What is this?

[DaveW]

Ok, this might be confusing. But bear with me.

You know on old cars, the thing that registers the overall distance travelled by the car is a little sort of drum meter? The numbers 1 to 9 are written on a little wheel, and every mile, it turns. You would also see them on old tape decks, and in old Sci-Fi movies. Basically, i need 2 of these at 3 'wheels' wide.

If you've seen that film Zathura, think of the rolling dice in the game? I've been searching for a while on ebay and google for these, but i'm out of luck. I don't even know what they're called. I really want to find some, instead of trying to make such a fiddly piece. Sometimes, there's a little peice of detail that you just have to get right, you know? This is one of those occations-so all help trying to find some of these is appreciated. Even if you think you're way off, post anyway, because i really need a lot of help trying to track some of these things down.

For fallout entheusiasts, these are for the fallout mod-think of the health bar in the interface.

-Dave

[justleftlife]

what you are talking about is an odometer, i think. If you are going to try and get some of those you might have to buy and take apart one from a car. or you could go to good will and get an old tape deck and get them from there.

[pure_rock_fury]

I would hit up a junk yard and pull a speedometer out of an old junker. I think there are normally 7 odometer wheels in one speedo. It may vary by car make and model, but it usually goes up to 100000 plus a single decimal. Also you may find one that has the trip meter as well, which usually has 4 I believe.

[AceX]

Yeah, I'd just go to a junk yard and find a car with the guage cluster still in it. The odometer isn't too hard to remove, should be 2-4 screws.

[Redbeard]

if you have ever seen people using those clicker counters... every time someone walks by they click it and it goes up one number... I used to have one as a kid and I think it had something like that. I wish I knew what they were really called.

[DaveW]

The odometer is the name of the device that measures the distance in cars, not the name of the actualy type of meter, but thanks, cos that's something i didn't know, i can now expand my search fields a little.


The odometer isn't too hard to remove, should be 2-4 screws
I'm pretty certain that the Odometers in Cars are designed to be tinker-proof, to stop people mucking about with the distance travelled. But then again, i need to go to the scrappy anyway to get a new arial for my car, so i'll ask when i'm there. If i got one of the mechanisms, i could probably chop of the extra 4 wheels, or depending on the complexity, i could split it in half...

That's the thing Redbeard, if you remember what they're called give me a message cos it could be damn useful. If anyone from the UK reads this and still isn't sure, think about the little things in the Lynx advertisements. ( Lynx is a deoderant. The hot guys clicks his every time a chick flirts with him. When he gets back to the hotel at night, he's clocked up about 250. Then the weedy guy in the lift, who has put lynx on that morning, shows his-2500! Damn funny first time you see it.)

-Dave

[DaveW]

Aha! Found this...

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/odometer1.htm

Could be a lot simpler to mod than i thought, i could change that gear ratio a bit, use some sort of single turning trigger to control it...ideas about how to impliment one as a temperature reader would be great. I'll probably be using PIC microcontrollers for all the devlishlly difficult parts, it's the engineering side i could use ideas with. Oh, and if anyone does find a place to buy the damn things, let me know. :)

-Dave

[Rankenphile]

They also sell those for pedometers, which gauge how far you walk, although finding analog ones are harder and harder to come by these days. I've seen the "clicker counter" things sold in sports departments of big stores like Fred Meyers and Target, but I can't think of their proper name for the life of me.

Again, you can always go to a second hand store and look for an old tape deck that has the counter on it and take it apart. It should have it.

On a side note, what is the fallout mod you're working on?

[DaveW]

I posted a few ideas a while back to the fallout mod...

The old thread is Here (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1622&highlight=Fallout) but my plans have changed a wee bit since then, i'm basically turning the front of the case into thefallout interface then doing 'detail mods' to the rest of the case. I havn't posted because i figure no-one likes a guy who's all talk and nothing to show for it :D

Thanks for the help, keep it coming guys. I'm thinking tape deck as well, but in the UK old technology gets busted, we don't really have shops that stock old stuff. There's a market in Glasgow called The Barras where i can get old electronics, but they don't stock things like this. You Americans might be able to get them easier-if someone thinks they can get some, i'll be willing to buy them.

-Dave