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Has Casio changed the way they do the backlight?

7K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  nabiul 
#1 ·
The newer prw3000 model I just got seems to have two very visible led's lighting up the face where other models I have look more electroluminescent.
 
#2 ·
If I'm reading your question right, "yes, Casio has started using LEDs to illuminate the faces of some of their newer models such as the PRW3000, GD-350, and GW-9400." Most of their other (and older) models used their blue-green electroluminescent panel to light the display from the back.
 
#5 ·
Like Rocat said, it's the battery factor. EL uses a lot more energy then a LED. You can easily drain the entire watch battery by pressing the EL button repeatedly. The other two factors are manufacturing cost and environmental cost. EL used in a wrist watch is usually a layer of powder zinc sulfide with copper. The material illuminates with high voltage electricity. Since the common watch battery only provides about 3V of voltage, it needs a converter to increase the voltage before able to activate the EL. Some watches you can actually hear this process as a high pitch noise. As you can see, you need chemicals, you need to construct a layer of EL the same size as the display, and you need also circuitry for up-converting the voltage. With an LED is a lot simpler, just need electricity in regular voltage, put it in the corner of the display, done!

With that said however, EL is a lot more pleasant to the eyes! It provides an even illumination throughout the entire display. LED however, a lot of time gives uneven lighting to the display. Some cheaper Casio watches for example, you can see one corner of the display is a lot brighter than the others, because that's where the LED light is located.
 
#6 ·
Also want to add, years ago there used to be a few models of Casio watches that had EL on an analog face. They're either discontinued or harder to find. Casio don't seem make any new models analog EL watch any more. One guess is that they went into some patent infringement issues with Timex (Indiglo), which has the largest collection of EL analog watches.

Like I said in my previous post, EL is a lot more pleasant to the eyes. I hope Casio will continue using that on digital and analog watches, continue to perfect that technology rather than going backward with LEDs!
 
#7 ·
Ah, interesting. Thanks for the info, watch_geek2014!

Personally I prefer the bright white LED light to the green EL light, even if the lux isn't evenly spread. But that's just my preference.
 
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