Custom dashboard hardware questions

General Custom Hardware / Electronics
1

Hi all!
I got A3 1.8T big turbo Audi and really want to make a digital dashboard for it.
It is running Speeduino ECU with limited inputs so cannot wire everything I want displayed into the ECU.

I was planning on running the realdash on Raspberry Pi and one or maybe even multiple screens.

The question is, what hardware do I need to get blinkers, fuel gauge, speedometer etc to get displayed on RealDash when I also want to connect the ECU to RealDash with USB?

2

There are multitude of ways to read the vehicle body electronics to RealDash:

  • If your vehicle is new enough to use CAN, you can use CAN adapter to read directly the bus. This works very well but is time consuming to get started as you do have to analyse your vehicle CAN data to find bytes of interest.
  • There may be some IO boxes that can tap into 12v signals, like original indicator lights on the instrument panel and send that info to RealDash
  • A complete re-wire of your car and use PDM modules that are either directly RealDash compatible (SPLeinonen, Muxwiring), or are CAN controllable.
3

Thanks for the answer! My car does not have CAN. I think a good way would be to get some kind of a box that works with 12v inputs but I do not know what is available for that purpose. I could even build it myself if I could find an already designed product with PCB and list of materials needed + the code for it ofcourse. I have tried looking for something like this but haven’t found anything…

Is input to RealDash possible from multiple sources? Like for example from my ECU and that seperate box for indicator lights etc.

4

Yes, you can add as many connections as you need. For example, our DEATHFISH 2 project uses 4 connections:

  • USB to CAN
  • USB to Muxwiring PDM:s
  • Bluetooth to MaxxECU
  • USB to TPSM module
5

Well that will simplify stuff a lot!
Going with spleinonen dashbox in that case :smiley:

Thanks a lot for the help.

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