Hmm....LCDs can be sourced from LOTS more places than VFDs. They can range in price from $4-$100. Some companies (*cough* Matrix Orbital) will make a serial LCD and jack the price up to $90. Just about all the LCDs (character, not graphic) use the same core chipset (like an engine block), so it makes using them a breeze.

I'm still indecisive about having a remote display or having it in the case. It would be a cost difference of about $15 or so.

Either way, an LCD would drop the price down about $30-40. The place I got the VFD from has a limited quantity so it wouldn't be feasible for a long term solution.

I should've said it before, but thanks for the kind replies everyone! I'm definitely more motivated to finalize this and offer it to people.

-Tim

 

I'd DEFINATELY prefer it had a remote screen. Thats the best part of it in my opinion.
Your mounting options would be almost unlimited. Just think about it. You could have it mounted in a sunvisor, in place of rearview mirror, flush mounted into your gauge cluster (depends on size of screen obviously).
See what you can do with LCD's and get back to us! Im seriously interested in one with a remote mount LCD screen.

 

dude. that is some ------ badass ---- man. I am definately making one. thanks!!!!!!!!

 

I think I may have found us an LCD supplier! I forgot about these guys, and they have excellent prices, too!

http://www.crystalfontz.com/cgi-bin/pricing.pl?product=

They have lotsa LCDs. Just to reiterate: Serial LCDs will allow remote mounting and a fairly thin cable. I think they have the best prices for their serial LCDs. I'm partial to the blue/white scheme

Though, their parallel (requires 11 wires versus 1 for serial) LCD selection is nice as well. (See link below for parallel LCD.) But, a remote re-location would be less feasible since there are many more wires involved. I think I'll do a serial-only (remote location) design instead of an all-in-one.

Just as a comparison, CrystalFontz sells a serial 2x16 (2 rows of 16 characters) LCD for $37:

http://www.crystalfontz.com/products...ml#CFA632YFBKS

Matrix Orbital has one for $52.37:

http://www.matrixorbital.com/pages/p...=1&ProductID=4

Comparing the features, CrystalFontz wins out easily.

So, to summarize. It's gonna be a serial only design. That means I could make provisions to make a parallel LCD into serial; but I'd like to avoid that if I can.

CrystalFontz seems to be the best supplier at the moment. They became popular with case modders who wanted LCD screens in their drive bays.

-Tim

 

Def. a good decision man!!
I like it

 

i like this screen

http://www.crystalfontz.com/products...ml#CFA633TMCKS

 

The one with the blue backlight is sweet.

I also remember crystal fontz because of case modding, i wanted one, those things are sweet.

 

Well, as soon as my poor self gets some $$ I'll get one and get to work on an LCD version. Shouldn't be too hard!

-Tim

 

wow man, that's awesome, this is my first time looking at this thread :P you could prolly make a couple bucks if you whipped some of these things up and put them up for sale, you can never monitor too many things going on with your turbo

 

so ya gunna make us some with remote lcd's? how much we lookin total?