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TFT displays and readability outdoors

Has anybody used the touch-sensitive TFT displays from Adafruit outdoors?

I'm particularly interested in using the Adafruit 2441 PiTFT+ 3.5"

480x320 TFT Touch Display in a glider cockpit, where daylight under a clear canopy is the normal illumination. However, in mid-afternoon I can get direct sunlight on the display when flying away from the sun, which makes a typical satnav (Binatone B.3650, Tomtom) almost unreadable and washes out a transreflective display but leaving it still quite readable (Medion GoPAL S3747, iPAQ 3630).

Here's a Binatone B.350 running outside on a cloudy-bright day:

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This is a Medion S3747 (transreflective display) under similar conditions:
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I can live with the Adafruit display if its no worse than the Binatone under these conditions. I'd be running the same software, an LK8000 navigation system, but compiled for the RPi rather than WinCE, which is what both the satnavs run. I think either a Pi zero or a model A should easily have enough grunt to run this program (both my satnavs run at around 500MHz) while a Pi 2 would really fly. Power consumption isn't an issue: the avionics (navigation system, FLARM and two varios) all run off a 12v 7AH SLA battery.

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
org       |
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Martin Gregorie
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I'm not sure of the status of color e-Ink displays, but they would be just the ticket if your temps don't drop very much. In the short term you will find the black and white e-ink displays to be excellent in all lighting conditions other than dark where you need to shine a light on them. I looked hard at the Pervasive Displays units until I found they basically suck at low temps (near freezing or below).

Can't help you with LCD. If the display is backlit by LEDs it may work ok until washed out by the sun. If it is transflective my experience is they work poorly in middle conditions but ok when lit brightly or in the dark.

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Rick
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rickman

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