Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Character LCD vs sunlight
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poorchava:
Do you have any experience with character LCDs in products, where they are exposed to direct sunlight? Our customer mentions a plastic enclosure with transparent polycarbonate cover, so that service techs can see what is written on the LCD. The problem is, that I can't seem to find any info on how those displays withstand prolonged exposure to direct sunlight. I know that most of the electronic stuff (passives, ICs, PCBs etc) are very resistant to it and there should not be any problem, but the LCD is a mistery.
Do you have any experience that you can share?
Gyro:
From your description is sounds like a long term exposure situation - short term there would be no issue.
It seems to me that you have two problems - both ends of the light spectrum, UV and IR. UV can damage the polariser film. Luckily the window (if it is definitely Polycarbonate) has good UV blocking properties.
At the other end of the spectrum, IR is more of a problem. LCDs don't like very high temperatures, initially you get a shift in contrast, then, at higher temperatures, they go black. You need to keep the LCD reasonably cool - if it really is in direct sunlight then the customer needs to arrange for some level of ventilation (or at least, air circulation) over the display. This is going to depend on the size of the enclosure, sealing, ambient temperature, etc. Worst case, some sort of thermally conductive pad to an aluminium chassis part behind the display might help.
One final problem might be moisture / condensation, but that will probably affect other things in the enclosure too.
wraper:
AFAIK LCD degrade under UV exposure. Also consider that it may heat up quite extremely under direct sunlight which may be bigger problem.
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