I am looking to design something similar to Garmin's HUD for cars and am having a hard time finding suitable displays.
The display must be bright even in full daylight operation, which is why Garmin used a VFD display in their product that produces about 7,500 nits.
I cannot seem to find anything on the market either LCD, LED, or VFD that would produce such a bright image.
About the closest thing I could find to what I am looking for is Adafruit's 128x64 graphic VFD display. It's an ideal size, but unfortunately is still not bright enough.
Another option I considered was dismantling an LCD display and adding my own powerful backlight, exactly as is done in the following tutorial:
Projection Clock
It seems that most LCD displays compatible with Arduino are sold on shields which would prevent me from doing something similar.
The last option I considered was buying a pico projector, but it is more costly and would require HDMI/VGA interfacing with an Arduino.
Would anyone have other suggestions for a powerful display?
Thanks,
Kobbe
From pictures of the Garmin device it appears to be reflecting the image off a plastic plate. I expect that plate is partially reflective and may even be tuned to the particular wavelength of the display. The same can probably be done with a green LED backlight.
Perhaps this implementation from YouTube could be used as a model:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UboMM2EDbSM
"Simplified Heads Up Display. Image generator uses Noritake VFD (GU112x16G-7003 Vacuum Fluorescent Display). Display/combiner is high windshield mounted beamsplitter (45R/55T Neutral color) plate. Processor is a Parallax BS2 on a BOE circuitboard. Speed information provided by a Parallax GPS receiver module."
Here is a video of a $50 HUD from China:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQmd-3dBRXo
I think it uses LEDs.
johnwasser:
Perhaps this implementation from YouTube could be used as a model:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UboMM2EDbSM
"Simplified Heads Up Display. Image generator uses Noritake VFD (GU112x16G-7003 Vacuum Fluorescent Display). Display/combiner is high windshield mounted beamsplitter (45R/55T Neutral color) plate. Processor is a Parallax BS2 on a BOE circuitboard. Speed information provided by a Parallax GPS receiver module."
Excellent! I had been looking at some Nirtake VFD products but couldn't find anything to show its true brightness.
Military HUDs have a phosphorescent coating on the beam splitter but for my application something just like in that video would work great.
Thanks!