Our team is developing a touch module for boats. This thing will be getting a healthy dose of sun, water, and sometimes saltwater. At the same time, it will need to do everything from finding fish to navigating the open seas, giving system diagnostics, and providing entertainment. I understand water can be a problem for touch screens. Why is that? What’s the best solution for me?
Ahoy Mate!
Nautical displays have traditionally topped the list of most difficult touch applications. It seems that boats and ships just have it in for touch. First there is the corrosive effect of salt water, so the legacy surface capacitive was out. Then there was the water itself, whether from rain or the stuff that floats-the-boats, which ended the possibilities for SAW, IR, and projected capacitive (PCAP). Resistive would work, but the internal reflections from the touch surfaces made sunlight readable displays really hard to pull-off and the image quality is really lacking. Plus, no multi-touch certainly makes it difficult to zoom in on that school of fish cruising 50ft below you.
So, Touch Guy picked this question as a vehicle for (unabashed?) self-promotion of his new PCAP Plus. It works great in boats, in fact, that’s what we developed it for in the first place. Rain, salt-water, and spilled coffee (or beer) are ignored. You get your pretty picture from that high-end LCD back. Even better for any military guys out there, now you can clamp down on that EMI so the display will not be a beacon for the bad guys missile (or maybe NSA spying). Right out of the box it passes both DO-160G and MIL spec 461. You retain the ease of multi-touch and get a system that will never wear out – whoa, you got it all. There is a small premium over standard p-cap, but PCAP Plus is a complete nautical touch display problem solver!!
Just remember the words of Robert Rose, “Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.”
-Touch Guy
