TSI Touch’s New “DVLED Defender” Protects Big LED Displays From Otherwise Inevitable Damage
April 3, 2024 by Dave Haynes
Get up close to a lot of big LED displays and you’ll start to notice dead or missing pixels – the result at times of inadvertent or willful damage. These displays are the aggregate of many thousands of teeny light emitters that are inherently fragile and easily damaged.
Some newer technologies use epoxy glues to encapsulate the LEDs and offer a degree of protection against modest bumps, as well as moisture. But these Glue On Board solutions have their limits.
I was at an NBA game a few years ago … Miami or San Francisco, I forget which … and was shown a big and beautiful wall-mounted LED video wall that had just been lit up on a main arena concourse. My instant thought: “That thing is going to get the shit beat out of it, and probably in no time.”
The Glue On Board approach would be a start, but if a screen really needs protection, a whole other protective layer is probably the answer. Which leads me to an announcement by TSI Touch that has developed and is now marketing something called DVLED Defender.
It’s a wall-mounted metal frame made up of hinged acrylic panels, tied to a metal support structure. The heavy-duty acrylic panels are manufactured to the ASTMD256 standard (I have no idea what that is), and for large displays, the hinges allow the acrylic panels to fold and swing out of the way so that displays with front-access modules or cabinets are readily accessible.
The “Defender” integrates with existing set-ups. Versions start at 120-inches diagonal, and go up from there.
TSI Touch says the design was “extensively tested using computer simulations (FEA) and self-weight analysis” but what caught my attention was a staffer – a baseball pitcher in college – throwing strikes at the thing with a basketball.
The marketing doesn’t mention glare, which can be an issue in certain circumstances, often because of overhead lighting or windows.
I don’t think this is the sort of thing that would be in the standard kit of parts for most LED display jobs, but this tech is now very mainstreamed and showing up in all kinds of places. Costs have come down a lot but big LED displays still involve a big number to buy and deploy. If I was putting ad or marketing displays in places that see a lot of foot traffic, especially ones that see all kinds of different crowds and attitudes (like fans unhappy their team lost), I’d at least be thinking about a protective layer.
TSI already had a similar product for LCD video walls, and its core business is precision-fit touch overlays for displays … so this was already in the company’s wheelhouse.
The Defender is a great addition to the LG DVLED AIO series displays. The DVLED in the TSI video is our LG 136″ AIO LAEC015 1.5mm Display.