Please Help deciding on display...

idleup

I am creating an Angle of Attack instrument for an airplane (yes full scale) and am having a problem with the display. I would like to have a display that is approx 2" tall by 1" wide. It needs to be sunlight readable. I have looked at the LCD's, LED's and OLED's. The LED's seem to be the brightest. The goal is to have an animated arrow that scrolls up the display. At first the arrow is green, then it is followed by a yellow arrow, and then a red. I would like to use a Basic stamp to drive this display. Can anyone give me some guidance on first which display to choose, and second if the desired effect is possible?

Thanks,

Matt

idleup

anyone have any feedback on this?

KenM

kingbright has "superbright" LED displays that seem to work well in extreeme conditions (Death Valley in July).

Ken

idleup

It doesnt look like they have LED matrixes, just the digit displays. I am looking for a 8x16 display with a small dot pitch or so...

Has anyone got the evaluation kit for OLED's from kodak?

- Matt

Dave Paton

We just got the OLED kit in at the office. I'm not the guy assigned to play with it, but I'll let you know the results as I see them. FWIW, OLEDs are not very bright by comparison to the 1000mcd+ outputs of superbright units. You might seriously consider an array of small surface mount units under a diffusor. With 0603 parts, you can get both the brightness and the density you require. at 60x30 mils, you can make the arrow pretty small. Parts are available from most major manufacturers in all colors and sizes. Take a stroll through the Digi-Key catalog and see what you can see discrete units. I'm not sure you'll find precisely what you're looking for in the realm of matrix displays.

As an aside, in all my years in and around small planes, I never saw an instrument that didn't have at least a rudimentary sun shade over it if it had an active display.

-dave

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idleup

Thanks Dave.

What are 0603 parts? I am not too familiar with a lot of LED terminology. Also, is a diffuser something you buy per LED or do you use one diffuser over a board of LEDs? Last question, with that many LED's, what chip would you use to drive them?

Thanks,
MATT

Paul Baker

Its a chip size·for surface mount components. The number is the height and width in centinches (ie 0.06 x 0.03 inch, or 1.6 x 0.8 mm) Here's a link to a 0603 LED. The diffuser would be placed over the array, this is to make the display appear less pixelated. How you would drive it depends on how exactly you want to use it, if you have fixed symbols they can be tied together through various methods, individual control is more complex but possible.

Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 6/9/2005 3:56:58 AM GMT