Chuck
Aren't we on the PowerFC Forum?:D

Love ya!

Jeff

Full circle....:cool: Now......here are some pics. finally. It was a crap cam so I will post better pics. as soon as I get them.

Full circle....:cool: Now......here are some pics. finally. It was a crap cam so I will post better pics. as soon as I get them.

t https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...postid=2164961

t https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...postid=2164962

Now........shoot me a PM or email for those interested. Talvendi@cs.com

I figured that's what he was doing. The only thing new about this screen is that he changed the electroluminescent (EL) element behind it to a different color. That amounts to de-soldering and re-soldering two connection points. This isn't that far off from a DIY project, and there are a lot more colors available than blue.

The power fc uses EL versus LEDs for it's backlighting. EL is basically a thin filament that's the exact shape of the screen. If you take apart your commander screen it's easy to see (you have to remove the lcd from the circuit board, which I would not recommend if you're just poking around).

See this site for a non-power fc tutorial: http://members.tripod.com/mrpcbman/Backlight.htm

From that tutorial, some EL material is available here: http://www.beingseen.com/sheets.html

There's no way that the stock commander uses EL for lighting. One, it's not the right color, two, it's lighting isn't anywhere near even and three in conjunction with the first two, you can see the two light sources on either side of the screen. The brightness sucks too. I'll agree that the mod does use an EL panel, but that kinda limits your color options too.

Have you ever taken it apart?

No but now I will (tomorrow). I take it you have? Do the buttons have an EL panel as well? They are the same shade of green as the screen.

No, the buttons are tiny LEDs. I argue that the screen backlight is EL because it's a thin white filament, it's the same size as the screen, it's got two connection points, and it lights up green (the whole thing) when power is applied. I didn't notice any LEDs behind the screen itself, but it's been over a year ago since I played with this.

To get to it, you have to remove the LCD from the board by bending the metal tabs from the housing. I'll warn you now, it was very difficult for me to re-align the contact points from the LCD to the PCB when I wanted to put it back together. I was getting some pretty weird display results until I got it right.

I haven't tried to change the backlight color. I was just poking around when I mounted the screen in a DIN slot.

i like it but not for $120. Not to insult you, but i think i would be willing to pay a 1/3 of that.

i share matty's opinion

It doesn't really look like it's that much easier to see than the green lighting? So... other than the "neato" factor, what's the point of doing this? Maybe if you can do an Amber color. But even then I don't think I'd pay 120 for it...

Do you have a link to Goblin's post?

Any more info on the protocol?

Simple search... :p:

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=147597

Railgun69: Thanks!

Sorry for bringing up an older thread (but better than creating a new one like some) but has anyone else done this yet? In addition, what about replacing it with a reverse LCD screen (which I think can be done just with the filter in it already). What I mean by that is to have lit characters and a dark background. That would greatly improve visability. Second to that, have it as someone mentioned earlier, either red or orange.

I agree with matty,
cool but not for $120.

badass7, if you get enough interest, maybe you could think about lowering the price.

Guys, sorry but this mod. is NO LONGER available. Thank you.

So is there a DIY for this mod.. i would like to get amber look to match my interior gauges..

Having a PocketPC software for Datalogit would be soooo nice. But the time needed to make one from scratch and relatively small market for it, it would make its price very uncompetitive.

How much would you be willing to pay for such software ?

I dont know if you guys have seen this but there is a guy on ebay who custom makes car computers (not ems). It is a bare bones system that is about the size of a shoe box and goes for pretty cheap. It has a video out that could be hooked up to one of the 200 dollar ebay screens. all you would need is a small keyboard and one of the gyration gyroscopic mice and you are good to go.

Well, Sony is coming out with world's smallest PC.. maybe this fall or winner..

http://www.msmobiles.com/users/1/arc...ony-vaio-u.jpg

plug in your datalogit and you are set!!

http://www.dynamism.com/u70/u70-pack-all.jpg

SPEC:

Just found out that its out on the market..

link?

this was what I was talking about for a in car computer. All you would need is a screen and the rf mouse and keyboard that you could store in one of the bins.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...116928935&rd=1

So dose anyone make a touch screen that fits nicely in the din yet? There is one company that makes an overlay for any monitor, but didn’t seem like a viable choice.
That would be the way to go IMO.
Just cut all the crap and have everything from right there. Integrate a synaptic touch pad into the console and you are so set up to do everything.
I bet the datalogit guys would even incorporate a scroll bar for changing parameters without the need to use a keyboard if enough people were to ask.

Ok. Had to bring this thread back up as I need a couple of things. First off, on either side of the display there's a row of mini LEDs, about 7 of them that light up the display. Those can be swapped for any color that you want, provided they have that color in that size. Secondly, does anyone have a good source of polarized film for LCD screens? I want to reverse the polarity so it will be easier to read and the film they have on there now is on pretty good. I don't want to kill the glass so I'll just add a layer on top. Provided they have a suitable blue or red, that's what I plan to do over the winter. With a colored text and a dark background I think it will be much easier to read.

Any info would be great!

And as far as having issues when removing the screen. So long as you don't remove the rubber strip from the glass, you should be fine with the display when you put it back.

Anyone?

railgun did you try this yet?

Not yet. But it's still on my to do list. I haven't found a suitable supplier yet.

Not knowing a lot about this, here's my question:

Is an LCD screen just a monitor?

In other words, if you wanted a larger commander screen could you just unhook the wires that go to the commander's small screen and hook them up to a larger screen?

Essentially that is what you can do with the datalogit, but it would be difficult, and not nearly as good as just using the datalogit watches.

Ejmack1 and a few others found a nice 7” touch screen that fits nicely in the double din, and I think I am going to go that direction. But there are issues with which screen to get because the lilliput has a better picture in my opinion, and the Xenarc seems to be of better construction and doesn’t seem to fail as readily.

No because the size of the screen is what the PFC expects to output to. Each pixel on the screen has an X and Y coordinate. If you get a bigger screen, you'll have to tell the PFC that and adjust accordingly. What would be something like X4 Y8 on a 300X200 screen won't be in the same position as on a 800X600 screen. You'd end up with the same size text a corner of the larger display.

Got ya. Thanks.

railgun, have you found a supplier even for just the LEDs?

I will probably go through ledtronics. They have a massive selection. Though, I've never soldered anything anywhere near this small, so I don't even know that I should try. I still need some polarized film.

I need to make sure I have the right size. I need about 24 total I think. 10 per side of the display and one for each button.

Thanks I am going to try the LED portion of it myself. Hopefully I wont ruin a perfectly good commader. :D

I don't know enough about the polarized film part; good luck with that. It would look awesome reversed.

Ok. Here's where I may need some help. These are the LEDs that are along the display panel. I have to desolder it from the PCB yet, but that's the easy part. I've never seen surface mount LEDs this small. Does ANYONE have an idea about a reference part # or something along those lines? If worse comes to worse, I'll do an EL panel, but not blue. If I can get a good red, I'll go that route.

http://railgun69.homeip.net/Temp%20R...D%202-Crop.jpg

Here are the LEDs for the buttons. I don't know if blue will work as it depends on the P/N of the ones I need. Some don't come in blue and if they did, their luminosity isn't all that strong, though at night, I wouldn't want an ultra bright thing anyway, so we'll see.

http://railgun69.homeip.net/Temp%20R...utton-LEDs.jpg

any updates??

Everything regarding this mod is in this thread now.

https://www.rx7club.com/interior-exterior-audio-26/power-fc-commander-mod-378933/

But no. Still haven't really gotten anywhere.

hello guys,
well I think that the best thing to do for a nice display of Power FC at your car, is combine it with a small PC like LPC-401X ( http://www.littlepc.com/products_p4littlepc_401X.htm )
Here at Greece we have small PCs that come with a remote control. The idea is simple: put the Small PC under the seat of the co-driver. Buy a TFT display in order to "see" your stuff (DivX, DVD, video-clips, MP3, etc). Connect the PowerFC with the serial port and then run the program at the Small PC (it is a PC after all). Display results at your nice TFT display, which is touch screen BTW.
I think that this is the perfect setup, even if it costs. But you are building not a PowerFC monitor only, but a ICE perfect unit.

I love playing MAME at the traffic lights... :)

New to the board, so resurrecting this thread. Here's an idea that is pretty far out but not quite science fiction. The Audrey has a 5 inch color touch screen and can be picked up for about $80 on ebay. I have one in my kitchen for Internet surfing but I saw someone had installed one in their truck. It runs QNX (a version on unix and can be hacked to run Linux) and has a serial port. If Dataloggit or equivalent could be ported to unix...

Seriously, a linux version of dataloggit would open up a world of possiblities for using laptops, pdas, etc.

http://www.3rdmoon.com/crusso/audrey...isanaudrey.htm

i found this cool web site that test every kind of led's and has links to where to buy them.

http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/photos2/bluesmd9.jpg

http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/second/creebg1.jpg

oops i forgot the link

http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/ledsmd.htm

Cool. I don't know if those are still small enough, but for the button ones, that will work.

are you sure that the commander ones are smaller the web site says that the Panasonic SMD LED is a little bigger than a grain of salt i could not imagine trying to solder anything smaller.

They're small. Look at this thread. My server's down at the moment, but I'll have it back up so you can look at the pics. They're tiny on the display itself. Definitely smaller than a grain of...anything really.
https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=378933

The pics are back up now. You can see what I'm talking about.