Just got my screen kit today.
Is there a general agreement on which is the coolest
looking color for the Empeg?

brian

Yes, the one that matches your dashboard/console controls.

Speaking of, I get the impression that the Red screen would match my 1987 BMW 325e's console lights better than the Amber screen I have now. Can anyone confirm that?

My RX-7 has what I'd consider amber lights, but when I put in the red screen it matches perfect. The red screen makes the font look orange, and it matches my gauges perfectly. The amber screen makes the font look yellow. If you're looking for red font, the red screen won't do it...

I've had a number of BMW's, and the standard BMW orange is probably closer to the Empeg red than the amber, IMHO. The empeg red is a very orange kind of color.

Grrr, now i have to go get the red to match the Pontiac standard Red console. Temptations, wicked temptations.

Blue in a VW Golf matches near perfect

Now that I have a digital camera, someone remind me to take pictures of all the different screen colors in different lighting conditions and post them in the FAQ. Wait until next week to remind me, though, as I won't have a Mk2 blue screen until then.

The thing to remember about the screen colors is that the Blue and Green are the most readable in direct sunlight. Amber and Red might match your car's dash color, but the screens will be harder to read in the sun.

Even though my dash lighting is red, my favorite screen is still smoke.

I've tried both amber and red in my '98 M3. I'm sticking with red. My amber screen is for-sale, BTW.
--Andrew

Hey Tony, be sure to take a pic of the "smoked" lens if you can get your hands on one.

hey, amaximow. do you have any pictures of your install.. and your car for that matter.. im about to redo my install in my car, just got a bunch of new stuff.. just wanted to check out your setup... thanks.. and yes i too am stick with the red, matchs pretty close to the bmw red.

I quite like this option . It may not be to everyone's taste but I like it.

I'll try to snap some pics over the weekend and post them in a separate "install porn" thread...
--Andrew

Ooooh... I have read your sig a number of times, but could not imagine what it looked like. Nice! Not my personal taste for long term use, but nice!

WOW! That looks really cool!
I like that look!
How did u do it????

brian

Hey Tony, be sure to take a pic of the "smoked" lens if you can get your hands on one.

If Darkstorm will send me one, I will photograph it and include it with the other pictures, along with whatever link he wants me to put up for contacting him about sales of the item.

I've got an idea of how I'm going to present it, and it'll actually be a pretty cool thing if I can pull it off. You'll be able to see all the available lens colors in a few different lighting conditions with text on the screen. Hint: it involves securing the camera to a solid point in the car using its tripod mount.

Do you think you can get Darkstorm's colours in as well? I'm curious not only about the smoked lens, but also the contrast in colours to the SB provided ones.

Inkjet printer and OHP film. You can go silly like I have and have a multicoloured gradient or be more Conservative (or boring ) and just have a single colour. This is of course an easy way to get just the colour you want. Great for matching to your dash lighting.

Here are some pictures from my own BMW. Not the best, but they give you an idea what the colors look like:

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~dwallach/empeg/empeg1.html

If anyone who bought the screen kit is not using the green one, please sell it to me. Send me a private message. Thanks!

Steve

I like my smoked panel. Matches my Ford Escort dials better than the green. But, that multicoloured panel looks tres cool. Where do I get one from?

You get a transparent one from DarkStar and then you play with overhead transparencies and an inkjet printer... You'll also need a image manipulation program (like Photoshop or Gimp) to generate the funky gradients...

/Michael

Well, it just so happens that I do have a clear display. Could I use a standard transparency? Do I need to stick it with something or just use the clear panel for strengthening behind it?

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You get a transparent one from DarkStar ...

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If I could get hold of some anti-reflective colourless plastic about 1.5mm thick then I would have done this. However I haven't found any yet so at the moment It's just plain old inkjet transparency film. I use CorelDraw to make the screens. I find that two passes through the printer gives a good saturation of colour. With one pass it looks a bit wishy-washy. If you want the file it's here.

Not having done it myself, it's my impression that you cut it to shape, including holes for buttons and knob axle, and put it behind the transparent screen.

/Michael

get hold of some anti-reflective colourless plastic about 1.5mm thick then I would have done this

Is that as in printing straight onto the 1.5mm plastic and removing the need for the transparent screen?

/Michael

No. I think you'd have a bit of difficulty printing onto 1.5mm thick plastic with a conventional inkjet printer . What I meant was that the OHP transparency film has a glossy surface and this tends to reflect any incident light coming from the car's interior. You don't need a rigid plastic screen to give any kind of support to the film but it would be nice to get the anti-reflective properties of the standard screen. If I could make the glossy side of the film anti-reflective then I wouldn't even bother with the rigid plastic idea at all. I hope this all makes sense .

Welllll... if they can "ink-jet" the body panels of the Smart car... How am I to know what sort of gear you have...

But yes, I now see what you meant.

/Michael

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How am I to know what sort of gear you have...

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Hmmm... point taken .

Beaker - I found that I still had one of your files from early last year. I have some concerns to raise that I'm hoping someone can clarify. If I do my own and put it behind my clear panel would I want the glossy side forward or backward? The display gets pretty hot (and we may have another hot day in the UK again this year) so would a normal inkjet transparency be okay or would I need something that can stand up to higher temperatures?

I've had a few requests for info recently so I've been working on a website tonight which will be about my Empeg and the things I've done to it etc. There will be instructions on my current method of making the screens and the most recent CDR file to download so people can have a go themselves.

Now, to your questions:
I've had no problems with the heat affecting the film so far. The VFD doesn't get all that hot anyway. Maybe not as hot as an overhead projector? I've actually updated the CDR file recently and altered the method of manufacture (now I've got a laminator ). The film I use doesn't look very good on the printed side so I've always put the glossy side outwards (I wish I could find a spray-on Anti-Reflective coating here in the UK). However I don't have a clear screen to put it behind, I just use the film on it's own so you might get away with printing it in reverse and putting it in glossy side against the VFD. I'd say just experiment like I did. I expect you'll be able to improve on my method anyway.

If you want the up-to-date file it's here.

Have fun!!

Well, I'll give it a play soon and let you know. There probably isn't any risk but I was worrying that if I had the printed side against the clear panel it might leave some residue or worse still fuse to it. I'm kinda on the paranoid side about things like that.

Now, I just need to get hold of some software to use the file with.

Very nice template - but I'm no corel wizard - why won't the black portions print??

hmmm, I dont get how this works, wouldn't the inkjet ink be a solid color and blockout the display on the empeg?, or have I got this totally wrong?, would someone like to enlighten me on this?

cheers,
Jaidev

cheers,
Jaidev

No, the ink is quite transparent and lets quite a lot of light through. That's how you can use it on overhead projectors. If you make any of these custom screens do make sure you use OHP Film For Inkjet Printers. This is very important (if you're using an inkjet printer that is) as the ink will not dry if you use OHP film for laser printers or dye-subs etc. and it would smear all over the place. Of course if you're not using an inkjet then use the correct film for whatever printer you are using. I haven't tried making screens on any other type of printer so I can't vouch for it's effectiveness. If anyone tries it on a colour laser or dye-sub printer etc. please let us know how it turns out.

I have it printed with a HP Colour LaserJet 5M Printer. I haven't cut it out to try on my empeg yet but the printout looks like it will be nice.

I didn't have CorelDraw but PaintShop Pro opened it without a hitch. One thing I noticed is that the gradients aren't very smooth... they have very distinct color separations... is this due to PSP or is it the way you designed them in CorelDraw?

Thanks and I will post pics after I try them on my empeg!

Has anyone tried this method behind a smoke lens. Can you change the teal color to other colors?

It's probably to do with the way that PSP has imported the file. In CorelDraw you only set the number of gradations when you actually print the file. Has PSP got a similar setting when it prints or when it imports?

I didn't have CorelDraw but PaintShop Pro opened it without a hitch. One thing I noticed is that the gradients aren't very smooth... they have very distinct color separations... is this due to PSP or is it the way you designed them in CorelDraw?

This is due to the fact that Paint Shop Pro is a Pixel/Bitmap editor, and Corel is a vector editor.

Paint Shop Pro has to perform what's called rasterization of Corel's vector files, and therefore will not open or print those files correctly for their intended purpose. You should not use Paint Shop Pro to open or print these files, for a couple of reasons.

The first reason, you've already discovered: The gradients don't translate correctly. But the second reason is much more important, which is that the size and shape of the picture will not necessarily be correct when printed. It will be slightly "off" and a lot of trial and error will be required to correct it.

A demonstration version of Corel can be downloaded from the web (if you have broadband). I don't know if it'll print or not.

it matches perfectly to bmw, as witnessed in my m3

Well, I tried it in PSP. Took almost 10 mins to convert it and created a 147MB file. Really slowed my PC down but I just printed it off. Too big for the paper. Spent some time messing and totally stuffed things up to such a point that print preview wouldn't even display an image. Then I loaded Beaker's file into MS Word. Perfect with nice colours. 3 attempts at resizing and got it right. Then I spent an hour with a stanley knife trying to cut out the template. I have to admit that at first I wasn't too happy as the backlight is green and washed out the colours slightly but I'm getting used to that now and quite like it. Some visuals look great whereas others just make the screen look like its washed out.

I tried the template with my other panels both behind and in front. The only one that still shows the colour banding is the smoked panel but that only makes the display less bright which I can do through the software.

I'm going to get some better quality transparencies and then print it off on my father-in-law's printer and use his laminator as well and then I can play with some of the other templates. I'll have to nick his digital camera again so I can post some pics. I used the colour banding left-to-right template, BTW.

The biggest problem I have found is that my Kenwood KCA-RC700 steering remote now needs my hand to bounce the signal off and my Pioneer CD-SR80 won't work at all. May have to scrape some of the black from covering the IR sensor.

All-in-all I'm very pleased with the results. Many thanks to Beaker.

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All-in-all I'm very pleased with the results. Many thanks to Beaker.

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Hey, no problem. Glad to be of assistance. When I get a moment I'll see what other vector formats I can save the file in to increase the chances that more people can use it. As Tony pointed out in an earlier post, PSP is having to rasterise the CorelDraw file which is not ideal. You are getting banding and it also makes it more difficult to change the colours to suit your taste. I'm surprised that you have problems with your remote. Your Black must be denser than mine. Oh... I just thought. Are you printing One or Two passes? I print Two Colour passes and One Black. I suppose you can't do this if you're only printing from PSP, you have to print everything.

Happy experimenting .

The biggest problem I have found is that my Kenwood KCA-RC700 steering remote now needs my hand to bounce the signal off and my Pioneer CD-SR80 won't work at all. May have to scrape some of the black from covering the IR sensor.

Or better yet, just re-print the sheet with a white (clear) "hole" over the IR sensor.

Unless somehow the sheet plastic itself is IR-opaque, in which case cutting a hole is the only solution.

Seems like using a hole puncher, of the type used to punch holes for binders, would be useful for making a nice clean punch.

Calvin