Vote For The Elgin Dash

[PJ]

Training to remove Elgin dash

 

[Smitty901]

The tuner I run on my bike allows me to display all the information in a digital format. Speed,RPM's, head temps ect. I prefer using the analog gauges for day to day riding.

 

[ScarecrowRepair]

I'd have to take my eyes completely off of the road to track a number instead of simply being aware of the position and movement of a larger "needle" via peripheral vision.

This is the problem with every digital instrument; you have to focus and read something, instead of simply being aware of a needle's position with your peripheral vision.

The Elgin makes it even worse by wasting all that dash space to hide everything but the current value. If the other values were visible, I know my brain would pretty quick pick up on the zero value's angular position instead of reading the digital value; imagine if your current analog speedo moved the dial with the current value at the top. You would pretty quick learn to locate the gap between 0 and top end instead of reading the value at the top.

 

[pistonboy]

View attachment 5323Training to remove Elgin dash

Is the cockpit to an L1011? It looks like it has 3 engines.

 

[Sidecar Bob]

I’ll take my ELIO as it comes from the factory.

If I don’t like the dash I am sure that the aftermarket will have options very soon.

I think that best the Elgin dash will be fine and at worst become a collectors item.

 

[WilliamH]

Just because we can measure an incoming data stream in binary language, doesn't mean we have to display it as a series of moving numbers. Digital instruments were "fashionable" back in the late '80's when everyone decided it was the "high-tech" look of the future, but I worked with the developers of an instrumentation system back then and we found it had a very serious problem - it doesn't relate well to human beings.

Imagine an instrument in front of you, say a tachometer that displays digits only. As the engine revs quickly, it takes you a moment to grasp what is going on under the hood. Your eyes catch the number "3", and a split-second later, the number "5". OK, fine - but your brain has to quickly interpret the fact that "5" is a larger number than "3", therefore the quantity being measured is rising. Then it has to decide whether that is good or bad. On the tach, is "5" safe? We have to think back to the owner's manual to decide whether "5" means something expensive is about to happen, and the relative time required to progress from "3" to "5" may mean disaster is already in the rear-view mirror . . . as in that cloud of oil smoke following you.

Water temperature is "240°" . . . again, good or bad? Is it increasing or decreasing? The same thing can happen with oil pressure - obviously "0" is not good, but where's the lower acceptable limit, and have you reached it yet? Remember, instruments can only tell you history - not always what's happening in the engine room at this very instant. Engineers try to damp out small excursions in the readings - you don't want to see your engine temperature rise and fall as the thermostat opens and closes - or read every slosh in your fuel tank - that would really be confusing.

The primary purpose of any kind of instrument display is communication - not necessarily with other binary devices, but with that grey lump of flesh between our ears. Our brains have to recognize and interpret inputs, and that takes a bit of effort. Scanning the instrument panel should be simple - communicating instant information. Most designers of instrumentation systems subscribe to the convention that all the needles pointing up means you are in good shape - with some allowance for a bit right or left of vertical saying all is well. A needle on the peg - either maxed or dead - is VERY bad news. We determine this by its relative position on the scale - we can go back and read off the numbers if we need to, but a quick scan of the information presented should instantly communicate what's happening out front, and which is important to us.

With just a glance, which means more to YOU:

or:

The oilfield instrumentation company I worked with had produced a terrific panel of extremely accurate LCD digits, but in an emergency, numbers speeding by on the screen were not helpful. They had to put a status bar alongside each digital display simply to inform the operator whether the numbers were increasing or decreasing because a spinning four-to eight digit display was meaningless. In a disaster scenario, it was a matter of life and death - not just whether you were going to void your warranty. They ended up with a panel that had at least two readouts for every function, one digital and one simulated analog, plus color-coding that would flash yellow or red to draw attention to the most critical changes taking place. All of this was to replace a simple set of needles and numbers. It just didn't work well with humans.

There is a good reason that wristwatches that once went to digital displays came back to three hands. Sure, if you were asked the time you could say "It's 11:45:42." with great authority - but you had to think about it for an instant to determine it was just under 15 minutes 'til lunch. That's the problem with digital readouts - humans are relational in their thinking - we need to see numbers in a context that is meaningful. If the temperature gauge is in the green, that's good. If it says "240°" we have to think about pressure and bring in a couple of Gas Law equations to understand something's about to let go. Sometimes an analog display is "close enough". It's how we interpret things quickly.

Digital displays don't even work for watches - even less well for mission-critical instruments.

After reading your learned discourse several times it appears to me that the "Elgin" dash is attempting to emulate a digital readout using analog type technology. That being the case, all of the negative things you had to say about digital displays translate directly to the "Elgin" dash display.

 

[NSTG8R]

The only time I'll even look at mine is when I get on the highway, merge into traffic, 'click' on the cruise control, and finally, glance down at the speedo to do some quick calculations on the speeding fine levied at that speed over the posted if I get caught (safety in numbers, but an Elio will stand out like a sore thumb). Really though, the design (Elgin) doesn't bother me at all, and is actually starting to grow on me.

 

[WilliamH]

The only time I'll even look at mine is when I get on the highway, merge into traffic, 'click' on the cruise control, and finally, glance down at the speedo to do some quick calculations on the speeding fine levied at that speed over the posted if I get caught (safety in numbers, but an Elio will stand out like a sore thumb). Really though, the design (Elgin) doesn't bother me at all, and is actually starting to grow on me.

Can't disagree with you.
I'd love to see a moving simulation of it in use.
I've never been real big on idiot lights though

 

[Lil4X]

The real problem with the Elgin dash is that it combines all the worst properties of analog and digital displays. It is an analog display masquerading as a digital. Like any digital display, it offers no "relative" information - not exactly what you want in your scan of your instruments. It simply takes too long to read and interpret. Needles and numbers, aka "steam gauges" show relative condition by their position.

This is critical to me as I have a condition known as dyscalculia. It's similar to dyslexia in that it makes numbers difficult to understand, and doesn't help a bit when trying to perform even simple calculations. Reading analog devices is slightly easier for me, but at least I've had a LONG time to learn to deal with clock faces and other needle-and-numbers devices. If I look up and see a "78" on my digital speedometer, it takes me a couple of beats to understand that's MORE than "70", and I'd better slow down. Needles and numbers aren't so confusing . . . if the needle is to the RIGHT of the speed limit, I know to reach for my wallet.

One fundamental of marketing and sales that seems to have been overlooked by EM: You sell the product your customers WANT, not what you think they should have. Witness the Honda Ridgeline - an excellent interpretation of what pickup owners really NEED in a weekend vehicle, based on the use that suburbia's owners actually make of their trucks. Honda forgot that hardly any suburban gardener actually needs a one-ton diesel dually to haul his petunias, but they WANT that macho image nonetheless. Thus, full-sized pickups are by far the most popular vehicles in the US, and the Ridgeline's been shelved.

 

[Elio Amazed]

One fundamental of marketing and sales that seems to have been overlooked by EM: You sell the product your customers WANT, not what you think they should have.

Exactly. I've been waiting for someone to post this.
Someone else posted that there's a possibility that this may not cost Elio sales.
I totally disagree. Now, of all times, is not the time for EM appear the least bit eccentric.
At least not when it comes to the business model or the product. The bigger issue is confidence.
I'm thinking about all the "fence sitter" types of potential customers and potential investors out here.
Agree, that the dash in itself might not be that big of an issue contrasted against the benefits of the rest of the vehicle.
But, it's going to be viewed by some as a possible symptom of possible underlying issues.
The important part of this is... if PE and EM appear inflexible, quirky and/or eccentric about something like this...
How many will wonder how those tendencies might affect the company, vehicle or their relationship with EM down the road?

It begs the question of:

"Why would anyone have insisted on putting THAT in an otherwise near-perfect vehicle when they knew THAT was so highly unpopular?

Hmmm.

If it were me, I'd want to give my customers "...what they WANT, not what I think they should have", and I'd wouldn't gamble on my odds for success otherwise. Let's keep in mind that there are a lot more than one individual on the boat. At this point, there are quite a few more than one individual that have something at stake.