Using TFT 12v Flat Screens On Boats

Taken from Chris Caines @ PBA

"Before i start, please let me tell you that I am not an expert in this field, however if my experiences help, then that's great . . . . if you end up blowing yourselves up then I take no responsibility

This all came about when I decided that on my Chart Plotter, it would be a nice idea to use all latest C-Map Max Cartography and incorporate an AIS Engine in the display as well. The stumbling block was that I have a pair of Furuno Navnet 10 inch Colour Displays. Whats wrong with that? I tell you whats wrong with that . . . they are Navnet 1 and not Navnet 2 ! It seems that you can't display AIS or C-Map Max on the "old" Navnet screens

Solution . . . .buy a PC monitor or flat screen TV with PC input then buy the Seiwa Explorer 3 plotter module and then you can run the latest C-Map Max software and display real time AIS for under a grand including the Cartography. Brilliant thought yes . . and I get a 17" wide screen TV in the bargain

Most of the TFT screen monitors/TV's sold today are 12v, so you may think the simple answer is to cut off the 240v/12v transformer and hard-wire the screen to your boats 12 v supply (or through a dropper if you are on 24v) Before doing this, I decided to ask a few skippers, who I know had fitted them how they powered them, and that's where the fun started. One commercial skipper I had known had blown up two TFT screens by using the method described above and others had not experienced a problem . . .Strange! Another showed me his nice 17" TV/DVD screen where all the peoples faces were green! Alarm bells rang and I decided to do some digging on the Internet

I cam across a company called Amperor who told me this . . . . ..

TFT (Thin Film Transistors) are very susceptible to higher voltages than 12 volts and voltages of 13.8 volts and above cause damage to the thousand of TFT's that make up the picture on LCD TV's. The problem manifests itself in the loss of picture quality due to the loss of pixels on the screen that over a period becomes very noticeable. The voltage within the vehicles can vary between 10 and 15 volts depending upon the electrical loading of the 12 volt circuits and whether the batteries are being charged or not at the time. Amperors ADP-90DC-12 voltage stabilisers are designed to stabilise the 12 volt mark and will not let the voltage rise to anything near the point that cause damage to the TFT's





So if you find yourself wanting to power a domestic TV/Monitor, please do a little research first . . . . It could save you a lot of dosh"