Thread: NEC 8.4" Transflective Solution - Custom Kit

Originally Posted by thermoptic

spmclaugh, no worries, whore all you want The more information, the better. I saw you were active during the initial transflective upgrades. Glad to see you have returned.

I purchased the 8.4” NL8060BC21-03, which uses CCFL and requires an inverter. I saw that the SR-NLT required the switch, so I opted for the ST-NLT model, which does not.

I mentioned that I'm involved in a project where we are interfacing directly with a TTL/LVDS display, and we just chose the NEC with CCFL also. We are leaning towards the smaller model though. Good catch on the 'R' versus 'T'. We are probably just going to design our own inverter, I think.

Originally Posted by thermoptic

For the LVDS cable, I recall reading that Motorcity stated that soldering cables to the small pitch HiRose connector was out. He had an expensive crimper for the job.

Yea, I think they're 1 mm pitch or something. Definitely beyond my abilty, though there are probably some old-timers I know that could do it. I'm starting to appreciate paying money for a clean & easy connector... I just spent a week molding and casting a power connector for my HID headlights. Never again.

Originally Posted by thermoptic

BTW, I would really appreciate your take on IR touchscreens. Pros, cons, favorite manufacturers, etc. I am tracking my touchscreen quest here:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/1118176-post6.html

Thanks in advance.

Well, they are usually (slightly) lower resolution, so you wouldn't want to use them in some kind of tablet PC with a stylus (for handwriting). And of course, they're a little more expensive.

Also, since the sensors are probably at least 5mm from the screen surface, you get a little parallax error if you use it from an angle. In other words, if your finger is going at an angle, the X & Y coordinates where the beam is broken are not the same as the coordinates where you touch the surface of the screen. But a human finger is already unwieldy enough that I don't think it matters. Everything else about them pure benefits... You can't get a more clear image -- there is nothing but air between you and the screen.

It works kind of like the safety beams on garage doors. Just a bunch of light sources & photo detectors. Break the beam, the photo detector notices, and it tells the computer where you touched.

As far as brands, I didn't do any comparisons. The IRTouch brand from Digikey are the only touchscreens I looked at. I couldn't find many distributors for these things. I'll look a little more tonight and tomorrow, because our project team may be finalizing our decision in the next 24 hours.

I had the dog leashed for the evening walk, passing through dining room, and I notice a box on the floor near the wall . . . . wait, what the . . . it appears the Wife forgot to tell me about a FedEx delivery today I look at the box . . . dog looks at the box . . . dog looks at me staring at the box . . . "yo, it can wait" he says

[ 45 minutes later ]

Side and Top Views:

Here is a close-up on the connector. The CCFL is housed in a tray and slides out, for quick and easy replacement I suppose?

Nice. Is the LCD connector surface mounted or through-hole? The ghetto-fabrication side of me can't help asking. I'm getting ideas which involve the CNC PCB milling machine in our lab...

They're all SM. With this form-factor, I would expect everything to be SM. Here's a few cropped images which give the side profile and the top view with clear shot of the pads.

My LCD research is winding down. I found the Avnet Industrial LCD Solutions Guide to be informative. At 100 pages and 3.8MB, you'll want to save and view separately in stand-alone Adobe Reader. Great review of touchscreens, optical enhancements, and displays.

Avnet Industrial LCD Solutions 2006

Note that Page 37 starts the touchscreen section. Page 67 starts the industrial display solutions. On page 70, I was pleased to see a range of brightness values based on ambient sunlight values of 10K, 30K, and 80K NITS for transflective displays. Hopefully more manufactures will start to list this data as transflective devices become more established and more competitive in the market. An ECR listing would also be nice.

Originally Posted by turbocad6

I thought the best resolution was a panel that I have, it's a toshiba ltm06c310, mine was upgraded by nathan fpd, it's a 6.3 with 1024x768

You're lucky to have had that option w/ the FPD group. I don't suppose you'd want to open it up and try to figure out what components have been modified in the optical stack...? I probably wouldn't if I had paid good money, but it can't hurt to ask! To get anything meaningful though, it'd probably take a whole bunch of individual tests on each layer of the stack -- a lot of time.

Note 3 on page 7 of the NL8060BC21-03 spec warns of UV exposure. The AR-coated polarizer has a surface hardness of 2H. If I opt for the IRTOUCH 8.4" K-series with no glass, then I will want to find a suitable protection film that hopefully does not require optical bonding. The 3M Prestige Series PR 70 clear UV film might meet this need.

3M Prestige Series Overview
http://www.3m.com/us/arch_construct/.../products.html

3M Prestige Series PR 70
http://multimedia.mmm.com/mws/mediaw...NNnChyyJmmmml-

Has anyone used this product? I'll bet we can get free samples!