Seeing Blue

The promise of plug-n-play simplicity and economical multipurpose metering led me to finally purchase the Blue Window by EV Blue Motors . Bill and Co. were a a pleasure to work with in accomodating a few custom touches to handle my high amp-high voltage nicad pack, the installation was as simple as promised, and the thing JUST WORKED right out of the box.

I have a couple of bugs to sort out, such as EMF interference due to my use of an unshielded AV cable in proximity to high voltage wiring, but for the money, I'm quite pleased. The biggest relief is to finally have a tachometer display, and it was also comforting not to have to add any holes to my dash. An in-dash flip-up DVD player provides the readouts. I chose a model without the retractable screen, reasoning that it would be more durable, and I want to have it visible at all times the car is in operation. (Simply ground out the handbrake interlock to enable in-motion video.) But of course, never play a DVD while in motion.....

Of course, even though the player has a "single DIN chassis", I had to trim the virgin radio opening by 1/8"...

To add clearance for the dash pad and still have a decent viewing angle, I fabricated a new bezel, or spacer ring out of 3/16" x 1" aluminum strap. Now to deal with that increasingly ratty nest of wires out back...