One of the biggest upsides of open communications standards such as CAN or SPI is that a whole world of vehicle hacking becomes available, from simple projects like adding sensors or computers to a car or even building a complete engine control unit from the ground up. The reverse is true as well; sensors and gauges using one of these protocols can be removed from a car and put to work in other projects. That’s the idea that [John] had when he set about using a vehicle’s dashboard as a information cluster for his home.
The core of the build is an Astra GTE dashboard cluster, removed from its host vehicle, and wired to an Arduino-compatible board, in this case an ESP32. The code that [John] wrote bit-bangs an SPI bus and after some probing is able to address all of the instrument gauges on the dashboard. For his own use at home, he’s also configured it to work with Home Assistant, where each of the gauges is configured to represent something his home automation system is monitoring using a bit mask to send data to specific dials.
While this specific gauge cluster has a lot of vehicle-specific instrumentation and needs a legend or good memory to tie into a home automation system without any other modification, plenty of vehicle gauges are more intuitive and as long as they have SPI they’d be perfect targets for builds that use this underlying software. This project takes a similar tack and repurposes a few analog voltmeters for home automation, adding a paper background to the meters to make them easier to read.
So I guess if the temperature gauge is up it’s hot, if the battery gauge is up there’s a lightning storm and if the speedometer reads 120 there is a hurricane?
Pretty sure my battery system has pretty solid grounding but let’s hope I never find out!
As much as I love this, I’m a bit sad to see that a GTE has met it’s demise. Remember having a ride in a friend’s one when I was in my teens, and that dash was an amazing site to see (even if it was crazy slow to update).
sitesaying ?
Same! Thankfully this gte dash was in storage for ten years before I repurposed it.
A project for mobile-home / camping car ?
The tachometer in that cluster is very similar to the digital tachometer featured in the 1984 to 1989 fourth generation Chevrolet Corvette (aka C4). Loved seeing that.
I bet the logic will work on that screen then. Could be a fun thing to test!
I have a 1985 Corvette and I love the digital dash cluster, it reminds me of Star Trek The Next Generation. I gave all the lights the LED upgrade, upgraded the power supply and replaced the 12 pin connector that connects the two boards together.
I have all the LEDs ready except for the radio light trim and the defrost switch bulb.
I also have LEDs for the engine compartment underhood lights and a toggle switch harness to turn them on or off when I want, during car shows for example.
When spring comes with warmer weather I intend to finish off the interior and then install the LED tail lights.
Cheers!
Love to see that installed on a modern car!
There’s no CANBUS in this project, pls delete the wrong tags