With no Wi-Fi on the truck, choose a player that keeps the whole show on a memory card or USB stick and plays it offline. Size the panel to the menu's reading distance, run H.264 MP4 and JPG or PNG files, hang it portrait, and feed it 12 V from the house battery. Updates become a card swap, and there is no subscription.
A menu board in a food truck has to play with no Wi-Fi, run from the truck's own power, and hang portrait by the serving window. That points to one kind of setup: a player that keeps the whole show on a memory card or USB stick and plays it offline, updated by swapping the card. This page gives the decision, the numbers that size the screen and the power feed, and the update routine. The basics of matching a screen to a menu are in the digital menu boards guide.
The answer: keep the show on the card
For a truck with no Wi-Fi, choose playback that reads everything from local storage. A player that loops the show from a card needs no network to play, and a card swap updates it with no network either. Nothing is hosted, so there is no subscription.
Two hardware shapes do this. An all-in-one display with card playback built in is one box and one power lead: our card-based menu board panels play images and video from microSD or USB with no software subscription, up to 23.8 inches, portrait or landscape. A small offline player box with HDMI output feeding any panel is the other shape, and it is the way to go when the truck needs a screen size or a mount the all-in-ones do not cover.
A general-purpose single-board computer can do the job too, but it adds setup and upkeep for the same result. A player built for signage loops the show and brings it back at power-on without help, and rotating to portrait is a setting; running a digital signage player on a single board computer lays out what that build takes.
What decides the choice
- Where the show lives. Ask any candidate one question: does it loop the playlist straight from the card or USB stick with no network connected? If playing needs a cloud account, it is the wrong shape for this truck.
- Portrait. Truck menus hang portrait. On our panels, rotation is one setting, so the same unit hangs either way. If the resolution a portrait player reports looks wrong, why a portrait signage player reports 720p framebuffer resolution explains what you are seeing.
- File formats. Encode video as H.264 MP4 at Full HD; that codec plays everywhere and the decoders are built for it. Keep stills as JPG, PNG or WebP. Animated GIF, PowerPoint and PDF do not play, so export slides to video for anything animated, and test the video bitrate before you deploy so the loop does not stutter.
- Power. Most food trucks run a 12 V house system; heavy trucks run 24 V. Our panels accept 12 to 36 V DC, so they feed straight off either. The published static draw is 18 W per panel, which is 1.5 A at 12 V.
- Hours per day. Plan around how many hours a day the screen is on; we publish no duty-cycle rating for these units. Set a daily on time and off time in the player, or switch the feed with the truck's master switch. Outside the set hours the screen shows black at minimum brightness, because the app cannot switch the backlight off.
- Where it sits. Behind a service window in direct sun, order the sunlight-readable brightness option. The panel is not rated for outdoor use, so it mounts inside the truck.
The options for a truck with no Wi-Fi
| Route | What it is | How you update it | Ongoing cost | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Card-based all-in-one display | Signage panel with microSD or USB playback built in, portrait by one setting | Walk up with a new card | None | One box and one power lead will do, up to 23.8 inches |
| Offline player box plus panel | Small player with HDMI output, show on its own card, into any screen | Swap the player's card | None | You need a screen size or mount the all-in-ones do not cover |
| Cloud player with cached show | Show downloaded once, cached on the player, plays offline | Briefly connect a phone hotspot or shop Wi-Fi | Usually a monthly subscription | The menu changes weekly or more |
| TV's built-in USB playback | A consumer TV reading pictures and clips from a stick | Re-plug the stick | None | Pictures only, and a bare slideshow loop is enough |
| Single-board computer build | General SBC running signage software from its own card | Copy files or re-image the card | None | You want to maintain the box yourself |
Two routes need a second look. A streaming stick mostly wants the network in order to play, which is exactly what this truck lacks; streaming stick or dedicated digital signage player draws that line. A consumer TV in portrait varies by model, and using a TV in portrait orientation for signage lists what to check before you buy one.
Recommendation: Put the whole show on a memory card and let the display play it offline. Order an all-in-one card-based panel up to 23.8 inches if that size fits the serving window, or an offline player box into a larger quoted panel if it does not. Encode H.264 MP4 video and JPG or PNG stills, set portrait once, feed 12 V from the house battery through a fused lead, and make every update a card swap. Choose a cloud player with a cached show only if the menu changes weekly or more and someone can hold a phone hotspot to the truck.
Scenario: a portrait menu board behind the serving window
The truck sells coffee and rolls. The menu hangs portrait inside, and the queue reads it from 10 ft. The FHWA planning figure is 30 ft of viewing distance per inch of letter height, with 20 ft per inch the safer choice for fast reading. At 20 ft per inch, 10 ft ÷ 20 = 0.5 in capitals. The FHWA figure alone would allow 10 ft ÷ 30 = 0.33 in; design to 0.5 in and the type reads comfortably for a queue that is moving.
Take a 15.6-inch 16:9 panel in portrait. Its picture stands about 13.6 in tall (15.6 × 0.872, the 16:9 height factor), so the 1920 vertical pixels give 1920 ÷ 13.6 ≈ 141 px per inch. Capitals of 0.5 in are 141 × 0.5 ≈ 70 px. Line spacing is 1.7 × capital height, so one menu line is 1.7 × 70 ≈ 120 px, and the column holds 1920 ÷ 120 = 16 lines. That is a header, eight items with prices, and three lines of hours or social handles. A bigger panel adds lines in the same proportion.
Power: the static draw is 18 W and service runs 10 hours a day, so 18 W × 10 h = 180 Wh. From a 12 V house battery that is 180 ÷ 12 = 15 Ah, which is 15% of a 100 Ah battery. A second screen doubles it to 30 Ah and 30%. Refrigeration is usually the bigger load on a food truck and carries its own sizing math, covered in sizing mobile food truck refrigeration power and capacity.
Updating the menu without a network
The routine: build the new show on a computer, write it to a card, carry the card to the truck, swap it. On our panels, a hidden PIN-protected staff menu reloads a card without opening the case, so the swap needs no tools and can happen between customers.
Watch the write. A card pulled out mid-copy can leave a truncated MP4, and a truncated file fails on the truck where you cannot fix it. Let the writing tool finish and eject the card properly; if a card does come out damaged, recovering a truncated MP4 file on Windows walks through it. A writing tool that reads every file back after the copy catches a bad write at the desk, before the card ever leaves it.
Cloud players update the other way: park where a phone hotspot or the venue's Wi-Fi reaches, connect, and the player pulls the new show and keeps playing its cached copy offline until the next change. That works, but it ties every update to wherever the truck can get a signal.
When a card player is the wrong choice
- The menu changes daily. Prices, sold-out items, daily specials: a cloud menu you edit from a phone fits better, provided the truck reaches a network often enough for changes to land.
- The board needs more than 23.8 inches. The card-based panels stop there. The current wall range goes larger, quoted per project, and the quote confirms software, orientation, power and warranty; see the display range.
- Two or more screens must stay in step. One canvas across several panels is a sync question, and how to sync three menu board screens side by side compares the ways to do it.
- You want to push changes while the truck rolls. That needs connectivity in the truck, which a card player never uses. Wire the truck for a hotspot first, then revisit the player choice.
What to ask for before you buy
- Playback: does it loop the show from the card with no network; does it keep an internal copy so the show carries on if the card comes out; does it come back by itself after a power cut?
- Portrait: does rotation survive a power cycle, and what resolution does it report once rotated?
- Formats: H.264 MP4 decode at Full HD; JPG, PNG and WebP stills.
- Electrical: DC input range and connector type, whether an AC adapter is included or the input is wired directly, and a fused 12 V lead.
- Mechanical: outside and cut-out dimensions if the panel sits flush in a counter or wall, the VESA pattern if it hangs on an arm.
- Paperwork: lead time and warranty confirmed in the quote.
Making the show for the card
Any design tool works, as long as it hands the player finished JPG, PNG or WebP pictures and H.264 MP4 video. If the menu already lives as a print PDF, make the PDF menu screen-ready first.
To go from a blank page to a written card in one place, IMD Signage Studio does it on a Windows 10 or 11 PC. It is free, with no subscription and no account. It starts from three picture questions and ready-made slides, a menu among them, with your own words typed over. Watch it plays the show with its real timings before you commit. Writing the card reads every file back and checks each one, and the card is made safe to take out. It makes shows for IMD Signage displays running IMD Signage Player 1.1.0 or newer, and a video the screen cannot play is converted on the computer to H.264 MP4, at most Full HD and 30 frames a second.
Questions
Can the screen run on the truck's 12 V supply?
Yes on the card-based panels: they accept 12 to 36 V DC. Power is wired through the DC terminal adapter in the box, and the AC adapter is sold separately, so a 12 V feed uses that terminal adapter. Run a fused lead from the house battery with the fuse close to the battery, and switch it with the truck's master switch. Count on about 1.5 A per panel at 12 V from the 18 W static draw.
What happens when the truck's power is cut at closing time?
The show comes back without anyone touching it. Set up as the home app, the player brings the show up full screen at power-on, with no launcher and no keyboard. If the app itself stops, it is designed to start again within seconds and go back to playing. What this page describes is how the software is designed to behave. It has been tested on the Android 12 emulator, and testing on a real unit is pending.
How much card space does a menu loop need?
Stills are small; video sets the size. Full HD H.264 at 8 Mbps is about 3.6 GB per hour, so a 32 GB card holds roughly nine hours of video. A menu loop is mostly stills with maybe one 30-second clip, so even a modest card carries it with room to spare. Keep the whole loop inside that budget and re-use the same card for every update.
Does the menu board need sound?
Videos play muted unless you turn sound on in the player's settings. Most trucks leave it that way, since a service window is a noisy place. If you do want sound, the units have audio in and out among their ports, so the panel can feed the truck's own speaker system.
Planning information, not legal or engineering advice. Rules differ by place: check codes and permits with your local authority and your licensed trades.