Well, anything is _possible_. I'm going to discuss color displays. If you're using a monochrome display, then the problem is almost trivial - they excel in daylight, and are readily front-lightable. You're looking at a problem with one possible solution, but it isn't necessarily the best. So let's start with your question: Can one take a low brightness LCD and convert it to high brightness easily/more cheaply than buying one. I'm sure you could, but the stackup and coatings used are slightly different. Most of the cost difference, however, is in the lighting source. You could do it, but tiny high-brightness LEDs with a radiance pattern that works well with the diffuser are not as inexpensive as you might like. The colors in cheap white LEDs are not as nice as the color of more expensive LEDs. Further, you have to either match the LEDs beforehand for brightness, or deal with the slight brightness variations inside the LCD. An ideal LCD LED has a very wide angle, and very even brightness across the entire angle. CFT tubes are easier in some respects and harder in others. The biggest issue there is either dissipating the greater heat of the brighter tube, or getting a higher brightness tube that matches the form factor. But if color rendition, 'even' display brightness, and heat dissipation are not an issue in your case, then you can probably call up a manufacturer, tell them that, and get it for much less than what you could modify one for, in quantity. The issue of daylight readability is a whole different ball of wax. The best daylight readability for LCDs uses transflective technology. This completely changes the stackup of the LCD, with two primary differences. The first is that inbetween the LCD and the light diffuser (behind the LCD) there's a semitransparent reflective layer. This cuts the output of the internal light source nearly in half, but any sunlight shining on the face of the display reflects back out appropriately and the display is still readable even in direct sunlight. The second big difference is the newest transflective displays have a prsimatic layer that takes light falling on the display at an angle and re-directs it into the reflector so it comes out of the display at a similar angle as the internal light. As mentioned above, though, the transflective layers reduce the internal light's brightness by nearly half, so a transflective display has to have the high-brightness display's lighting just to have the brightness of a normal display. Modern color LCDs sometimes have up to 20 layers of material, and most of those exist outside the glass sandwich that does the active work. So you really can't have both transflective and high-brightness. If your use is primarily in the sunlight, then go for transflective. If your use is mostly outside, but rarely under direct sun, then go for high brightness. You really can't convert a regular display to transflective and expect reasonable results. You may be able to boost a regular display to high brightness, and you may get good results for your application. If you are succesful, let us know! -Adam On 3/31/07, Dave King wrote: > Just was reading the thread about case mods and looked up the source > of the LCD screen the guy used. I noticed the prices of lcd's have > dropped to the point where they are reasonable or about 1/10 of what > they were when I first started working on my project. The high brightness > or high nit lcd panels are about 3x the cost of the standard tft panels. > My project requires visibility in sunlight. > > So here is the question... > > Would it be possible or has anyone taken a standard tft lcd panel and > added high brightness side lighting (cft or led) and managed to make > it work in bright sunlight? Or am I missing something on the differences > of a standard lcd verses a high nit lcd? > > Dave > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Moving in southeast Michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/ Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com Building your own house? Check out http://ubasics.com/home/ -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist