Building an Arduino Car Gear Shifter Indicator Display [video] | Hacker News Reader

Building an Arduino Car Gear Shifter Indicator Display [video]

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How cool. This seems like such a good visual indicator of your gear status it's a mystery why it's not more common in manual cars.

When driving manual you already unconciously know the gear you’re in. The automatic cars aive driven did show d/r/n/p, because I guess it is in the control system anyway.

>When driving manual you already unconciously know the gear you’re in.

You've never been fender bumped by a driver who forgot he was in first gear/reverse, thought he was in neutral, and just let go of the clutch without the brakes on? Happened to me twice.

I often find myself checking I'm in neutral before letting go of the clutch during complex parking maneuvers, because I can't trust my memory on where I last left the gear stick.

On my old 2003 Fiat Panda, the gear shifter was placed quite high up[1], closer to the side of the steering wheel rather than down in the console, so you could tell with your peripheral vision whether it's still in gear, and also easily flick it into neutral with just your pinkie finger without taking your hands of the wheel. I miss mechanical UX like that when a lot of though was put in stuff like this, instead of every car being a copy-paste of the same barren generic platform, void of mechanical interactions, and with just an iPad in the center, designed to be as cheap to manufacture as possible.

[1] https://assets.adac.de/image/upload/ar_16:9,c_fill,f_auto,g_...

On motorbikes, there is often (at least in older ones) a neutral indicator but no gear indicator: it prevents this exact situation I guess

I assume it's because on motorcycles dumping the clutch while in gear could have graver consequences for the rider than a fender bender.

It may also be that a neutral switch already exists to lock out the starter (as opposed to only being an indicator). Adding an indicator for a sensor that’s already present is cheaper/easier/higher RoI than sensing plus indicating.

In my experience bikes have it because lots of them are a pain in the ass to put in neutral and is easier to see the light than to feel with the clutch.

The neutral is also in between first and second, so its a bit finicky.

I severely doubt adding a gear indicator would save people from these kinds of situations.

In most countries where automatics aren't the default, no that generally never happens. you'd have to not know it's in gear, have the engine running, not be on the break and not have the handbrake on.

What are you talking about? All that can definitely happen. And it has happened to me.

Such an indicator is mandatory in the European Union.

> Vehicles of category M 1 with a reference mass not exceeding 2 610 kg and vehicles to which type-approval is extended in accordance with Article 2(2) of Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 which are fitted with a manual gearbox shall be equipped with gear shift indicators in accordance with the requirements of this Regulation and its implementing measures.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:...

It is mainly a fuel efficiency measure. It also tells the driver when to shift up or down.

Example of the indicator: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kerry-Malone/publicatio...

Yeah... unfortunately, they just show you the gear you should switch to, not the gear you're currently in (although that information is obviously available). So much for keeping your eyes on the road as much as possible...

The photo shows the current gear (3) and an indicator that the driver could shift up (the arrow pointing upward).

Must be model dependent. All the cars I've owned with physical gear levers and gear shift indicators show the recommended gear, not current.

No, the number is the current gear. The arrow in front of it indicates whether you should shift up or down

It's dependant on the make/model.

In all 4 manual cars I've driven (all sold in UK, so maybe different to rest of Europe?) they show an arrow and the number of the gear you should change to. Nothing on the dashboard about current gear (except in the automatic I've driven, which of course doesn't need to tell you when to change gears).

Every car I’ve regularly driven (typically European) has shown current gear, and an arrow for which direction you should be moving.

How completely unnecessary. You know what gear you shifted in because you shifted it in in the first place. If, once in a long while, you shift different gear, you notice imediatelly as you release clutch. If, once in a while, you forget to shift next gear, the motor will scream at you sooner than you notice the indicator.

And those people not being able to utilize all those "physical" indicators because of being new/bad drivers or being distracted wont notice this small number regardless of where it shows. Just more electronics in cars that desperately need to be getting rid of those...

The only instance of where confirmation of selected gear is usefull is when shifting into Reverse, and that is already acompanied by a beep.

The law isn't about telling you what gear you are in, it's about telling you when to shift up a gear (I'm not sure it's required to show downshifts, at least the few cars I've driven - all in the UK - only show up shift recommendations).

It's a little thing on your dashboard that pops up an up arrow and the number of the gear you should change to (and down arrow in cars that do support that).

And it's helpful because a) different cars have different engines/gear systems such that you can't learn a universal rule of "always move from gear 2 to 3 at X speed / Y RPM", and lots of people aren't good at knowing the most economical point to change into each gear even for their own car, so having the manufacturer program it in does help. I no longer pay attention to it in my car, as I've either shifted a second before it would have shown on the dashboard, or I've purposefully not gone up a gear because at that moment I care more about ability to accelerate for some reason than about being as economical as possible. But those tips were useful in helping me learn the ideal gear changes in my car without having to read up about its RPM sweet spots etc, and useful for anyone who I lend my car to who isn't familiar with the brand/model.

> "If, once in a while, you forget to shift next gear, the motor will scream at you sooner than you notice the indicator."

True if you're just thinking about not fucking up the engine, but not true if you're thinking about driving economically which is the point of the law. My car for example (a small hatchback, 1L turbo engine) gets best economy (and therefore suggests the gear changes) by upgearing when it's around about 2k RPM (not exactly, and varies by which gear), but the engine could comfortably go to 4k RPM without any screaming at all (iirc redlining is something like 6k-7k, and engine sounds fine until fairly close to that).

Upshifting at 2k RPM while accelerating is a fast way towards destroying the engine (especially the rod bearings and the dual-mass wheel) in less than 100 kkm. And I bet those upshift indicators don't take into account the temperature of the oil, do they?

Most car manufacturers don't care about longevity of their cars because they have no interest in that and EU doesn't care either. The manufacturer cares about you buying a new car every few years and EU cares about good results in some unrealistic emission tests in lab.

> "Upshifting at 2k RPM while accelerating is a fast way towards destroying the engine"

My professional driving instructor a few years ago, my car's manual and dashboard recommendations, and my two friends who work in (UK) car repair garages all disagree with you.

But I know very little about cars myself, so I can't really argue the point - but maybe there's a difference between the cars you're used to driving and my small 1L turbo engine 6 gear harchback?

My car is 9 years old with no problems yet so I can't speak to longevity of the engine beyond that, but have confirmed that following the car's guidance rather than letting the revs go higher before upshifting does give me much better petrol economy.

(And the dashboard recommendations definitely are more complex than "at X rpm recommend gear change", eg driving up steep hills the recommendations come later than when driving flat - no idea if it's taking oil temperature into control, but I also have no idea how to take that into control if I'm choosing when to gear shift...)

edit: oh, I have been told in the past that until the oil warms up from 10-15min driving that you shouldn't push the car, including not going to high revs, but nothing more specific than that general advice.

Two of my friends who had their bearings and double-mass wheel replaced in their cars around only as little as 100 - 150 kkm (one TSI another TDI) disagree with them.

The lower the RPM, the higher the momentum needed to keep the car accelerating nicely. High momentum = more vibration and faster wear. Low RPM means also worse lubrication. That's why turbo-charged and downsized "eco friendly" engines are way less durable than traditional NA engines. Not sure if they could be called "eco" at all because of this.

Assuming you aren't recommending always pushing to the red line before shifting up a gear, what makes you so confident that my car must have a higher ideal shift point than ~2000rpm, is there some rule of physics that prevents engines being made to optimise around that point?

Anecdotally I don't feel any difference in the gear shifting whether I upshift when the dashboard suggests or if I don't do it until, say, 4000rpm (though obviously do notice the different in the driving before the gear change), however if I shift up at lower revs than the dashboard suggests then I do feel a difference in the gear change itself and how easily the car seems to start in the next gear up.

Like I said, I'm not remotely qualified to speak on this subject but I'm also finding it very hard to believe you're correct (at least, correct universally for all manual cars), so I'm going to try to do some digging around for more info.

Heeeh. I drove mostly manual car (since it tends to be the "default" here in France), most of which did not have a indicator (they predated the law). I got to say, having one is still nice. In cities, where you change gear a lot, it means you still get to see the road if you ever get confused about which gear you are in (yeah, yeah, shouldn´t happen, bad driver, whatever, it does happen). But mostly, it is for the downshift / upshift indicator which is usually tuned for eco driving. Knowing when to shift by feel is usually very easy, but knowing the exact point for optimizing fuel consumption is harder, especially because it can change depending on the car. So having the indicator suggestion is nice.

> How completely unnecessary.

I think you mis-typed "I find this unnecessary".

It's additional information, located in the area on your display that you should be regularly scanning, as opposed to the gear lever that you can check by hand but should probably not be regularly (nervously?) checking.

I drive a euro 6 (forward) gear vehicle, and the ratio delta for gears 5 and 6 is really quite subtle. With even moderate music playing, I won't hear the 'motor screaming' if I forget to pop back up to 6 after being in 5 for some hill climbing, for example.

Anyway, this isn't a manufacturer's video, it's a fun little arduino project, so you don't need to be angsty about excessive electronics in cars. (I think that boat has well and truly sailed, in any case.)

Btw, my car does not beep when I change gear to reverse. If it did, I'd definitely be cutting some wires.

I expect that some people think what they find useful, and what their local regulations dictate, are the same for everyone else across the planet.

When was this law passed? I don’t have that on my 2012 Aygo.

1 nov 2011, but this is a type-approval requirement.

> Type approval describes the process applied by national authorities to certify that a model of a vehicle meets all EU safety, environmental and conformity of production requirements before authorising it to be placed on the EU market.

So your 2012 Aygo has probably been type-approved before that date.

I was surprised that is a thing in some manual cars. In every car I see, the gear stick stays where it is after you switch gears. If you switch gears to 1 then it stays on 1, it does not go back to center/neutral position. If you want to move it to two, you first move it to neutral position and then move to 2.

edit: I thought it was returning back to neutral state in the video, I was wrong

It goes back to neutral in some cars? That sounds like a "shift by wire" thing, as usually the shift stick directly changes gears, and thus stays where it is. I've never seen it go back.

Sorry, I read in your profile that you're an amateur F1 driver. Are you willing to give more info on that, as it sounds pretty interesting.

Ah, sorry, that's right before "liar" and lots of people miss the joke.

Aw. Car racing is a lot of fun, and there are a lot of multimillionaires browsing this forum. You can get a used F1 car for less than a million, so it's not inconceivable that someone here could actually be one.

It goes karting, Formula 4, Formula 3, Formula 2, and then formula 1. Karting is relatively accessible, < $10k. Amateur formula one is then only a million to start and then a couple hundred grand a year upkeep.

I'm sure a few are, but I drive a hatchback :P

Badly.

Any car can be a race car at least once.

Paul Walker would confirm.

Any car can be a race car, period. I used to do track days in my Honda Fit. And there are actual competitive classes for them. If you want to get on the track, bring what you've got. I've seen people bring minivans to track days before.

Amateur Formula One? Is that really a thing? How do they class the cars? Every year the cars are different due to rule changes. Unless everybody has a used F1 car from the same year, it seems like the cars could be pretty unmatched.

Ah I think I misunderstand the video, I thought it was returning automatically.

But then the stick indicates the current gear, what is the point of a second screen? Convenience?

I guess just so you can see it more easily on the dashboard, though I've always used my hand to check (that way I don't need to take my eyes off the road).

> This seems like such a good visual indicator of your gear status it's a mystery why it's not more common in manual cars.

It's common in manual racing cars - one single, extremely large, 7-segment LED in direct view of driver.

isn't that only common because of the sequential shifter that is actually easy to miss what gear you're on? I don't remember seeing it on "normal" manuals

This could maybe be useful if you have a (race) car with a sequential gearbox, but for a regular H-pattern, it seems rather pointless, other than fun and novelty factor.

Exactly, with sequential, I may loose count... in the countrysides of Germany going 145 in my rally car. But for H or HH, I do not really get it other than novelty.

I wondee why won't more cars have sequential gearbox. It's so neat on motorbikes.

My understanding is that race cars with sequential shifting mostly use dog gearboxes, and having a gearbox that you slam into gear would probably not be very comfortable for the car's occupants vs a gearbox with synchromesh.

For some cars, getting to reverse requires to press down the shifter and then shift to the same position as 1st. I think this scheme would not work in such cases.

Thank you for this project! I was just in planning and design stages of the similar approach and solution to the same problem!

A 40 minute video?!

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