holden vs eletronic speedo

[Fonzie]

The speed alert in my vs early series 2, you hold down the two outside buttons while the ignition is off, crank until the engine is running and release the buttons... the red led will be flashing, and you will have a digital readout of your speed. Mate of mine pulled his apart and bridged those two button contacts, and put a resistor in place of the LED... Permanent digital speedo!
Holding down the set button while starting the car has different results. According to the VS II car manual... The speed alert has 4 preset speed settings. 110, 100, 80 and 60. If you press set and up at the same time, or set and down at the same time, it goes to the nearest preset in that direction. If you hold SET, start the car, and release set, You get the ability to change those presets. The number will be flashing. Change it to what you want, press set, repeat for each preset...

Ah, the things you an learn from reading the instructions.

 

[jokerflingo]

I was just fiddling around with it again and i must of pressed something it didn't like and it beeped at me and the LED light became solid. It almost seems that i can get speedo temporarily but not permanent. Mind you im not actually driving it around yet so cant check for sure whats really happening.

 

[lyndon_breeze]

i wish it was more easy, holden make it so hard

 

[rocco555]

do you really need your little electronic speedo gadgets that badly?

 

[Verynice]

Although temporary digital speedo readout works on all cars, permanent speedo will only work on some, not others... i cant get mine permanent

 

[jokerflingo]

Although temporary digital speedo readout works on all cars, permanent speedo will only work on some, not others... i cant get mine permanent

Whats the reason? As i think if i keep fiddling with mine i may find thats the case also :bang:

 

[Verynice]

Whats the reason? As i think if i keep fiddling with mine i may find thats the case also :bang:

I really have no idea. Maybe the ECU differences, who knows! Could even be the unit itself, even though i bought another one off ebay and still didn't work on permanent.

I like the idea of soldering the buttons on and a resistor in place of LED but i would like to have speed alert handy if i want to use it.

 

[KyleBrown92]

I really have no idea. Maybe the ECU differences, who knows! Could even be the unit itself, even though i bought another one off ebay and still didn't work on permanent.

I like the idea of soldering the buttons on and a resistor in place of LED but i would like to have speed alert handy if i want to use it.

yeah i like the idea of speed alert more so than a digital speedo, but its still a pretty cool idea anyway and i guess alot of people probs find it very useful. btw does anyone know how accurate they actually are? seems pretty accurate to me?

 

[lyndon_breeze]

The speed alert in my vs early series 2, you hold down the two outside buttons while the ignition is off, crank until the engine is running and release the buttons... the red led will be flashing, and you will have a digital readout of your speed. Mate of mine pulled his apart and bridged those two button contacts, and put a resistor in place of the LED... Permanent digital speedo!
Holding down the set button while starting the car has different results. According to the VS II car manual... The speed alert has 4 preset speed settings. 110, 100, 80 and 60. If you press set and up at the same time, or set and down at the same time, it goes to the nearest preset in that direction. If you hold SET, start the car, and release set, You get the ability to change those presets. The number will be flashing. Change it to what you want, press set, repeat for each preset...

Ah, the things you an learn from reading the instructions.

do you have a detail step by step and pics on how you did it, cause might try it

 

[Fonzie]

yeah i like the idea of speed alert more so than a digital speedo, but its still a pretty cool idea anyway and i guess alot of people probs find it very useful. btw does anyone know how accurate they actually are? seems pretty accurate to me?

I think the manual said the speed alerts are 2km/h difference... But all cars are different from small changes. My dash speedo is 2 k's out, and given that it's technically digital (read: not mechanical), then i would assume the speed alert is the same.

do you have a detail step by step and pics on how you did it, cause might try it

Unfortunately no to the pictures. If you know some basic electronics though, it's pretty simple. However, If you can't get yours to work by pressing the buttons, then this won't work. What the following instructions do is complete the circuit, as if you were holding down the buttons. The resistor is just to ditch that annoying led.
Try: Ignition off, hold down up and down, start car, release buttons.
That's how my mates worked, so that's what I'll base my explanation on.

The usual disclaimer. If you fry anything it's not my fault, and more importantly, not my problem. Read on at your own risk.

Pull the speed alert to bits, it's pretty clear how to do that after you've taken it out of the dash. At this point, we used some filler in the speaker, led and button holes, so we were left with a plain face and nothing but the backlit screen. You're left with a PCB with the screen/buttons/LED attached... locate the two buttons that had to be held down and either:
Cheap method: Glue/blutack/hold them down somehow... maybe make them press against the case when you put it back together.
Better method: Pull the push button switches off and solder the two pins together... or use a bit of wire. This is what we did.
You can just rip the center button (SET switch) out.
You have a few options from here. You could possibly just remove the LED, but i don't know if the circuit relies on it being in place... so we put a small resistor in there instead. Again, simple soldering. A standard diode would probably work too. Or, again highlighting a cheap method, you could just cover it up.

If you want to get semi complicated, you could wire up a switch that lives somewhere on your dash, which bridges those two buttons and swaps the LED to a resistor, so when you flick the switch before startup the digital speedo is displayed... And if you disengage the switch, and press the set button, it'll work like a normal speed alert. But if you really want to go to that much trouble, buy a newer commodore.