- Now this might sound a little controversial but personally I'm not a huge fan
of fitting a wide array of analog gauges to the inside of your race car.
While yes we do want to monitor all of the engine's vital statistics,
with conventional analog gauges, it's really difficult for the driver to
actually monitor these while driving the car hard out on the race track.
And for example if we take oil pressure, unless the driver's watching that oil
pressure gauge at the exact moment that the oil pressure drops,
it's impossible to know if your engine may be being damaged.
Fortunately these days there are some really smart alternatives to conventional
analog gauges and we're here to look at the Plex Tuning Micro SDM.
Now this is a really smart and really advanced configurable dash display
module that also provides the potential for data logging too.
We've got the box here in front of us, so let's open it up and we'll see what
it comes with.
Now to start with we have the Plex Micro SDM module and the typo
specced 44 wiring harness, let's get back to that in a moment.
We've also got a mounting platform for the display module including some
double sided velcro tape to allow you to easily mount this wherever suits
in your car.
Then on top of this we've also got a USB cable which can be used for
programming the unit, updating the firmware as well as downloading
your datalogs.
Now we'll notice here that there is no instruction manual included in the box
and this is because this is all online at Plex's website.
It actually tells you exactly that on the front of the box.
This means that the instruction manual that you're going to have access to,
is always the most up to date and will take into account any firmware updates
that have been made since you purchased the unit.
Alright let's get our box out of the way and we'll have a better look at the Plex
Micro SDM unit.
Starting with the unit itself, it includes a 2.4 inch OLED display which is completely
user configurable and this is housed in an attractive CNC machined
aluminium enclosure which is anodised.
This gives it quite a high tech look which is gonna suit the interior of most
late model race cars.
On the front of the enclosure we can see we have two buttons and these can
be used to cycle through a variety of different display pages so you can
display whatever information you want in whatever format suits you.
The other button also provides a peak hold function.
This is great to just grab a snapshot of the maximum values that you've seen
while the car has been operating.
Above this we can see we've also got a configurable RGB LED light.
This can be used for aspects such as driver warning alarms as well as
a configurable shift light.
The wiring harness included allows you to power the unit as well as
communicate with various ECUs via either CAN or RS232.
In our case the unit we're looking at is the 102 Pro spec unit and this includes
four analog or digital inputs as well as a pair of thermocouple amplifiers,
perfect for adding in exhaust gas temperature sensors for example.
One of the key advantages with the Plex Micro SDM is just down to its micro size.
Because it's so small it makes it really easy to mount it in a variety of locations
around the car where it's within easy eyesight of the driver.
We're actually using one of these units in our Toyota 86 development car
and I've mounted it down in the bottom corner of the windscreen.
Now when I'm out of track I can display a couple of key parameters that I wanna
keep an eye on, let's say boost pressure and air fuel ratio for example.
And then when I reach a straight piece of the track it's really easy to view that
data because it's right there in my peripheral vision.
Now we need to talk about how we're actually going to get data or information
into this unit in order to display it.
And this is where the Micro SDM really is incredibly flexible and incredibly powerful.
It's got the ability to display up to 64 channels of information across a variety
of pages and we can get that information into the unit in a variety of ways.
Probably one of the most common ways we're going to be doing this with late
model factory or aftermarket ECUs is via CAN.
So by connecting the Micro SDM up to the CAN network on the car,
we can get all of the data that is available on that CAN network
and display it.
Now if you're a bit of a data nerd then you're able to program that CAN template
yourself so this allows you to receive essentially any information and make
it compatible with any system that communicates using CAN.
However for most mere mortals this is probably gonna be a bit of a stretch.
But that's OK, Plex make this really easy, there are a number of templates
that are selectable from the software and you can just select whatever device
you're communicating with and then all of the information will be available.
With so much information being available, this adds actually another layer of complexity
into how we're going to display it.
Using the software which we'll have a look at in a second, it's really easy to set
this up with multiple display pages showing just the information we want
on those pages and we can then scroll through those pages using the
button on the front of the unit.
As a smart alternative though these pages can actually automatically change based
on parameters such as engine coolant temperature perhaps, or maybe
wheel speed when the car actually starts moving.
Another problem when we've got a lot of data to look at is what I kind of alluded
to at the start of this video.
It's impossible to know what's gone wrong unless we're actually looking
at the data right at the time that something does go wrong.
So this is where the smart alarms on the Micro SDM come it.
Let's say for example that we want to set up an alarm for engine coolant
temperature.
We can do that within the software, and then that alarm will display,
it can flash the RGB LED to bring the driver's attention to something being wrong,
and then the driver can instantly look at the unit to see exactly what that alarm is.
This makes it really easy to not take too much of the driver's attention,
the driver can concentrate on driving the car until the driver's attention
is actually needed.
Another feature on the pro version of the SDM is it includes 32 megabytes of on board
logging.
Again this is really valuable when you can monitor so many parameters.
This will all log into the internal memory and it can be downloaded by laptop
at a later point for analysis with Plex's own data analysis software package.
Now that we've got a basic overview of the Micro SDM, let's jump into our
laptop and we'll have a look through the configuration software.
To start with we'll have a look at the pages configuration tab and this is where we
can set up the various pages that will be displayed on the Micro SDM.
For example the preview that we've got here is for a simple page showing one
piece of data which is our engine RPM.
If we cycle through to our third page here we can see we've now got four
pieces of data, we're displaying engine RPM, speed, we're showing our ignition
timing as well as our lambda aim.
Now it's also worth mentioning here that the Micro SDM can be set up to
display in either landscape or portrait depending on how you prefer to place
the unit inside you car.
Next we'll move over to our functions setup tab and this is where we can set
up all the functions within the unit.
For example you can see you can set up a shift light, gear detection,
you can set up the auto switching between pages, alarms for any of the parameters
that you're interested in monitoring, and you can also set up odometer and trip
meter, lap timing, and of course your logging parameters can be set up
in here as well.
Next we'll move across to our device configuration tab and this is where we
set up the inputs and outputs from the Micro SDM.
Really the key to this here is setting up our communications.
And here we can choose from a drop down menu making it really easy to
select inputs from a variety, and quite a wide variety of readily available
aftermarket ECUs.
Of course if you wanna get a bit more advanced, you can make up your own
templates as we've already mentioned.
If we click on the receive tab here, this will show us all of the channels
that are coming through as well as the addresses for each of those parameters.
Moving down, if you are using the Micro SDM 102 we can set up our
inputs down here.
We've also got some calculated channels, so the 102 Pro version also allows you
to do internal math inside the unit if you wanna get really advanced.
Finally if we move across to the update tab, this is where we can
perform firmware updates.
And this means that your Micro SDM is always up to date and always offering
the latest features.
If I had one gripe with the Micro SDM, it would be to do with the supplied
mounting solution.
In this case what we have is a 90 degree aluminium L bracket.
It's relatively simple and it doesn't offer a lot of flexibility in terms of
angling the unit so it's going to be easy to see by the driver.
That's of course not to stop you making up your own mounting solution.
But it would be nice to see Plex offer something a little bit more flexible.
That being said, the Micro SDM is incredibly powerful and offers a nice
alternative to a fully functioned dash logger which is obviously going
to be at a much higher price point.
It allows you to monitor all of the engine's vitals but most importantly with those
configurable alarms, it's going to easily bring the driver's attention across
to the Micro SDM when something does go wrong.
So there you go, there's an overview of the Plex Micro SDM.
We're pretty impressed with exactly how many features they've managed
to pack into such a small module and we know that this is going to be a great
addition to any new race car build for anyone who wants to make
sure that their engine remains reliable and healthy under the heat of battle.