When changing LED tiles in screens that are located in urban areas, it’s easy to see how polluted the environment we live in can be. Dirt, dust and construction ash all tend to accumulate on the LED screen faces and you may wonder why this doesn’t have more of a detrimental effect on the viewing characteristics. One of the main reasons this grime isn’t a problem is due to the nature of the shaders, also known as louvers, on the front of the LED screen.
The shaders stick out horizontally from the face of the screen and are designed to block the sunlight and place the LED pixel into a darker area of plastic, hence improving in the video picture. A side-effect of this is that it is generally the upper face of the shader that catches the dirt and grime from the urban fallout. Viewers on the other hand tend to sit below the LED screens and look up at the display. From this angle the viewer will see the underside of the shader (generally much cleaner than the top side).
Having a universal layer of grime is can be useful, but you only notice that the tile is particularly dirty when its placed beside a clean fresh tile and in some installations it’s even been known to the spares kit to be stored outside so the spare tiles weather at the same rate as the tiles in the screen.
So in summary while a bit of dirt can be a good thing, it’s also worthwhile having a regular maintenance programme in place to make sure that your screen is kept in pristine condition.