at night and it wasn't exactly weatherproof.

Anything newer will probably be better though...

 

[Bill Alexander]

Here is a photo of my digital volt meter (apologies about the photo quality)

This voltmeter is led display and easily read in the dark (it is hard to read with bright sun behind). It is not water proof but in my case it is sheltered inside the fairing. As can be seen I rode into work today in a storm and the meter was hardly dripped on. I do have a cunning plan for waterproofing it eventually in the meantime it is easy to remove with the velcro so if it ever is at risk of getting drowned I can whip it off really quickly.

 

[mike-s]

For what it's worth that ebay seller has a few bar graphs.
link to his shop

 

[Guest]

Here is a photo of my digital volt meter (apologies about the photo quality)

This voltmeter is led display and easily read in the dark (it is hard to read with bright sun behind). It is not water proof but in my case it is sheltered inside the fairing. As can be seen I rode into work today in a storm and the meter was hardly dripped on. I do have a cunning plan for waterproofing it eventually in the meantime it is easy to remove with the velcro so if it ever is at risk of getting drowned I can whip it off really quickly.

Ah yes, LED in that instance is much better than LCD. The one I was referring to was LCD and quite useless on a bike. I think in a car it would've been good due to dash lighting etc.

Also, no fairing on my 450E so totally exposed to the elements, which is why I'm hoping with the bar graph type to be able to line LED's along the bottom of the gauge housing, but we shall see.

For what it's worth that ebay seller has a few bar graphs.
link to his shop

True, although a lot of those look quite bulky and would be hard to fit in with the gauges in a neat and tidy way...

 

[Guest]

Got my bits yesterday so I could make a start.

I'm just running it all up on a breadboard for now to see that it works ok, then I'll transfer it to some vero board I have left over from my ignition circuit.



I'm using these LED's for prototyping but I'll current limit the super bright ones coming for my gauges and use some of them behind some tinted plastic I think. I know that doesn't make sense right now, but I can see it in my mind...



They were already wired that way from something else I must've done 15 years ago...

All components in, just need to do some jumpers to finish the circuit ready to test:

 

[Guest]

Ok, prototype finished up tonight, very messy on the breadboard.



Straight 12v works:



And I discovered I had a LM317 variable voltage regulator hiding underneath the prototyping setup (which don't work no more), so pilfered that:



And a brief crappy video of how it looks:



I need to calibrate it of course, but that'll do for the moment as it's MotoGP time and I'll solder it all together properly before calibrating too.

 

[Hammered]

I bought one of these from Fleabay for a penny, I paid $4.99 in shipping, but hey, I paid paid a penny! Its small enough, 1" x 3/4" and pretty damn bright. I plan to strip the lighter plug body away, rewire for a blade style fuse (ato) and place in the gauge cluster. Course Ill have to repair the one I have after my deer strike. Its small enough to fit in the idiot lights section of the vertical stalk or in the gear indicator area. And since Im replacing the 5 light setup for a LED indicator, theres plenty of room for either way. I used the unit a couple days in the Caliber to see how quick its changed and such and to check how easy it was to see. Seems like a decent deal for $5 a 10 days waiting.

 

[Guest]

Cool, there are certainly plenty of options out there!

For me this is some extra fun while I'm waiting to get to other stuff that will get me closer to being on the road, and I haven't done this stuff for years.

 

[Hammered]

I wish I had a first idea about electronics. I love seeing people do this kinda thing. Leaves me scratching my head.

 

[Guest]

Don't worry, I'm nowhere near 100% on how the circuit works... the days of trying to understand it fully are about 15 years behind me now unfortunately, but I still find myself fascinated by it and like to have a fiddle every now and then.

If it gets me a nice indication of the state of my charging system then so much the better