any ideas on how to go about creating a HUD?

 

I know the GM vehicles that have HUD have a different windshield which is much more expensive than the same models without HUD.

 

its got some kind of holographic something another so you can see the display reflection

 

Back in the 90s, I tried to put one into my Suburban. I got one from a junkyard from a Bonneville that had factory HUD. It was just a vacuum-fluorescent display that was a mirror image. It was then reflected thru some mirrors and lenses onto the windshield. Unfortunately, the unit didn't work when I tried to power it up on the bench. That was the end of the project.

The HUD unit needs to have the info from the sensors (turn signals, speed, rpm, etc). In the old days, all you had to do was to tap into existing linesgoing to the instrument panel. However, the HHR has a multiplexed system with serial data buses and virtually everything goes into the computer, which then sends the display info to the instrument cluster via a serial data stream. In my opinion, this is the real hard part of attempting a HUD install. In current vehicles with HUDs, the HUDs are probably custom programmed to accept this serial data from the PCM/BCM.

Also, the windshield has a special area where the HUD is displayed with different light reflection/transmission properties.

Steve

 

The widshield has a more reflrctive quality but are not that much more expensive anymore.

Hud also works poorly with Polarized glasses.

There are some after market units out there and converting a GM one to a HHR is not impossible but very expensive and not easy.

I love the one in my GP and it should be standard an all cars. Once you get used to it you really miss it when you don't have it.

The new one in Caddy and the Vette are in color now.

Lexus and BMW are just now adding them to their cars and are acting like it is something new. What a joke.

The one in the GP even does the GPS direction too. The one and only one I have seen that made any sense.

 

I never had any problems seeing the HUD in my GP with polarized lenses.

 

The materials are the same as a regular windshield, which, being laminated actually has 4 surfaces that reflect, but the strongest reflections come off the inside and outside of the glass and not so much the polymer in the middle layer. Because the angle you look at a Corvette screen is fairly acute, there's a noticeable angle difference between where you'd see the reflections off each layer making the reflection fuzzy, so on the HUD screens the polymer layer is tapered at only about one tenth of a degree (DuPont calls it the Wedge) to make the images coincide as they meet the eye. I just tried this on the HHR, and there's a noticeable double image. Maybe for something simple like a bargraph type tachometer it'd be acceptable, but not much more.

 

I have had two pair of $100 plus glasses and both will remove 80% of the hud reflection. Wiley X and Ray Ban.

This was a problem of many on the GP web site.

The HUD is a reflection and polarized glasses remove relective glair.

 

in my truck i had my gps setup as a HUD. I bought some kind of clear laminate that was reflective. had the gps in the dash. presto HUD.