[TenTec] Orion LCD screen darkening

[Ken Brown]

Hi all,

I am not an Orion owner, nor have I had the opportunity to operate one. 
However I have read a lot of the posts regarding various virtues and 
faults in the Orion. The "screen darkening" has been mentioned often 
enough in unemotional postings, that I believe it is a problem that 
really exists in many of the Orions. I have seen the addition of a fan 
mentioned as a cure for this problem. Since the darkening is not uniform 
across the whole display, it occurs to me that the cause of the problem 
is not only excessive heat, but also non-uniform temperature across the 
display. I wonder if either instead of or in addition to adding a fan, 
it might be worth while to place a highly heat conductive plate behind 
the LCD panel. The plate would conduct heat such that the temperature 
would be more uniform across the back of the display. Some insulation on 
the opposite (from the display) side of the conductive plate might help 
also. This could simply be a piece of copper clad printed circuit board 
material, with dimensions equal or larger than the display panel. If it 
is single sided PCB material the copper side would be closest to the 
display panel. Maybe double sided would be even better. Since I have 
never seen an Orion, I do not know whether there is room for such a 
plate, or an easy way to attach it to the back of the display. Just a 
suggestion.

DE N6KB