autohelm instruments go dull!

[herdman]

I have an autohelm depth display and a log display above my companionway but both the display on both of them suddenly decided to go very dull. Can not work out what it is - now very difficult to read them - nb looks same at night when they are illuminated. I can JUST make out what they say but its very difficult. The odd thing is that they both went at the same time - i would have thought something like ths was a problem with the screen - but the fact that both have gone is v weird (nb they still do work - its just the ability to read them...). Any thoughts much appreciated...

 

[KenMcCulloch]

I understand this may be caused by moisture penetrating the LCD display and that some success has been reported with putting the instrument heads in a warm oven for a while.

 

[Pye_End]

You weren't wearing polaroid sunglasses by any chance?

 

[jerryat]

Silly question perhaps, but is there anyway you could have 'adjusted' the brightness/contrast accidentally? If they're linked (don't know which model/range you have) it could have been altered from a multi-fucntion unit below or on the instrument heads themselves.

Just sounds too much of a coincidence for both to 'go' at the same time.

 

[Alcyone]

Battery voltage? Do they have a low power switchover mode?

 

[hightech]

The polarising film on the LCD has bleached out. New displays are the only real fix, but possibly not available if the units are older versions.