Product category:
Displays and remote terminal units
News Release from: Kent Modular Electronics | Subject: 51UN series
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 10 November 2004
KME perfects LCD-for-CRT monitor
replacement
CRT technology is under siege and falling out of favour as the ubiquitous flat-panel steadily gains market share: some CRT sizes are nearly impossible to source now. KME has the answer
CRT technology is under siege and falling out of favour as the ubiquitous flat-panel steadily gains market share Some CRT sizes are nearly impossible to source now that CRT manufacturers see an end to all but large, wide screen tubes for domestic TV
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 29 Jul 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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This is not good news for OEMs and their customers in machine tool control, process control etc who are committed to support their CRT displays for several more operational years.
Many of these old displays were embedded in the control furniture (i.e in chassis monitor format) and substitution by a Flat-panel presents many mechanical problems.
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Also, the older the system, the more likely it is that the video signals to the monitor are not of modern VESA standards, making it impossible to achieve a display on a standard Flat-panel monitor.
KME was formed 25 years ago to make CRT monitors.
Certain sizes are still in production but markets are changing rapidly to high resolution Flat-panel LCD monitors and KME has a wide range of modern displays to meet this demand.
However, they have not forgotten their roots and have invested heavily in R and D to develop a range of LCD monitors that are specifically designed to interface with any legacy signal and give a full-screen, crisp, bright display.
The heart of this development project is a new LCD analogue-digital driver board (designated XP5) that forms the basis of their 51UN series.
Several mechanical formats are offered in screen sizes 8.4" to 21.3" including desktop, heads for Ergo arms, rack-mount and panel-mount.
Special versions are available as complete look-alike CRT chassis with the same dimensions and mounting points (29LW series) and as mini-Rackmount models designed to fit to the existing CRT chassis metalwork by utilising the CRT Lug fixing holes in the chassis (29LV series).
In addition to advanced processors to scale non-standard resolutions, the XP5 boards also incorporate circuitry to compensate for the low (and noisy) video and sync pulse levels found in legacy installations.
The real breakthrough is that user set-up has been greatly simplified over previous models and KME is predicting an international market for its 51UN series.
Technical Note: LCD Flat-panels expect signals to VESA standards (VGA, SVGA, SXGA etc) that are fixed in terms of horizontal and vertical scan rates AND in terms of pixels.
A typical 12.1" LCD panel has a fixed resolution of 800 x 600 pixels (SVGA) and expects a video signal of 38kHz horizontal and 60Hz vertical.
A typical 12" Colour monitor from a 1980s machine tool might have a resolution of 560 x 240 pixels and be driven at 15.6kHz horizontal and 50Hz vertical.
Applying this signal to a standard PC monitor will result in no display whatsoever!.
The KME design expertise is not only to translate the scan frequencies but also to expand the pixels to fill the available screen size.
Legacy systems were all different with no standards between each manufacturer.
CRT monitors included Multi-scanning circuitry to cope with the variables and KME has now applied this philosophy to LCD monitors.
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