Ok so without doing enough research before hand I bought some R52 Mini Instruments off of eBay.

Now I have them at home I think that I could have bought myself a world of pain in getting them to work.

Googling for the wiring diagram to go with this unit has revealed nothing, so does anyone one here have that or experience in getting these to work?

[Edited on 27/5/09 by Doug68]
Rescued attachment Clocks.jpg

From the label and the small number of contacts* on the plug I would say the instrument pod interfaces to CAN bus.

So I would guess it would need a microprocessor implementing CAN protocol as well as having input from sensors to use that display.

In other words, non-trivial.

* but you only need signal for tacho and speedo plus instrument illumination so maybe no CAN .... but then why the CAN info. on the label? .... having a 2nd look, there is display below both clock so looking more likley to be CAN.

[Edited on 27/5/09 by 02GF74]

Oh poo.

It is definitely a CAN based system used on these.

it is CAN based on the new mini, it also has a continuous 'handshake' with the ecu in order to function correctly. IIRC the ecu requires data from the clocks before it will start.

best bet would be to gut them and adapt exsiting instruments to use the fancy face/dials.

[Edited on 27/5/09 by dinosaurjuice]

so your options are:

1. purchase and make use of the original ecu - not easy nor cheap
2. find a CAN bus driver - do these things exist?
3. make your own CAN bus driver using PIC - time consuming and if you have no electronics/software experience then not easy
4. gut the internals so as to be able to make use of the stepper motors to drive the pointers and use a PIC to control the motors - similar issues as 3.
5. use the dial/pointer on another instrument - a waste of good electronics
6. sell on ebay and put money to after market guages

I'd google for 2 and 3 - I'd be surprised if someone has not already done this.

well I did google, and they exist

over $ 100 but I reckon there are cheaper versions around.

more googling seems to indicate that there are microcontrollers with built in CAN i.e. much much cheaper.

I'll leave it to you to continue with the googling.

$ 70

NB there is someone on this florum that knows a lot more about the CAN bus so be interesting to hear what they suggest.

I'll be the source code to implement CAN is out there ...... would be an interestring project BTW

you want the "reverse" of this

[Edited on 27/5/09 by 02GF74]