Our first webinar regarding transparent displays for optical devices was successfully held on the 20th of January. It was well received by over 100 attendees who are manufacturers of shooting, hunting, and night vision devices.
In the webinar, we covered the benefits of LUMINEQ transparent displays for optics, reticles, and night vision devices. Our business line manager Jani Aho also shared his expertise on the pros and cons of different display solutions that add value and competitive advantages to those devices.
The continuously developed display technologies allow optical device manufacturers to differentiate their devices by bringing augmented reality (AR) to devices, showing mission-critical information, such as heading, speed, altitude, location, distance to the target, and more.
In this article, we will summarize the following key takeaways of the webinar.
- Thin-film displays in a nutshell
- Benefits of LUMINEQ displays for optics and reticles
- Benefits of LUMINEQ displays for Night Vision Devices
- LUMINEQ display electronics and examples
- Transmission graph
- Comparison with competing technologies (projection, TOLED)
- Applications
- Technology demonstrator (available now)
If you would like to watch the whole webinar recording, please submit the form from the link below. We will review your request and get back to you shortly.
Thin-film electroluminescent displays in a nutshell
We have over 35 years of experience in manufacturing Thin Film Electroluminescent (TFEL) displays, renowned for ruggedness and reliability in the most challenging environments. In the recent years, LUMINEQ has developed transparent TFEL displays that can be used in various areas, including professional HUD, vehicle displays, and optical devices. Read more about TFEL technology and comparison with OLED and LCD.
Benefits of LUMINEQ displays for optics and reticles
Simplified design
LUMINEQ display is placed on the optical path. Therefore, it allows you to bring dynamic information to optical devices with no need for extra space. We provide digitally enhanced dynamic reticle that can be placed directly on the line of sight for aiming devices. In addition to the lit segments, we can also pattern a chrome layer inside the display to provide a traditional reticle.
Up to 90% transmission
The display transmission is about 85% and up to even 90% when with AR. The display is nearly invisible when turned off. Seeing is believing. Contact us to request a demonstrator.
Micro graphics and display size
When it comes to scopes or range finders, the displays need to be small. We can make micro displays as small as required as long as there is room for the needed segments and tracing for contacting the segments, and the contact areas. Typical size of the display is around 20mm in diameter. The graphic content can go down to 10 micrometers in details.
The wide adjustable brightness range
LUMINEQ transparent display also has a wide adjustable brightness range from daylight to image intensification, from a few nits, or candela, to thousands according to different needs.
Ruggedness and reliability
Our transparent display offers the same ruggedness as our rugged displays due to its solid-state and inorganic design. If your scopes are used in harsh conditions such as extreme hot or cold weather, shock and vibration, significantly high altitude, or humid environments, our displays will not fail you.
Fully customizable
Our display can be fully customized to fit your needs, including the glass size, shape, and content, substrate and cover glass thickness, glass contacting design, electronics, interface, surface coatings, etc. Submit the form below to request a demonstrator.
Benefits of LUMINEQ displays for Night Vision Devices
On top of the benefits listed above for optics in general, LUMINEQ display technology offers more advantages compared to the typical projection solution for night vision devices. Using our display, which is one unified display glass optimized for the size of optical path, eliminates the issues of glare, light scattering, and pollution.
Moreover, our display brightness can be set very low and adjusted to match the image intensification.
The LUMINEQ yellow color also contrasts perfectly with the green and white colors of the night vision devices.
LUMINEQ display electronics and examples
We provide compact driving electronics with two voltage options: 80V or 195V. We recommend the 195V for reticle devices and 80V for the night vision devices.
Electronics interface can be customized based on customer requests - RS or I2C is preferred. Input voltage is typically 3V or 5V.
Power consumption is few mV, which means around 300h of use with CR123A battery on a typical reticle application. Of course, it depends on the segment areas, brightness, the design of the display, and your power supply.
Electronic examples
In the webinar, Jani showed us a couple of electronics examples. One examples is made for a display with 128 segments, and it is roughly the size of 5-cent coin. It gives you an idea of how compact our electronics can be.
Transmission graph
Jani presented a nice graph that visualizes the measured transmission values for different displays and thin-film recipes in our product portfolio. The transmission is up to 88% measured by our standard demo. Depending on the thin-film recipe and AR coating, the transmission can be boosted up to 93%. More details were explained in the webinar.
Comparison with projection and TOLED
There is no other rugged display technology that is placed straight to the optical path of optical devices. Competing technologies like OLED and LCDs are placed outside of the optical path, needing complex and delicate optics to project the image to the line of sight.
In the webinar, Jani compared LUMINEQ display with projection and TOLED in the areas of integration easiness, transmission, type, tolerance to environmental factors, lifetime and lifecycle, construction, and optical properties (such as clarity, haze).
Applications
In the area of optical application, LUMINEQ transparent displays can be used for but not limited to:
- Digitally enhanced weapon sights
- Digitally enhanced night vision goggles
- Digitally enhanced binoculars and range finders
- Digitally enhanced microscope devices
Technology demonstrator (available now)
The ELT32S-RETICLE-BAT is a turnkey display demonstrator with a segmented reticle design developed specifically for aiming devices. The display has 32 individually addressable segments, which can display range by numeric values in meters or yards, crosshair (10 or 20 μm), and drop dots. The chrome crosshair is optional.
The display glass is cut to a round shape, ready for integrations to the line of sight of optics. The flex is straight and 250mm long. The driving electronics is battery powered and supports customizable script.
Visit ELT32S-RETICLE-BAT product page to find out more information or contact us for the demo.
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