Condensation Issue
We supplied some of our ‘Rugged Vision N-Range’ monitors to one of our customers a few months ago. Not long after they contacted us with a condensation issue between the glass and monitor screen.
This is caused because there is a small gap of air between the glass and the monitor screen so condensation can occur. Below is a diagram of how optical bonding works and how it prevents condensation from happening on an LCD monitor.
Optical bonding works by sticking together the LCD display to the protective glass. We usually use 3 – 5 mm toughened glass to protect the screen. Then a resin is used to stick the glass to the LCD display. The resin get’s rid of the gap between the LCD display and the protective glass so no condensation can occur.
Our customer sent his monitors back that we’re having issues and we we’re able to optically bond them to prevent the condensation issues from recurring. The process usually takes 4 -5 weeks and doesn’t work every time because when the screen has been bonded to the glass it increases the width of the monitor so we would have to make sure that it would work before sending LCD monitors to be optically bonded.
Fortunately we we’re able to do the optical bonding on these displays and the customer was very happy with the results when the monitors we’re returned after the bonding process.
Optical bonding is usually used for outdoor applications that require protective glass. As you can see from the images our customer was using this monitor outside for a HGV rooting system which was located at a distribution centre. So lorry and truck drivers would drive up to the monitor and a ANPR system would tell them which bay to drop their goods at.
Because our customer didn’t want the monitor to be optically bonded they had several issues when condensation occurred as the drivers weren’t able to read the monitor and didn’t know which bay to go to.
USS Mount Whitney Bridge Wing Application
We supplied one of our ‘Rugged vision N24 HBOB-WT’ for the US Navy to go on the flagship of the United States Sixth Fleet. The monitor has been positioned on the bridge wing and displays a video feed from a radar system. As the monitor was mounted outside the US Navy chose to have the monitor optically bonded as was also a high-brightness display as well as being waterproof to IP66 standard.
To the left and below are some images of the monitor on the USS Mount Whitney, as you can see the image is crystal clear and no condensation has formed.
This was very important because if the monitor hadn’t had been optically bonded the screen would have been partially covered by the condensation making it hard to read the monitor.
We will always suggest optically bonding a monitor if we know the application will be outside, this is mainly because if it isn’t and condensation does form then it can cause issue’s.
If you have an application for an LCD monitor that’s outside or requires optical bonding please give us a call on 01782 567979 and one of our friendly team will be more than happy to help.