A couple of discussions on here addressed the Scangauge 3 and it's capabilities, but with some unknowns and questions for me about usability in the real world. I did finally get one to find out if it would address the things that I would want over the Scangauge 2 we have had for many years.
The wants:
A display that you can actually see during a sunny day with sunglasses on.
More than 4 gauges at a time.
Gear number gauge.
Torque converter lockup gauge.
A better way to be able to set the fuel correction percent so it wouldn't auto calculate at every fill.
Questions I had:
Where can you put it so you can easily see it without looking way off the road and also not have it block any windshield or side window view, particularly to the van's front corners that the pillars block a bunch already
How do you hit the tiny screen change buttons to see other gauge panels as you bounce down the road.
Have they changed the battery killing "connecting" loop if the battery is disconnected to store or preserve the battery during slack times.
Observations so far
The display is quite bright and hopefully will work OK. All are spotty if I where a pair of ski type goggles over the sunglasses in late or early season when the sun is low and coming in the side window and behind the sun glasses. Will get a test this fall, I hope, on fall trip.
The gear number does display.
Converter lockup status does not display so you have to use converter slip rpm to tell if you are locked. The Scangauge 2 didn't have either display so better but not ideal.
The auto setting fuel correction is not different, but it is claimed that there is no limit to how many fills it is averaging. I find that hard to believe as I have never seen any rolling average do that. Our Scangauge 2 was wildly inaccurate if we let it calc it's own all the time, even for a long trip averaged by hand after getting home and tabulating each fill and averaging them. It will take quite a while to see how the automatic goes as I will use it but check the correction % after each to see if it ever gets consistent like it would averaging a huge number of fills over time.
I did find a place that it mounted that didn't block views but was very accessible to touch and see.
The buttons are too small to hit, but the "screen swipe" feature does work. Downside is that although they say just side to side, it only appears to work when you swipe on finger on the very bottom of the screen, at least for me. The vertical swipe two finger swipe works well to control brightness, though.
The battery killer connecting loop has not changed, unfortunately, and in some ways is worse the way the on/off works in general.
The problem with the on/off is that it is difficult to get the screen to stay on or come back on unless you run the engine, at least in default settings. It will only activate when it sees engine rpm, and they said that a double tap would turn it on, but even with key on that was spotty at best. I changed the activation setting to COM so it would activate whenever the key is on and that works much better. The Scangauge 2 would come on if you pushed the menu button as long as the battery was connected and was much easier to tweak quickly for settings.
I would say the pros definitely outweigh the cons and on user friendly probably is pretty good as you can get 27 gauges with just swiping and the Scangauge 2 was very hard to find any beyond the 4 on the screen when driving.
Actual use will certainly fill in any blanks and show up any oddities, I think.
The mounting pix: The course foam block in the pic goes under the edge of the mount on the dash to prevent bounce and loosening the mounting tape to dashpad. The velcro is left over from the dash cover attachment. I used an Amazon purchased 90 degree connector adapter cable 18" long for the connection so it clears the dash without stressing the connection because of the cable bend over the dash.
The wants:
A display that you can actually see during a sunny day with sunglasses on.
More than 4 gauges at a time.
Gear number gauge.
Torque converter lockup gauge.
A better way to be able to set the fuel correction percent so it wouldn't auto calculate at every fill.
Questions I had:
Where can you put it so you can easily see it without looking way off the road and also not have it block any windshield or side window view, particularly to the van's front corners that the pillars block a bunch already
How do you hit the tiny screen change buttons to see other gauge panels as you bounce down the road.
Have they changed the battery killing "connecting" loop if the battery is disconnected to store or preserve the battery during slack times.
Observations so far
The display is quite bright and hopefully will work OK. All are spotty if I where a pair of ski type goggles over the sunglasses in late or early season when the sun is low and coming in the side window and behind the sun glasses. Will get a test this fall, I hope, on fall trip.
The gear number does display.
Converter lockup status does not display so you have to use converter slip rpm to tell if you are locked. The Scangauge 2 didn't have either display so better but not ideal.
The auto setting fuel correction is not different, but it is claimed that there is no limit to how many fills it is averaging. I find that hard to believe as I have never seen any rolling average do that. Our Scangauge 2 was wildly inaccurate if we let it calc it's own all the time, even for a long trip averaged by hand after getting home and tabulating each fill and averaging them. It will take quite a while to see how the automatic goes as I will use it but check the correction % after each to see if it ever gets consistent like it would averaging a huge number of fills over time.
I did find a place that it mounted that didn't block views but was very accessible to touch and see.
The buttons are too small to hit, but the "screen swipe" feature does work. Downside is that although they say just side to side, it only appears to work when you swipe on finger on the very bottom of the screen, at least for me. The vertical swipe two finger swipe works well to control brightness, though.
The battery killer connecting loop has not changed, unfortunately, and in some ways is worse the way the on/off works in general.
The problem with the on/off is that it is difficult to get the screen to stay on or come back on unless you run the engine, at least in default settings. It will only activate when it sees engine rpm, and they said that a double tap would turn it on, but even with key on that was spotty at best. I changed the activation setting to COM so it would activate whenever the key is on and that works much better. The Scangauge 2 would come on if you pushed the menu button as long as the battery was connected and was much easier to tweak quickly for settings.
I would say the pros definitely outweigh the cons and on user friendly probably is pretty good as you can get 27 gauges with just swiping and the Scangauge 2 was very hard to find any beyond the 4 on the screen when driving.
Actual use will certainly fill in any blanks and show up any oddities, I think.
The mounting pix: The course foam block in the pic goes under the edge of the mount on the dash to prevent bounce and loosening the mounting tape to dashpad. The velcro is left over from the dash cover attachment. I used an Amazon purchased 90 degree connector adapter cable 18" long for the connection so it clears the dash without stressing the connection because of the cable bend over the dash.
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