MAKE | HOW TO – Build a gas guzzler meter

Dave show you how to make a gas guzzling meter!

Pain at the pump continues to reach new levels of misery every day. While most of us canâ€™t afford to trade our current gas guzzler for a more fuel economical model, it would be nice to adopt some new driving skills that will translate into greater fuel economy. But where do you start? How do you know if your current jitney is a fuel sipper or a gas guzzler?

The Gas Guzzler Meter is an attempt at putting an immediate dollar value on your current driving techniques: a digital meter that displays exactly what you’re spending as you motor along. Stomp on the pedal and see the bucks zoom out your tailpipe faster than a NASCAR driver competing for the Nextel Cup.

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Making Things Talk – Programming microcontrollers used to require an expensive development environment costing thousands of dollars and requiring professional electrical engineering expertise. Open-source physical computing platforms with simple i/o boards and development environments have led to new options for hobbyists, hackers, and makers. This book contains a series of projects that teach you what you need to know to get your creations talking to each other, connecting to the web, and forming networks of smart devices.

2 Responses to HOW TO – Build a gas guzzler meter

murt on July 21st, 2008 at 6:43 am said:

…to work with the OBD-II interface on the vehicle. It would connect directly to the ECU on the vehicle to give you your current speed and, depending on the car, how much fuel you’re using.

I think it’s ridiculous that this value isn’t on every dashboard in the country. While plenty of people know that jackrabbit starts/stops eats fuel (for instance), being able to see your mpg in real time would surely help people control their usage.

Though I do think the Prius has something like this, no?

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Rob on July 22nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm said:

The device described here uses an accelerometer to guess at the fuel being used. However it depends a lot on the gear your in, the engine load etc. The Scanguage plugs into the OBD (on board diagnostic computer) to get this type of info and more. The scangauge will cost $150, which is $90 more than this build however it will give you very accurate data (and can read engine codes for you if your check engine light comes on).

Again this looks like fun, but if you really want to save gas check out the scangauge (and cleanmpg.com).

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