MNTLS

THis morning it was very cold here in MN. I turned on my car and you could barley see the navi screen at all. Is this normal in cold weather?

kensteele

For Minnesota, you're lucky if you can see out the windshield in the morning.

It is normal.

pianoman41

Yep, mine does it too. Usually any time the outside temp dips below 40F, when I first start the car it is darker. The coldest day my TL-S has seen so far is about 15F, and it was very dark. I upped the brightness a couple of notches and it was fine. Once the cabin heated up it returned to normal.

NighthawkBlack

Its normal. All monitors need to warm up for contrast. It just takes less time when the monitors are room temperature.

bebber

I was going to say that your screen must be defective. I've never heard of that dimming problem happening before, but I live in So California so that's probably why.

I think they use a flourescent backlight to illuminate the LCD navi screen.

pianoman41

Yep. If your car never sees below 40F, you won't see this happen. Of course, then you really can't appreciate the seat and mirror heaters either.....

MNTLS

It was -4 out this morning, wind chill -16 wow that was cold. Could not see my screen for almost 20 minutes. Should have parked in the garage.

daverman

LCD's are cranky that way. They are sensitive to temperature extremes and lose contrast if they get too hot or too cold.

In the avionics LCD displays that we make we actually put heater elements behind the LCD to warm up the display quickly if the temperature falls below about 35 deg. F.

The fluorescent tube backlight doesn't darken with the cold temperature, but cold temps severely shorten their lifespans. That's why we've moved to white-LED backlighting, since all those fluorescent tubes were biting the dust in the cold!

pianoman41

Daverman, would you then recommend for those of us in the northern climes to shut off the display completely until the interior heats up to help lengthen the lifespan of the display elements?

daverman

That's a tough call. Doing that would definitely help prolong the life of the fluorescent tube. However the Navi display comes on every time you start the car, so the damage is already done (it's the power-on cycle that kills the bulbs).

pianoman41

Good point. Too bad they don't have an easily accessible hard on/off switch.

bebber

Cool info daverman.

It'll be neat once they perfect LED screen technologies, make them fast, high-res, high-reliability,greater operational temperature range and in larger sizes than is practically possible with LCD.