I received mine yesterday, ordered on Friday. So, if nothing else the shipping and packing is top notch.
I plugged the unit in (nice connector and being right angle is also a nice touch for a slim fit). Drove around a bit and it seems to function well. Display is pretty good and decent sized. The buttons are on the inside edge of the back of the unit - so that makes accessing them 'different' and I could see it as a big problem if the unit is flush mounted etc. Given the size of the display I can understand they decided to put the switches on the back to try and keep the overall package size down - but it's definitely something that will limit mounting options.
The manual states it draws 1W (have to measure at some point) while 'off' since it draws power from the battery all the time via the obd2 connector. No idea how that compares to the scangauge. That would imply around 80mA which would be around 2Ahr per day, so if the 1W quoted number is real, that's more than I'd like to be drawing if the vehicle was parked for a week or so.
It does have a lot of default 'gauges' but most appear to be mpg and time/distance traveled related, i.e. estimates of fuel usage and distance left on the tank. Not sure how accurate that info is, but to me it's rather useless since a) I have a pretty good idea what my fuel gauge is telling me and b) I have a subtank.
The main benefit I see for my own use is the coolant temp and ability to find out what CEL is thrown and to clear it as needed without having to hook up the much larger and cumbersome laptop based Ease reader I have access to. By default most of the gauges seem centered around trip computer functions (mpg, distance to empty etc etc), I'll have to go through the actual useful gauges (based on what the 80 obd2 provides) and choose some more engine specific stuff to display.
The mounting bracket is quite substantial (glass sucker), but I'll more than likely mount my unit somewhere else - or wait for some bright spark on mud to find the ultimate mounting location
The pdf manual can be found at
UltraGauge Start
It is made in China, not sure where scanguage is actually made. I'm hoping the ultragauge engineering and firmware development was as least done in the US, certainly the online manual was.
There is a small clip/slide panel on the backside that removes to present a 3x2 (6 pin) set of holes/pads. From my own work with microcontrollers, that 6 pin interface looks awfully like the standard serial programming interface of the Atmel family of microcontrollers. It may be for a PIC as well. Anyhow, they have provided an access panel for flashing new firmware into the unit. Obviously it would require sending the unit back, but at least it does have the facility for being updated - assuming Ultraguage is proactive in providing future enhancements or updates.
So my 1/2 hour usage summary is that it appears to work, for the $ is appears reasonably well made and the online manual is actually in english and has more than 2 pages (40+). Never seen a scanguage in real life so I have no idea how it compares - especially in the long run.
cheers,
george.
