I'm Back!

[smithpaulg]

Nice One Stik! V6s are taking over MLOC

[Stik]

Thanks guys, and yeah, V6s are where it's at!  They really are something else entirely (or perhaps i've simply forgotten how good my old S2 was)

[Simon Mac]

I'm not sure how the lights are wired up, but I have been looking into it. I'm tempted to take the whole HVAC unit out totally, and replace it (and the radio) with a Rasperry Pi based controller and a touchscreen 

[Stik]

I had a similar thought when i owned the VX220 turbo, that had already been faffed with over the years in various ways so the interior had enough holes and imperfections that i wasn't too worried about making a further mess of it  I was going to keep the existing radio and replace just the hvac controls with an atmel chip and a 128x64 lcd matrix display.  The plan was to stuff a load of temperature sensors around the place too, intake, water, oil, cabin, etc, then have various readouts on there.  Bought most of the bits then promptly sold the car (then got my first Exige!), so that project never went anywhere :|.   I'd be really interested to see how you get on with the RPi, it seems like an ideal use for one.

 

I think if i went down this route i'd want to have a couple of dashcams wired into it as well, and i'm not sure how well a RPi would handle two HD camera streams, but with a full x86 pc in there there'd be no problems. I was having a look on ebay, and you can get single-din car-pc boxes that should take one of the pico-itx boards (maybe even a nano-itx one), they have slide out screens that fold up, trouble is i'm not sure there's then any room for an amplifier to actually drive the speakers, so that would have to be a separate device hidden somewhere under the dash.  SSDs are cheap enough now that you can stuff a reasonable sized one in, which gets around the problem of vibration.  When i tried putting a PC in a car a long time ago the shock would inevitably kill the spinning drive after a few weeks, and i got fed up of rebuilding it all the time

[DeanB]

I had a similar thought when i owned the VX220 turbo, that had already been faffed with over the years in various ways so the interior had enough holes and imperfections that i wasn't too worried about making a further mess of it  I was going to keep the existing radio and replace just the hvac controls with an atmel chip and a 128x64 lcd matrix display.  The plan was to stuff a load of temperature sensors around the place too, intake, water, oil, cabin, etc, then have various readouts on there.  Bought most of the bits then promptly sold the car (then got my first Exige!), so that project never went anywhere :|.   I'd be really interested to see how you get on with the RPi, it seems like an ideal use for one.

 

I think if i went down this route i'd want to have a couple of dashcams wired into it as well, and i'm not sure how well a RPi would handle two HD camera streams, but with a full x86 pc in there there'd be no problems. I was having a look on ebay, and you can get single-din car-pc boxes that should take one of the pico-itx boards (maybe even a nano-itx one), they have slide out screens that fold up, trouble is i'm not sure there's then any room for an amplifier to actually drive the speakers, so that would have to be a separate device hidden somewhere under the dash.  SSDs are cheap enough now that you can stuff a reasonable sized one in, which gets around the problem of vibration.  When i tried putting a PC in a car a long time ago the shock would inevitably kill the spinning drive after a few weeks, and i got fed up of rebuilding it all the time

 

And in English? :-)

[Stik]

And in English? :-)

 

Haha, sorry, think i lapsed into full on nerd-mode for a moment there, didn't i

[pa28pilot]

Heh, the heated seats seem to be about as effective as the heater/aircon "First world problems" really does sum it up pretty well, doesn't it? Do you know how the lights are wired up? I wonder if it's two LEDs, or just a single one that's driven at half brightness when off. Might be possible to replace them with ones that change colour instead, i'll have a play when the weather's warm enough to suffer fiddling with stuff outdoors.

 

I'm also starting to realise that there's definitely some air leaks into the interior, it's noticably warmer when going slowly as cool outside air isn't getting forced in so much. Due to my clumping great feet i drive barefoot, too, and i can definitely feel a breeze :| Might be something else to investigate, perhaps with a very bright torch at night to see if i can see where it's coming from.

 

I think you've just about identified most of the TADTS issues with the Exige V6, right down to the seat heating - although you haven't moaned about the [now] tacky plastic DPM control knob :-)

 

I wouldn't bother trying to fix the ancillary switches - as you're very unlikely to succeed. I spend many hours looking into this, but had to conclude that short of major surgery and significant rewiring, this problem wasn't going to be resolvable. The push button switches are internally illuminated by a single LED, driven at reduced brightness to provide a backlight for the button legends. The wiring diagram shows current-limiting dropper resistors hard-spliced into the main wiring loom; when the switch is "on", the dropper resistor is effectively bypassed and the LED is driven at full ( er... not quite as dim) brightness. The best fix that you might hope to achieve would be to remove these resistors from the main loom in their entirety. This would completely eliminate the reduced brightness backlighting - whilst retaining the "lamp-on" capability when the associated circuit is active. This wouldn't help seeing the buttons in bright daylight, but at least you could tell that the switch was "on" at other times.

 

The seat heaters are individually fused at 10A. The measured current draw (measured across the fuse) is just over 1A - so a 12w of heat spread between the seat base and seat back isn't going to create much warming effect. They solved this issue of poor seat heating in the 350 by deleting them all together - along with the heated rear window (which does work!).

[Stik]

Ah, glad you've already investigated this, thanks for the info.  Do you know if the LEDs are molded into the switch itself, or can they be replaced?  I would have thought a much brighter LED, together with a slightly higher resistance to keep them dim when "off" would help here

 

Yeah, the heated seats are basically not there  Still, i didn't even know it had them until i got to sit in it for the first time, so nothing lost really.   I think my phone probably puts out more heat when it's charging.  I wonder why they chose such a low power for them in the first place?  The 10A fuse suggests they were expecting more.  100W dc boost converter modules are very cheap these days and fairly low profile, should be straightforward to stick one in and get a significant improvement in heat output.  They're adjustable too, so for a luxury option you could bring the pot out to a control somewhere 

 

Do you have a link to the wiring diagram you mentioned, or is it in the handbook somewhere?  Haven't read it yet

 

Another thing i noticed today is that there's a USB socket hidden away in the passenger side cubby hole.  I can stop knocking my elbow on a charger stuck into the aux power socket now

 

The heated rear window is a novelty, coming from the S2 i was used to not having a rear view at all

[Simon Mac]

PA28 Pilot, I was thinking to ignore the illumination altogether, use an 8 way 1 wire relay board  to duplicate all the straight switches and a pair of 1 wire digital pots to drive the blend and vent flap actuators.

 

TBH I wouldn't even mind if the old button / dials  were there just inaccessible behind the touch screen.

 

That way I can move all the on/ off state to graphics (rather than brightness), and move all the controls to "soft buttons" at the bottom of the touch screen:

 

In other words something like this

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stik]

Hmm maybe, i am a fan of physical buttons though, especially in bumpy cars.  I think it might be difficult to operate touch controls by feel alone.  Would look pretty snazzy tho

[pa28pilot]

@Stik

 

At £50+ each, plus the hassle of accessing many of them, I've not attempted disassembly of the buttons. Please feel free to share your experiences when you give it a go :-)

 

Changing the resistors for a higher value still requires that you physically locate where they are spliced into the wiring loom - then cut and replace; this isn't something that I'd recommend whilst you have a new-car warranty on your £60K V6. Each button has its own individual backlight resistor (either 1.8k or 2.0k).

 

Circuit diagrams are not in the user manual. Service notes and diagrams can be purchased through Lotus VSI. Parts listings and diagrams are available on-line, for free, through the Deroure website.

 

@Simon

 

I share Stik's view on touch controls. There is a good reason why buttons and other controls are generally tactile in aircraft cockpits - and these reasons translate well into cars. Touch controls generally need you to look at what you're doing - providing distraction from the primary task of keeping eyes outside the cockpit. Whilst touch controls are probably great in the Tesla, I'd not choose them over something I can touch-and-feel.

 

I concede that you can't tell if the push buttons in the Lotus Exige V6s are on or off by touch, or similarly determine their state by looking at them (they're poor contrast - visually dim or dimmer) but that's a design flaw by Lotus. Perhaps near perfection in the driving department requires design concessions in other areas...

[Simon Mac]

Well true, secretly this is as much form over function than anything else, and in the Tesla the A/C control is operable by the physical scroll wheel on the steering wheel, which I actually use much more than the touchscreen  fan  / AC control.

 

Combined with most stuff being voice activated too, and it is a little unfair to think I'd get close to the level of integration the Tesla has.

 

Saying that these really are ancillary controls (and in the Lotus it's really a choice of make me hotter or make me colder), so I think I could put up with them being touch only for the bling 

[richbk]

i have no idea what any of the above means i am afraid, but wonder if any of this should be really necessary on a £50 k car ??

 

i would have thought that anything that isn't oem would affect re-sale value.

On a 15 yr old S1 or a a still a bit rattly S2 this kind of work, or more serious stuff like engine transplants etc. are reasonable and can improve / enhance the car, but at V6 price point and assumed build quality / tech level i would leave well alone.

 

 

all IMHO of course, and from a level of little electrical or indeed mechanical knowledge !!

 

richbk

[pa28pilot]

i have no idea what any of the above means i am afraid, but wonder if any of this should be really necessary on a £50 k car

 

richbk

I, for one, completely agree that fundamental design faults of this nature should never have reached production. The S3 Elise secondary switchgear, whilst not having backlit legends, did not suffer from the issue that every single Exige v6 owner has complained of. Similarly, optional extras like heated seats should be fit for purpose. How either of these issues were put into production escapes me.

 

At half the price, you could almost accept the faults - but at 60K, no matter how much we love the driving experience, it's just not acceptable.

[Stik]

I'm not really that upset by these problems, i pretty much expect them in a Lotus, even an expensive one, it's not really what the car's about, after all.  If they spent more effort on the interior/occupant comfort areas then it'd just mean they'd cost even more as they'd need a bigger team working on that element, and it wouldn't really add that much value to the car.  If someone wants a luxurious interior as well as speed they probably go and buy a porker

 

In this instance I just see an opportunity to improve something that i can actually handle for once, mechanical stuff has always been out of my league, just don't seem to be any good at heavy metal things, but delicate electronics and computers is something i *can* do  Also a large element of this is just chatting about what you *could* do, rather than what i am actually going to attempt.  Everything has to start with simple ideas at some point, after all. 

 

Hadn't realised the resistors were actually spliced into the wires themselves, that does make it seem a lot less fun to fiddle with.

 

I would avoid doing anything to void my warranty, of course, but i plan to keep this one for a while at least, and that warranty's going to run out eventually