grumpyolman said:
I hunt in a rainy area of Washington with my ET. I have two of the Minelab covers made for the SE and they do fit on the ET. The problem is the miserable glare and inability to see through the plastic to verify on the screen what the sound is. It doesn't pour all the time but lots of time I need the cover because it's misty or it's just a light rain. What do others use?
Also, I am fearful I may scratch the screen as I find myself using lots of the buttons on the face.
I've been thinking about solving this problem off and on for a while now. I'm a design engineer and have worked with the same situation on portable electronics where there is a plastic switch membrane over an LCD. Typically the plastic is polycarbonate or polyester, and a selective texture is added around the LCD window area to give the plastic a texture everywhere except for the LCD. This helps to reduce the appearance of fingerprints and scratches everywhere except for the LCD.
The problem is that even if you covered the control housing with an anti-glare plastic cover (say velvet Lexan which is pre-textured polycarbonate), you wouldn't be able to see the LCD clearly because it would need to be right over the LCD. Even then it wouldn't be sharp.
If you could put a small piece of acrylic over just the LCD, it would have glare at just the right angle, but you could tilt the detector and be able to see the whole screen, much like you do without using any covers. The covers are all wavy and no matter where you tilt it it's giving off a glare. You can't cover the whole face with arcylic or you would not be able to press any buttons (there might be a tricky way to do it though... hmm).
So with one of your vinyl covers, you could potentially remove a square the size of the LCD, and then cut a slightly larger piece of 1/16" thick acrylic, and glue the acrylic on top of the vinyl. I'm not sure what type of glue you could use.
the other thing that might be possible is to use the same plastic coating they use on every other portable device to protect the screen... Invisible Shield or Best Skins Ever... I prefer BSE because they are much cheaper.
http://www.bestskinsever.com/servlet/the-24/DIY-Cut-To-Fit/Detail
This wouldn't make it rain resistant, but would help protect it and you should still be able to see the screen. I'm not sure about the glare though. I think there would still be some glare like the original LCD screen, but because it's flat it could be tipped and the glare would be gone.
grumpyolman said:
What's the danger of having some dirt on my thumb and running up the screen and putting a permanent scratch in it? I do have special cleaner that's used for aircraft plastic type windscreens and I use it with a really soft cloth to clean the screen.
The danger? High. Yes it would be very easy to scratch the screen. My advice, don't do it. Keep your grubby thumbs clear of the screen!
When I clean off my screen, I just use a paper towel with water and wipe all of the dirt off of the buttons, and then with a fresh wet PPT I'll wipe the screen gently just to clear the dust off it. So far no scratches, but I might try my idea #1 up there if a piece of acrylic in front of the LCD looks good. Maybe if contact cement or double sided clear tape was used, the "screen cover" could be replaceable.
