This may not be the most ideal forum to post into, but I figured since the MC crowd is always doing stuff with SSD's, you folks might be able to help me.
I've just finished building a motorcycle gear position indicator for my Honda motorcycle. It's based on a PIC16F88. The PIC compares wheel rotation to engine RPM, to derive the gear ratio, and then displays the gear number (1 thru 6) on a SSD.... Anyhow, I digress.
I took the motorcycle out for a spin the other day, with my newly constructed gear position indicator fitted to the bike. It worked great! Except for one little detail.... the seven segment display I'm using (I pulled out of my junk box) is plenty bright in the shade. But when I get into an environment where there is moderate-to-intense direct sun light, I can't see the display. I'm using 200 ohm current limiters, driving the display directly from the PIC, which is running on a 5V supply. I'm afraid to increase the current any more, for fear of destroying the PIC.
My question is... is there a source for an SSD that works well in direct sunlight? Also, I've built a small square enclosure for the red SSD, made of 1/8 in. red-tinted acrylic (see the attached picture), which I now have velcro'd to the side of my motorcycle's instrument cluster. Is it better to use red in this case? Or some other color?
Optimally, I'd like to use an SSD that's at least .8 in. tall, but anything between .5 in. and 1 in. should work.