Re-Fried Gauges on '69 Charger

[GranSport]

Quick re-cap. Bought the car with 3 dead gauges. Pulled them out and checked and confirmed as burnt out through original regulator pushing out 12v.

3 new gauges fitted. Built an electronic 5v regulator with a chip and housed it in the old regulator unit.

All running fine until Wednesday when I looked at the gauges and they were off the scale to the right.

Think I shut off in time.
Checked regulator and the unit I built was now pushing out 12v. I opened up the unit but no short circuit,
I am in touch with the guy who supplied the chip and he has some suggestions about causes of the failure (possibly not big enough heat sink or the current draw of the combined resistance is too high for reliability- or maybe they they built that chip in a mopar factory!).
Will update when the guy checks it in detail.
Don't want to go back to the mechanical unit but can't risk those super expensive gauges either.

Cheers
Eddie

[Steve]

Ade Worman recommends making your own dash VR...maybe belt n braces is the way forward??

Cheers Steve

[GranSport]

Have a guy making an uprated regulator with filters and capacitors to protect from voltage spikes and shorts. I think the car wiring may be a bit suspect. Bit ott but cheaper than another 3 brand new gauges.

Eddie

[Mick]

You've probably paid the price for trying to reinvent the wheel on a £10 part. As far as advice on this board or any other for that matter, i take what i think is useful and ignore the rest.
I take it you have changed the one behind the gauge cluster?
Mick