delboy

I bought one on the Irish equivalent of the sire Kerrs bought his on. Cost 25 euro incl postage and tax. Havnt mounted it yet as im not quite sure how or where to put it. If you have it at the wrong angle at night you cant see the numbers when you put the light on. Any suggestions anyone. Its a 2nd Gen!

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CTB

I've got one coming in a few weeks from the small group buy we just did on here. I'm not quite sure where I'm going to put mine either - I guess I will wait till I actually have it in hand before I start looking for places.

So, I guess this didn't help much did it?!?!?

midiwall

I'm looking to mount mine in that "weird unused space that everything slips out of" at the base of the center console, just in front of the shifters. I dunno if that space exists in the 2nd gens as well...

CTB

Do you mean this space here ?

I may somehow try to mount mine on the ashtray-slide-out-handle-thing, but who knows. This one may take a little creativity!

delboy

I was thinking about the ashtray mount aswell. Seeing as i dont somke anymore and wont be letting anyone somke in my surf, might be good!

midiwall

Yeup, but in that air gap behind your inclinometer. I have an air pressure gauge on the far left side at that spot, and I think that the thermometer will sit in the rest of the space.

I'm looking to fashion a wedge support out of wood to brace the thermo at an angle in that gap. I'm thinking that if I tuck it back a bit just under that ledge, then the backlight will drive the display more than the ambient light and it may reduce any glare issue.

You're right... it should be a fun one.

midiwall

The thermometers from the Quasi Group Buy showed up here today, and I got mine installed:

http://www.midiwall.com/4Runner/thermo.html
(i'll add some words to that page later)


For those that participated, THANK YOU! And know that yours was checked out and put in the mail to you today.

Enjoy!


Mark

delboy

Mark! Could you go into some detail of how you hardwired your thermo. Mine only takes two AAA batteries which amount to 3V. I assume 12V would blow it. How was yours powered normally?
Delboy

midiwall

Hey there;

Sorry to mislead folks, but my hardwiring was only to handle the display illumination which runs off of 12v. The thermo itself runs off of a single AAA battery.

I thought about doing the hardwiring for that as well, but I ended up mounting the thermometer in such a way that it's easy to get to the battery compartment when it comes time to change it out. I don't know just how frequent that will be though.

If you know the current draw of your 3v device, you can do some math to compute the value needed for a resistor to drop 12v to 3v (which will happen by throttling the current with the resistor). The key thing to watch out for though is the sensitivity that the device may have to voltage fluctuations. The voltage present in your rig will generally vary from 11.5 - 14.0 volts (or more) that's about an 18% swing. If you apply that to a 3v system, you'll drop below 2.5v which may or may not be okay for the device. (I doubt it would _hurt_ it, but it may not work right)

So, dropping the voltage is one thing, but regulating it can be another. Of course, it may not be an issue at all....

In general, I'd suggest mounting the thermometer in such a way that you can get to the battery compartment. I suspect that a fresh alkaline battery will last quite a long time, 6 months or more.

delboy

Thanks for the info! I decided to mount it where CTB suggested and it looks good. Still have to run the wire to the outside. Too dark to do it now. Not sure where i'll run it too. Have to make sure it isn't affected by engine heat though!

midiwall

I thought that I was going to end up with mine up behind the license plate frame, or the front air deflector, but looking at trying to get the sensor through a hole in the firewall turned me off - it's kinda' big to push through.

So, I fished mine around the edge of carpeting on the drivers side, up through the trim and ended up sticking it to the inside of the door panel. I found a spot that's sheltered from the elements, doesn't get heat from the engine compartment, and yet is in the open air.

It's working out pretty well so far...

CTB

Hey guys,

I will be getting home late tomorrow or Sunday morning, and will have a look at mine then. I'm not really sure where I'm going to mount it yet. Delboy, got any pics of where you put it?

Hey Mark - a couple of quick questions for you.

1. Did you hardwire it so that the display would be constantly lit? Could this be as simple as taking off the cigarette lighter adapter, stripping a little piece of the wire, and wrapping the bare end of the wire around a fuse in the fuse box that is hot when the ignition is on (such as the cigarette lighter fuse)? I'm not much of an electrical guru, so make it simple for me!!!

I don't mind changing the batteries every 6 months or so, so I don't really care about actually hardwiring the thermometer itself.

2. So, you used the supplied velcro to attach it to the plastic portion on your console?

Thanks for the info Mark. Sorry for the long post fellas-

Cody

delboy

Sorry for the crudity of the pshop work on your photo CTB but i've put it on the flat bit a the back of the gear shift sleeve. More or less where your clinometer is. I'd like to hard wire up my light so it is on when my lights are on, as it would match my indiglo gauges. Can this be done easily?

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midiwall

Actually you'll find that there's a light sensor on the thermo. When it get's dark, the light will come on. When it gets light, it'll turn off. That was an unexpected bonus.


In short, yes... This is what you're doing.

Have you had that center panel pulled before? If not, then getting that done will be harder than handling the wiring.

Once you get access to the back of the lighter, you'll find that there are two wires to it. One is a ground, and the other is a tap to power which is only active when the ignition is in either ACC or ON.

On mine, the ground was the top wire as you look down on the lighter, and is colored black with a white stripe. I _think_ that coloring has been Toyota's standard for a long time. The wire on the side of the lighter was grey with a black stripe and is the switched power (positive) lead.

On the thermo, there are two wires coming into the lighter adapter. The one with a white stripe on it is the positive lead, the solid black side is ground. You're aiming to hook ground to ground and positive to positive. Don't get 'em mixed up.


Yeup, but note the statement on the page of "...a little superglue to help the Velcro stickum".

There are two squares of Velcro with the thermometer. When you get it, look at the bottom lip and you'll see that there's a natural split in the long edge of the case. The squares are wide enough that using a whole one would cover that split, which would make it difficult to get the battery cover off.

So, what I did was cut one of the squares in half, which got me a better width to fit the case. Then, since I reduced the surface area of the tab in half, to make sure it stuck, I put a bit of superglue on the stickum and then stuck it onto the thermo. I did that twice, once at each end of the device, about 3/8" in from either end. I left both halves of the Velcro (the hooks piece and the loops piece) stuck together when I did this.

Once the superglue set (seconds!) then I did the same thing to the other side of the Velcro. Peel back the paper, put a bit of superglue on it, line up where you want the thermo to sit *AND* the angle you want it to sit at, then push and hold for about 30 seconds.

The holding power of the Velcro bond is plenty strong to hold up the thermometer. The superglue will do well to bond the Velcro to the device and the plastic of the console.


Hope that helps!

Mark

midiwall

"Easily" is realtive...

I have another project going on where I'm trying to wire in footwell lights a certain way. One thing that I set out to find was a common point that I could tell when either door was open, without having to fish wire up to the dome lamp. A common point I noticed was of course the "door open" indicator on the dash... I thought it would be "easy" to get to... I ended up giving up on it yesterday and won't get to again today.

So... it may be easy for you to find a point where you can tie into the dash lights. Actually, now that I write this, I'm thinking that there's usually a "lights on" signal wire within the radio harness so that the radio display will dim when you turn your lights on. That might be something to look into. It might even be a line from the panel dimmer knob itself. If so, then the display on the thermometer will dim as you dim your lights.

Mark

CTB

Cool fellas, thanks for the info.

I will let y'all know what I plan on doing once I get home and check it out.

And Mark, I may be hitting you up for some more electrical advice once I get home and organized. I hope you don't mind!! Thanks again-

Cody

midiwall

No probs Cody.. When I see flames coming from the opposite coast, I'll know to expect an email.

CTB

Haha, good call. Well, I'm going to start packing once this little "hangover" friend that I have disappears. Finals ended last night, so I needed to have one more crazy night before I headed home!!! I'll talk to you guys in a couple days!

midiwall

Have a safe trip man!


Oh... and use Gatorade for that hangover!

Tacoma Dude

Woohoo!
Got my I/O thermo in the mail today!

Thanks again for organizing Mark!


I'm not exactly sure on where I'm going to be putting this thing (I'm trying to make the wires unnoticeable) - especially since all my guages are orange/red. :cry:

Hey Mark... you mentioned footwell lights - what lights are you using? I'm thinking about doing this in my Tacoma but I'm not sure what kind of lights to use. Something easy to find, I hope?