Musicbox Complete

[img src="00543--1--dsc07274-blue-lcd--20040520-0314.jpg" width=500 height=375 align=left clear=all]

Ever since I first put the system into my car over a year ago, I’ve been looking for an LCD just like the one I had, except in blue, to match my car’s panel lights.  I searched and searched and searched for literally a year, and couldn’t find one anywhere that matched the specs I needed (4x40 characters, parallel data bus, blue backlight).  Which made no sense, because everybody was selling that in green, and everybody was selling 4x20s in blue.

Finally about 2 months ago, I sent out a mass email to about 8 LCD manufacturers asking why I couldn’t find one.  Some never replied, some said their equipment wasn’t tooled for that, one said it’d cost $15,000 to develop such an LCD.  Then, crystalfontz replied and said they could make one for me for about $50 (about the same as a green one, which is what I hoped and figured it should be).  They just needed 6 weeks of lead time.  Well after a year, 6 weeks was no problem : )

I’ll have a full photo set soon, with in-car shots, etc.  I’m having trouble getting the photos to come out right, though.  It looks pretty much like you see here, except the blue is deeper, and the white is brighter.  The problem is, if I close the lens further / snap the shutter faster to make the blue appear deeper, then the white gets darker.  If I adjust for brighter white, the blue gets washed out.  I’ve taken almost 100 shots at various combinations and can’t get it to come out quite right yet.  (This photo is about right, though.)