Diy G-force Meter

[Randon_I_Am]

I got very amused after watching Top Gear and seeing them play around with the G-Force meters in the GTR's. The 34 and 35 has them i think...

And being a Poor bastard and not able to afford a R34 (or 35) GTR... I decided to make one...

You start with at least a 2-axis accelerometer, I got this one off Ebay http://cgi.ebay.com.au/3-Axis-low-g-Accele...p3286.m63.l1177

combine that with an Atmel ATMega8535 (or similar) microprocessor,

A few LED's, A 5v regulator, a bunch of carefully chosen resistors, Some wire and some solder...

I used some rods of tinted perspex (machined, filed and sanded) to hide the LED's behind the dash. (looks quite nice)

Also plenty of patience...

With a bit of know how, solder it all onto a prototype board connecting the correct wires to the correct pins

Then write a nice program into the microprocessor, it took a few goes it eliminate the effects of bumps around corners distorting the reading too much.

Mine has 7 LED's on each side of the center red LED. 3 blue, 2 green, then 2 red.

it is calibrated to read 1 lateral G as 1 red light coming on... Greater then 1.5 Gs brings on all lights.

So if ya turn right really hard and sharp, ya get 3 blue, 2 green and 1 red light shooting out to the left of the guage... each light represents 0.15G (with the first blue light only coming on at 0.3G).

I also installed a switch and used the second Axis of the Accelerometer to measure Acceleration and braking G's. Braking displayed on the right, and acceleration displayed on the left.

They say i have too much time on my hands...

I Tried to get a pic of it while its displaying a reading... but its too many things to do with one person

Also I have read somewhere that using a phone while driving is illegal...

If anyone has a GTR and looks at the G-Force readings I'd be interested to know what sort of readings ya get out of a factory one and compare them...

[HairyMerkin]

... What?

[-Stokesy-]

Pat - That's really cool i might give it a go in the holidays

flyT - What?

[putraged]

hi pat. im in canberra as well

im looking forward at ur project since i own r34 25gt, and just recently bought gtr MFD's. soo yeah, g-force meter for sure.

cheers.

[skins]

Well done mate.

Don't know what the other fella was about

[RusH_]

nice, very impressive, clearly not something just anyone could pick up and wire up, nor program for the matter, but great job, you should consider making a set of these and doing group buys, no doubt theyd sell for the right price

[Randon_I_Am]

Yeah i wouldn't mind making them up and selling them... There's alot of custom work in it though, like cutting the dash and filing the perspex to get it looking nice...

I'm in the process now of re-writing the program in a different language, this way i can combine the 2 forces (sideways and acceleration/braking) and display the combined force (using pythagoras) in each direction.

It's a good project...