Vacuum Fluorescent Display in Rear View Mirror - Page 3

Saab9-5 · 04-10-2005, 03:26 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Bugbyte

So my question is...why not replace your mirror with a piece of glass that you spray with that stuff. Or is the electrochromatic coating right on the surface of the mirror?

Electrochromatics is a material - fluid or polymer gel - that is sandwiched between two pieces of glass. Think of it as being very much like a single segment LCD display. The silvering is still on the backside of the back piece of glass. You don't have the wedge shape because the electrochromatics are doing the darkening for you.

Bugbyte · 04-10-2005, 06:27 PM

If that's the case, then the electrochromatic coating would be sandwiched safely between two pieces of glass, one clear and one silvered. If you remove the silver from the mirror piece and then spray the one way (or two way, or whatever

) paint on it, it should work pretty well, shouldn't it?

Saab9-5 · 04-11-2005, 06:19 AM

Yes it should - with the caveat that I don't think any of us have used the one-way/two-way mirror paint yet and knows how well it works. But your plan is otherwise flawless.

And I agree with Chiark's method of chemically removing the silvering. Sandpaper or a sharp knife is just going to gouge into the glass and possibly fog it up (sandpaper) or make noticeable lines (knife).

chiark · 04-11-2005, 08:40 AM

The "mirror" glass is bonded to another piece of glass in front of it. There's an electrical terminal on one long edge of the mirror glass, and another terminal on the long edge of the clear glass in front of it. They seem to be bonded together somehow - I don't know how.

I want to try and retain the auto dimming feature if I can, hence I'm not just splitting it apart and mirroring the front. But, if I mess up the rear, at least I've got another option

Another way of tinting that apparently works is just to use mirror window tint (!). Again, this needs clear glass to attach to...

I'll be trying to remove the paint backing tonight to see if I can see any VFD light through the standard mirroring. I'm optimistic, but not overly optimistic!

chiark · 04-13-2005, 06:07 AM

Update!

Caustic soda didn't work. I probably made it up too weak, or something like that.

I then tried "Nitromors" paint stripper, and that did work. I used a green kitchen scouring pad to remove the softened paint backing, and this has removed the mirror silvering in places. Damn and blast, I was trying to just remove the paint, as by the looks of it, the VFD would have shone through.

So it's now nitric acid to remove the silver, then repainting... Where to find nitric acid is the next question!?

Bugbyte · 04-14-2005, 01:27 AM

If you can take some pics, I'd appreciate it! I was thinking that paint stripper might work, rather than caustic soda.

I haven't had a chance to work on this, so I'm very interested in your progress!

S7347H · 04-14-2005, 01:55 AM

This may not be pertaining to the original project, but got me thinking about the windshield displays that are reflective such as the speedometer. It may be an interesting project to utilize an lcd to display a reflected image on the windshield such as the currently playing song, GPS map, or anything else for that matter.

This isn't a project that i am going to undertake anytime soon, but may be a project for one of you to try.

scott_fx · 04-14-2005, 02:50 AM

check out a thread i started about cool and unusual projects. i posted a link to someone that had modified his corvette hud to display other info from some vfd's.

chiark · 04-18-2005, 05:53 AM

Interesting stuff Scott

Well, I've removed the silver by using more nitromors and elbow grease. Elbow grease is needed in quite large quantities.

Unfortunately, my experiments with caustic soda were silly and I've scratched the glass when I poked it with a screwdriver to see if anything was happening. ARGGH!

Jeweller's Rouge here we come

Saab9-5 · 04-26-2005, 07:21 PM

I know this isn't the total concealment you're looking for but this guy has an autodimming mirror with an integrated Valentine One display in the mirror for sale on eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...769977666&rd=1

BTW, how are you guys (Chiark and Bugbyte) doing with your mods?

Bugbyte · 04-26-2005, 09:46 PM

Right! That is really cool! And it's pretty much along the lines of what I'm contemplating, just with the VFD covering more mirror surface.

Sorry to say that I've been working on building a basic STAMP II circuit to operate my screen display and coding a front end for the Mac Mini rather than paying attention to this idea! I still intend to work on it but Chiark seemed to be making such great progress, I was interested in how he was doing!