Snowy Weather – is your Outdoor Digital Signage Protected?

With most of the UK suffering from wintry weather, snow bringing havoc to many parts of the country, there is a potential for many of the outdoor digital signs that adorn our high streets to fail as the temperatures drop below the safe operating level of the LCD or plasma screen.

The severe cold can have severe effects on an ill-protected digital signage. When temperatures drop, internal components inside an LCD can freeze, with any humidity or condensation expanding causing severe damage.

Most outdoor screens should be designed to withstand quite a range of temperatures but when it gets too low, even the most expensive outdoor TV can run into problems.

To provide real comprehensive cold weather protection, insulation, heaters and other systems need to be deployed. LCD enclosures are one of the simplest solutions for this type of protection.  The enclosure, that also offers waterproof and all-weather protection, has the space for all these temperature components.

Insulation can be used to maintain the internal temperature, as the screen itself will generate quite a bit of heat. But when temperatures really drop, heaters have to be used.

Commonly these are thermostatically controlled (otherwise the LCD will overheat when the temperatures rise) and switch on when the temperature gets below a certain level; switching off again when it rises.

LCD enclosures are used in all sorts of severe weather environments such as ski resorts, as they are a sure-fire method of ensuring the LCD screen will still function at sub-zero temperatures.

Another benefit of them is that they also have space for a media player of compact PC, used for uploading content, which will also benefit from the same level of protection as the screen.