LCDs without bezels.

July 25, 2008 5:11 AM

Could an LCD display be made without a bezel ?

Could an LCD be manufactured without a bezel, even along only one side, which would mean we could buy smaller, cheaper ones and stick them together ?

I suspect they could ( and the manufacturers don't produce them like this because they would make less profit ), but maybe there is a technical reason they could not.

posted by godidog to computers & internet (9 answers total)

There has to be an electrical connection along at least two of the edges to grant access to all the rows and columns.
posted by Class Goat at 5:36 AM on July 25, 2008

also, you have to put the backlights somewhere
posted by jepler at 5:42 AM on July 25, 2008

yes, that is exactly how large panel arrays are built.
posted by b1tr0t at 6:48 AM on July 25, 2008

backlight yes, unless you use OLED tech. (Not really an answer to the question, but perhaps a glimpse to the future). Old Story ... Newer Story
posted by alcoth at 6:48 AM on July 25, 2008

Why can the electrical connection and backlight not be bent behind the edges ( at 90 degrees to the screen ) ?
posted by godidog at 7:10 AM on July 25, 2008

Of all the profit-motive conspiracy theories this has to be the strangest I've heard. Are you suggesting that manufacturers could, but aren't, making displays in small tiles that consumers would buy and somehow stack together and wire up themselves, then somehow get the multiplexing to work correctly, taking into account different phases and pixel densities, not to mention the difference between RGB color layout and the other options, and that the above would somehow be cheaper than the already incredibly cheap LCD screens available?
posted by odinsdream at 7:42 AM on July 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

The electrical connections can be bent around the edges, and they almost always are, I believe. Those add a few mm at most. But the backlight design I've seen uses lights shining into the edges of a monolithic glass layer that spreads the light evenly behind the LCD. To move those behind the screen would require some sort of prism or mirror system, entailing increased engineering and manufacturing costs and still needing some room on the edges. I have no doubt a backlight fully contained behind the screen is possible, but it would be much more expensive to produce than the small demand for such a thing would support.

I've never seen a large panel array without visible seams. Any seamless multi-display array I've seen has been done with projectors.
posted by whatnotever at 7:43 AM on July 25, 2008

Bending the backlight: You'd need either a prism(*) or mirror to do it, and it'd be lossy AND almost as big as the backlight, with the added bonus that some of it's loss would project in the same direction as the viewing surface.

Bending the connections: You'd either have to bend the glass and lay the patterns onto the bent surface (IIRC, they're printed on, which might be tricky.) or reheat the glass and bend it, which would probably FUBAR the patterns, or the chemicals that comprise them.

Taking this at it's inverse: Since a significant number of screens have to be thrown out because of manufacturing defects, wouldn't a manuf. that has to throw out less product to sell x sq.in. of screen do better(If the technical problems weren't overwhelming), and consequently have sufficient incentive to stand out in this ultra competitive market?
posted by Orb2069 at 7:59 AM on July 25, 2008

odinsdream : "would somehow be cheaper than the already incredibly cheap LCD screens available?"

Difficulty:
Twin displays are very easy to set up. Check the internet for details.

Cost:
2x15" displays = ~$300 (total)
1x30" display = ~$1200

And that's if you can remove ONE bezel.
posted by godidog at 5:38 AM on July 28, 2008