Here are a couple other new products that PLX Devices showed us at this year’s SEMA show. These were sneak peeks, with preliminary specs only. Being that they’re going to be part of the iMFD family of products, they caught my attention. As covered in an earlier post, iMFD (Intelligent Multi-Functional Display) is the marketing name for a very cool technology that PLX brought us last year. Their impressive 65K color OLED gauges can be daisy-chained together, along with various sensors, and data from the vehicle’s OBD bus. Because these components are networked together, they can share information with each other. The displays can be customized to show information from multiple sources in an infinite number of formats. These upcoming products will integrate with iMFD to bring even more functionality.

iMFD Data Logger – This 3.6″ x 2.1″ handheld unit will have a color (OLED) display screen and 5 control buttons. It will be able to log data for up to 32 sensors, at the press of the “Record” button. After recording some drive time, you will be able to hit “Play”, and each iMFD gauge will playback the data according its own role (i.e. sensor data and display configuration). Nice for those who want to show off to their buddies, but of course you can download the logged data to a PC (via USB) and analyze with software.

R-800 Wideband Air/Fuel Data Logging Computer – This offers up similar functionality to the Data Logger, with the same design, but will add more abilities. As you probably guessed, it will have built-in support for wideband air/fuel ratio and EGT sensors. Additionally, it will have 2 knock sensor inputs, 8 analog inputs, and 8 speed inputs with duty cycle. In addition to including built-in data logging, the R-800 will improve upon PLX’s existing R-500, by adding iMFD compatibility. Like their other products, I would expect this to interface with various stand alone and piggy back engine management systems. I couldn’t get definitive info on how much recording capacity to expect, or whether capacity will be expandable. But, I’d expect it to match the R-500’s 90 minutes, at a minimum. PLX is aiming for a March 2008 release of the R-800.

PLX Devices