TH-868 Driving me crazy.

**UncleMike1** · 09-28-2005, 04:30 PM

First off let me say that this is my first touch screen display and I have a few questions.

1. How bright are these things suposed to be because its not even remotely close to my laptop or desktop brightness. I don't know maybe there is a way to open it up and check the backlight or something.

2. How do I get a resolution of 640 x 480? Both of my computers don't have this as a selection. The lowest is 800 x 600.

Any help and additional info about this screen would be awsome. This is my first car pc project and I keep getting discouraged and am thinking about scrapping the whole idea. Thanks

**psyrex** · 09-28-2005, 04:48 PM

Where did you get such a screen? I've never heard of it, nor can I find it after a quick search on Google.

1. I can't find the specs for your screen, but generally laptop or desktop screens are brighter. If nothing else, your screen is more dim than a laptop or desktop because of the touchscreen. A touchscreen is an overlay that is placed on top of the LCD. This overlay will make the screen appear dimmer. Not much you can do about this other than boosting the power of the backlight, but that is kinda risky (whole other can of worms).

2. These settings are based on your OS. What are you using? Windows? *nix?

-psyrex

**mike-e-mon** · 09-28-2005, 05:05 PM

2.

for a program called "powerstrip". Is this spoon feeding? Good luck.

Mike

**psyrex** · 09-28-2005, 06:46 PM

Well, 640x480 is standard. Powerstrip is not needed. If this is Windows, go to Display Properties in your Control Panel. Go to the Settings tab, then hit the "Advanced" button on the bottom right. From the new dialog box, go to the Adapter tab and hit the "List All Modes..." button on the bottom left. There will be a list of all modes available, and 640x480 should be on there. It's organized first by color depth, then resolution, and then refresh frequency.

-psyrex

(p.s., now THIS is spoonfeeding)

**UncleMike1** · 09-28-2005, 09:07 PM

OK enough wit the "spoon feeding" jokes. It just gets me extremely ****ed off that now a days configuring these things is a ball buster. I think spending all this money is enough work as it is. The screen came from ebay, its an 8" touch that looks awsome until you turn the fu**ing thing on. I will take a picture in the dark so you can see how dim it is, let me know what you think (psyrex). Thanks for the replies.

**psyrex** · 09-29-2005, 02:41 AM

Well, resolution configuration is done on your operating system, regardless of what screen you use or if the computer is in a car or not. Please don't let that sour this project for you. Building a car pc is fun.

As for the screen, I searched on ebay, and found a TM-868 (as opposed to "TH" as you said). If this is the screen, the specs are the same as the 7" wide Lilliput and Xenarc screens that most people use around here. It's pretty much as bright as it will get in this price range. You have to shell out alot more for a brighter/clearer screen.

Anyways, a resolution of 640x480 is fairly standard and easy to achieve. Just follow the step-by-step I posted above. Since this is the pixel resolution of the LCD, it should be fairly clear.

Hope this helps,
-psyrex

**UncleMike1** · 09-29-2005, 09:48 AM

Well the resolution change helped out. Now the picture is nice and clear. The brightness thing is still throwing me for a loop though. The monitor is definately dim and when I adjust the brightness setting it has absolutely no affect. The other thing I was thinking is this unit only came with a europe style home adapter. I am using the adapter for one of my wireless camera units the diferances are that the one that came with the monitor is 1200mA and the one that I'm using is only 300mA. Do you think that could be the reason for the lack of brightness. Thanks

**psyrex** · 09-29-2005, 12:52 PM

Well, after some more searching, I found a spec that shows a comsumption of 10W. This makes it a draw of around 850mA, which means that, yeah, it's your adapter. Switch to a decent power supply and you might see up to 3x the brightness.

-psyrex

**UncleMike1** · 09-29-2005, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by psyrex

Well, after some more searching, I found a spec that shows a comsumption of 10W. This makes it a draw of around 850mA, which means that, yeah, it's your adapter. Switch to a decent power supply and you might see up to 3x the brightness.

-psyrex

Thats what it was. I went and bought one of those travel plug sets and used the correct adapter. It got a lot brighter. The brightness control still has no effect but, its bright enough now. Thanks for the help Psyrex, much appreciated. If there weren't any people like you on this forum it would suck. Once again thanks.

**mike-e-mon** · 09-29-2005, 04:23 PM

Originally Posted by UncleMike1

OK enough wit the "spoon feeding" jokes. It just gets me extremely ****ed off that now a days configuring these things is a ball buster. I think spending all this money is enough work as it is. The screen came from ebay, its an 8" touch that looks awsome until you turn the fu**ing thing on. I will take a picture in the dark so you can see how dim it is, let me know what you think (psyrex). Thanks for the replies.

Sometimes it's the jokes that keep us going. Don't take it to serious.

Mike