Thread: Sunlight-Readable Monitor for Fishing Boat

Mo-co-so
MCS-701-TFE3 vs. MCS-629-TFE3

"With the exception of the outer plastic housing and price they are the same monitor. They use the exact same hardware inside of them. The 629's cost more to start with so we have to pass that along. The front panels are plastic on both not aluminum."

"There are only 2 types of films and 1 touch panel that work with that monitor."
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"We spent thousands of dollars in research before releasing our monitors just doing tests with every possible combination of transflective films. In the end you can only make them so bright with the films."
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"The touch panel ... has AG coating on the front and circular polarizers on the bottom of it. These polarizers are important because they shift the incoming light 180 degrees out of phase which cancles them out, rather then letting them penetrate the LCD panel. Here are some comparison shots that need to be added to the product page. As the saying goes a picture speaks 1000 words. All of the shots were taken in direct sunlight through an untinted window at the same resolution and brightness/constast ratio.
http://www.mo-co-so.com/~photos/Moni...ts/montage.jpg
These were taken under halogen lighting and you can really see the difference in clarity of the image with the close up shots
http://www.mo-co-so.com/~photos/Moni...Shots/Set%201/
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"Although I will not say exactly what we are doing I can assure you that we get the bonding done on all of our monitors by the same firm. It is a full bond, not a cheaper gasketed one, and it is silicone based not epoxy based. I can also assure you that the hardware inside of the 701 and the 629 is exactly the same, actually the PCB button board is a different shape."
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"There is actually a lot of science involved in making a monitor truly transflective. Anyone can get some films put in the LCD panel but that only increases the brightness and does nothing to address the glare. It took almost 6 months to perfect what we have now. I will look at the xenarc monitor but I dont theink we will be offering it anytime soon."

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Optical bonding is a very expensive process and it can only be done by a handful of firms in the country. It adds a ton of benefits to the end product making it more rugged because you are actually bonding a very thin piece of glass to the LCD panel it becomes much harder to break the panel, by elminating the air gap between the top of the LCD panel and the bottom of the touch panel you increase the ability for heat produced from the LCD panel to dissapate through the touch panel. That means less heat trapped at the back of the monitor where it can shorten the life of the components on the control board. Most importantly it further reduces the reflection down to a minimum 99.8% glare free. Here is another pic that speaks 1000 words.
http://www.mo-co-so.com/~photos/Opti...percentage.jpg
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We have to send them out to get the work done. It actually takes 7 weeks to build one of these from start to finish, 6 weeks of that time is actually waiting for the touch panels to be produced and imported. They are a speciality item and not even the MFG carries stock.
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Originally Posted by colin

What I want to see is a comparison between the MoCoSo upgrade and the MP3Car upgrade... they can't be the SAME, but with a $100 difference, could it be worth the quality diff?

Anyone want to send me their mp3car transflective to find out? : )

As mentioned, I ordered a ram mount to install the eby-701. The reason for this was to allow it to be easily removed from the boat when not in use.

However, I recently ran across the navpod line of marine enclosures. They have "uncut" units that can be cut to the size of the opening. Here are some pics:




Here it is with something installed:


I think this may be a very good way to marine-proof the eby-701. I won't have much use for the buttons, so those could be removed and sealed. I could apply a silicone gasket between the touchscreen and the front bezel (would this interfere with touchscreen operation?), and I could remove the back bezel and seal the front bezel to the front of the surface with some silicone. Does this sound feasible? It doesn't seem like marine manufacturers are doing anything much different than this to ruggedize their unit. I disassembled my Xenarc last night to verify that the back panel can be removed, leaving the front panel, the lcd, and the circuit boards as a single unit. I also noticed that the button coupling device can be completely removed and then sealed with something like plasti-dip. In fact, the entire bezel could also be sealed with the plasti-dip spray. As far as heat dissipation goes, there will be a hole between under the center console and inside the navpod where the electronics will be. Also, the screen is optically bonded, so it will be more rugged and will dissipate heat through the screen itself. Thoughts? Am I overlooking something?

See attachment for what the final may look like. Any ideas on finding the silicone material to make a gasket?

Here is a better description:

marcram- the eby701 comes with a similar stand, although its not enclosed/waterproof it does allow for quick removal and install (just push a button on back, and it pops off its mount). but that one does look nice as it would keep moisture out of the screen.

to seal the buttons, i wonder if you could get some clear heatshrink tubing, like 5" stuff and just cut it like at a 2" width... then wrap it around the end of the screen over the buttons and shrink her down.

With the vibration/jarring that the boat has compared to a car, I'm afraid the clip-on mount will be insufficient. I just got the transflective display in today. Do you guys think that a silicon foam gasket between the screen and the front bezel will affect it's touch screen operation?

Thanks