Car backlight of dashboard

Slacor

2010 Toyota Camry

It appears the dashboard backlight are also potential sources of PWM 🙁

(Slowed down to show the flicker - not visible with naked eye)
Dashboard flickering backlight
Flickering radio backlight

This only occurs when the headlights are on and the lights are "dimmed"

JTL

Slacor Which model car.

I know all Tesla lights flicker quite bad, headlights, indicator lights. Shame because it's such an expensive car 😛

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYJqej_ER2E

Slacor

JTL Toyota Camry

Gurm it's impossible to turn the screens off. I ended up buying a dark yellow tinting film (the kind you put on white outdoor lights to turn them yellow)

Yeah, I examined the entire 550 page manual to see if I could turn off the lights, no good.
I'll have to trial that. Where did you get the film?

KM

For me it's unpleasant to sit in modern cars, even in passenger seats. The LEDs are always on and hurt my eyes. So driving will soon become impossible. If at any time they decide to replace all street lights with LEDs, I probably can't even walk anymore.

Gurm

My 2014 Ford Fusion Hybrid uses HEAVY PWM/FRC on the dash backlights. And it's impossible to turn the screens off. I ended up buying a dark yellow tinting film (the kind you put on white outdoor lights to turn them yellow) and that helped a lot. It's interesting to note that the non-hybrid doesn't have this problem. And not all screens are bad - the lights in a brand new Subaru are fine.

Gurm

Slacor Amazon. It was advertised as headlight tint. Here's a link:

www. amazon. com/gp/product/B00JXW0S5S/

You can also get dark glass window tint (black/grey) at any auto parts store.

Slacor

Gurm You can also get dark glass window tint (black/grey) at any auto parts store.

I ended up purchasing some cardstock + dark window tint and designed a dashboard cover with exposed areas of vital parts (speedometer, etc) dimmed with the tint. This has "solved" it for me for now. 😥

Slacor

I find it very interesting that something that seems like it would make it worse (since yellow tends to help you see it easier and the issue is flickering), helps.
After all, the whole screen turns off and on again - something a tint wouldn't fix.

I'm not being skeptical by the way, just trying to figure out why it works for you.
Perhaps because it's blocking a certain color (like blue) from being transmitted via PWM? I'll try yellow myself to see what happens (versus just a darker tint). 👍

Gurm

Slacor Well I don't have a huge PWM problem. My problem is dithering and blue light. It does still bug me a little - on long road trips or drives with a lot of glare I cover the LCD entirely with a piece of cardboard - but it is much improved.

MagnuM

I had to do similar with the new Spirit Elliptical trainer I recently bought. Although the instruction manual claims it's an LCD screen, the backlight is SO BRIGHT! What's worse is that you can't control the brightness at all! I looked throughout the entire manual.

And so, as silly as it sounds, I have a thick envelope on top of the magazine holder to block that harsh light, lifting it every so often to check my time remaining. It only takes a few seconds for my eyes to ache like crazy looking at that crazy bright backlight!

Gurm

Oh man MagnuM, I thought you knew what LCD meant. It is in fact an LCD screen, it just has a stupid powerful backlight behind it (likely an LED).

All flat screens, except AMOLED, are LCD with some kind of backlighting. Whether that backlight is a halogen bulb, CCFL array, or LED grid they all use LCD (liquid Crystal) to actually make the images.

MagnuM

Gurm No I do know that. It's just that I know a lot of people don't. In Best Buy, they had LCD TVs, and then they had LED TVs. They weren't talking about the actual screens, but more of the backlight used to light the pixels. I'm well aware. I just wasn't sure what the heck was lighting up this elliptical screen, but like you said, it's likely a super bright LED sigh