What Is A Universal Instrument Panel
The Universal Instrument Panel of a car usually refers to the dashboard. The dashboard is a wholesome body with different instrument panels of a car located on it. It’s also called the control panel and is located in the front part of a vehicle, before the driver. The UPI or Universal Instrument Panel houses all the instrumentation & controls the operation of your car. It’s necessary to check out your UPI components occasionally. Whether it’s your gauges or speedometers or engine temperature indicators- the entire condition of the vehicle is largely dependent on the health of your overall UPI. The article here presents detailed information on Universal Instrument Panel of a car.
Parts of UPI
- Speedometer
There are two forms of speedometers in your car’s UPI- Electrical and Mechanical. The mechanical one uses flexible cable which rotates wheel & axle gear that would spin magnet & interact electromagnetically with metal disk which has an attached needle with it. The electrical one uses rotation sensor for delivering electronic-pulses with the frequencies corresponding to driveshaft’s rotational speed. A computer would interpret the information & display speed on digital or analog readouts.
- Gauges
The Universal Instrument Panel is equipped with a number of gauges. You have oil-pressure gauge which indicates the force or pressure with which oil is pumping via the car engine. Then, there’s tachometer gauge that states the RPM’s or revolutions/minute. Water-temperature gauge is another important part of UPI and one must be attentive to the particular gauge to assure that the vehicle isn’t getting excessively hot. The normal temperature would be between 200 to 210 degrees here. The oil-temperature gauge is vital too- in case the oil temperature within the engine turns too hot, the engine breaks down losing the lubricating ability
- Others
The other UPI parts include steering wheel, warning lights, gearshift position indicator, heating & ventilation vents and controls, lighting controls and airbags for safety.
New Advanced Additions
With the advent of LED, many of the dashboards today are equipped with the digital readouts. Then some of the latest cars use “head-up display” which projects the car’s speed onto windscreen, much like fighter aircrafts. In addition, a number of esteemed SUV manufacturers have included the fuel-economy gauge which shows the fuel mileage of the car in real time.