I own a vehicle bought by my late father. The radio was Sirius Satellite, but it recieves terrestrial radio. It is not a touch screen, but the screen will show which station you are on, and AM or FM. The screen is not operational, generally, but when it is very cold it will turn on again. It is fully functional at 0 degrees fahreinheit. This never happens at warmer temperatures. What could be causing this? The radio itself works but it is impossible to change the station without the screen.
Electronics are a broad category and no generalized answer can really be supplied here. Sometimes yes and sometimes no.
The issue you’re describing is one with the old-school Liquid Crystal Displays. As you might guess, the liquid part of that display is going to be affected by below-freezing temperatures. Newer devices will be a bit more resistant than older ones as different formulations of the liquid matrix have been formulated. Long story short, the cold is making the fluid thicken and in some cases freeze, which makes it unable to react to the current being applied.
It works when it is freezing. It doesnt work at higher temperatures.
This is an LCD bias problem.
It generally happesns the other way - the LCD goes completely black in high temperatures. You must be lucky.
It is black at any temperatures above 0
That all makes sense but it is the opposite of my experience. This screen only turns on when it is wickedly cold
I misunderstood the OP. What you’re describing is weird. Heat can damage an LCD irreparably, and that might have been the case for you. But once heat damages an LCD to the point where it’s completely black that’s usually not something that reverts when cooled down. I don’t know the chemistry well enough to say if that’s impossible though.
I have been wondering if I have a semi-loose connection somewhere and the excessively cold temps make everything more rigid and secure, temporarily.
Does it only work when it’s subzero outside or in the car?
The heat is semi functional. So, I dont know. By that I mean warming the vehicles interior to a comfortable temperature is not something I have been able to do, when it is 0 degrees outside
How old is the vehicle? Perhaps more importantly, how many miles?
I have a 1999 Chrysler 300M (>235000 miles) whose climate control display can get, well, temperamental. Sometimes is it black, other times it works just fine. It is LED, not LCD. I have never had problems with it when it’s cold. I have found that pressing the right hand top corner will sometimes get it to work when it is warmer out.
I suspect with my car, some of the solder connections on it have cracked due to vibrations. I saw a thread about this problem on a 300M discussion board. The advice given in the thread was to remove the circuit board and take a soldering iron to each of the solder spots on the board. I haven’t done it yet, since it only really started getting bad last summer and has worked fine since.
2005, but only 66,000 miles.
How thoroughly have you tested the temperature hypothesis here? Does it start working every single time it gets cold and stop working every time it gets over a certain temperature?
My gut is that this is a bit of confirmation bias at play and temperature changes are a red herring.
It’s like this: when it is atrociously cold, the display turns on. With all due respect there is no confirmation bias. I am just saying what happens, and I have no idea why. I have not researched it in lab conditions, no.
How long has it been happening? What is atrociously cold? At what temp does it seem to revert to broken state? Do you want help or do you want to snipe?
I already said it is around 0 degrees fahreinheit that it works. And I am not sniping at anyone
Of course electronics is affected by cold temperatures. But usually, it has to get significantly colder than 0 C to see noticeable effects (for example, some transistors stop working around liquid nitrogen temperature). at 0, you usually don’t expect drastic changes in ciricuit behavior.
Two exceptions I can think of:
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Moisture. If there is moisture on the circuit board, the water can short out (or at least create a lower resistance path for some of the current) components and the circuit will stop working. If the board is frozen, the moisture becomes ice (and also has condensed) and the short may go away.
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Capacitors. Some capacitors may see significant changes, even shorting, when the temperature gets either very high or very low. At low temperatures, a capacitor that has gone bad may suddenly be back within range and the circuit starts working.
In case 1, you might be able to dry out the insides of the device. I don’t know.
In the second case, unless you can pull the boards and inspect them, you’re pretty much screwed.
This device works only at very cold temps. 0 F or less. Just wondering why that may be. Your #2 sounds plausible, thanks.
My mistake, I mentioned “freezing” as the point where the device was working. It is actually around 0 F that it works, I apologize for any confusion and thank you for your help. I meant freezing in the sense of “very cold”. My mistake.