Industrial Display Kits

Consider the facts below to help you determine the Industrial LCD Display Kit that’s right for your project.

What is in an Industrial Display Kit?

An Industrial Display Kit, or LCD display kit, includes the portion of a display solution that covers the necessary components for the LCD display integration into a computer system.  The IDK consists of an LCD panel, backlight, touch sensor and controller (if applicable), and compatible cables for the LVDS and backlight.

Advantech offers a full line of Industrial Display Kits in its IDK Series matched for its single board computer and embedded motherboard products.  These Industrial Display Kits use an LVDS interface, as compared to VGA input kits.  (Advantech’s VGA display kits are designated as Open Frame, or OFM Series kits.)

What are the key considerations when choosing an LCD Kit?

LVDS Interoperability

Although factors such as brightness and resolution have their priority, many designers become aware of the pitfalls of display kit incompatibilities when integrating the LVDS cable for their board or PC system. Designing your own  LVDS cable to interface from the LCD to the SBC can be labor-intensive, as well as calling for the use of specialized tools, so cable fabrication is usually assigned to a cable vendor for a customized solution.  Naturally, this causes an increase in system costs.

Since each LCD Display Kit has a different LVDS cable and power cable for different embedded boards, Advantech launched the Build Your Display tool to save your time on finding the right display for Advantech board products. 

Brightness

Measured in candela per square meter (cd/m2)  which are informally referred to as ‘Nits’, an LCD display’s brightness, or luminance, can a part of a selection process to ensure viewability requirements, given the system’s environment.   Most consumer desktop LCDs for indoor use have a luminance of 200 to 300 Nits, where 450 to 2000 Nits are considered ideal for outdoor use.

Resolution

The display’s resolution, or pixel dimensions, also weigh in to the selection process.  Display size, the graphic requirements of the application, and dimensions of the enclosure may all be factors in the resolution of your ideal Industrial Display Kit.

Abbreviation	Resolution	Panel Size
VGA	640x480	5.7" / 6.5"
SVGA	800x600	8.4" / 10.4"
WSVGA	1024x600	7" / 10.1"
XGA	1024x768	12.1" / 15"
SXGA	1280x1024	17" / 19"

The actual supported resolutions are resident within the board’s BIOS.   Advantech has compiled this information for its Embedded Board products, and will indicate the compatible IDK products for each board.

Contrast Ratio

Contrast Ratio is the ratio of the luminance of the brightest color (white) to that of the darkest color that the display is capable of rendering.  As a baseline, a Contrast Ratio of 500: 1 is considered standard for a consumer desktop PC display.

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Let’s take a closer look at the components that make an LCD Kit

LCD Panel

As can be seen by the image above, the actual LCD panel is a transparent frame with the liquid crystal solution filled between two layers of glass substrate.  It is then adhered to the backlight so that the LCD Panel can apply the color output to the display image. 

Backlight

For embedded solutions, there are generally two kinds of backlight products on the market. CCFL, or Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps, are a technology that has been in place for some time.  They handle temperatures well, and have low initial costs.   There are other design aspects to consider, however, such as the need for an inverter to supply separate power to the CCFL device.

LED backlights have grown immensely in popularity for embedded applications due to benefits of low watt consumption, low heat dissipation, and lower overall cost.  LED backlights generally deliver 20-30% lower power consumption.  However many PC solutions require a separate LED driver board for its function.

Touch Sensor

The Touch Sensor adheres to the front of an LCD Panel as a separate layer.  The sensor's controller determines the location of the touch.  Within this spectrum, different touch technology can be incorporated to fit the application:

Resistive Touch- Popular for embedded applications due to its accuracy, cost effectiveness and ability to respond to any object, including a gloved hand or stylus.

Capacitive Touch - A Capacitive Touch screen incorporates a transparent electrical conductor.   Among its benefits is durability, and Advantech offers this technology for multi-touch applications, enabling similar function to today’s smart phone touch features.

Industrial Display Solutions

We offer Advantech Industrial Display Solutions for those that have already chosen the computer solution or need a customized integration service to streamline their project.  Manufacturing the cable locally reduces customer cable design pitfalls, reduce their system development time to deploy a true “plug and play” solution.  Contact Advantech today to speed your productivity on an integrated display at 1-888-576-9668.