LIGHTING Feature
Whether it’s neon, fluorescent, fibre optic or LED, each form of lighting has its own characteristics and advantages. Neon has been around the longest time of
these lighting methods and there are applications where neon is still favourite. LEDs are the fastest growing lighting solution in the sign trade today and they’re taking an increasing share of the market but many people still consider fluorescent as the best for performance and brightness for your money. It’s difficult to match the brightness of
fluorescent without high power LEDs, which means using more power, and because LEDs cost more initially, total cost rises. If you’re thinking about events where you’ve seen LEDs on show and you thought they looked incredibly bright; it could be that they’re being over-driven by power supplies to the LED just to make them super bright. That catches people’s attention in the short term but overdriving LEDs like this usually creates more heat and shortens the life of the LED. Put simply, LEDs are semiconductor devices that convert
electrical energy into a distinct colour of light. Red LED was invented first, more than 40 years ago, and other colours have been introduced over time. The development of high-brightness LEDs meant LEDs became suitable as sources of illumination and more than a decade ago they began to be used commercially in signage. More recently advances in materials and other technologies have seen LEDs really coming into their own. Compared to traditional lighting sources LEDs have several
advantages. Most notably they use less power than fluorescent but also there are no filaments to break, no moving parts and no glass
Lighting - a world of opportunity
Insight Sign Systems’ Highlight Mk4 with the three Lumirecent variations fitted (medium, Bright and Superbright) to show how clients can choose which is most important, Brightness or Economy or in-between.
components, so they’re virtually unbreakable. They generate very little heat, don’t contain heavy metals and can even emit a specific wavelength of light to colour match a sign. Generally LEDs are worth consideration in most applications where neon or fluorescent would previously have been the solution of choice, but both neon and fluorescent remain popular solutions
Neon - still shining brightly
One man who knows more than most about the traditional lighting method of neon is Steve Archer, Managing Director at Avenue Signs. He’s worked with neon for more than 20 years, and has been featured on television showing off his glass bending skills but he also supplies LED and fluorescent lighting both to the sign trade and direct to his customers. “Neon has declined a few years ago, but that decline has steadied out and now neon is about a third of our business,” says Steve. “I’ve done conversions from neon to LED several times but
LEDs aren’t always the answer. Recently for one restaurant chain, a manager got marked down because the assessor thought the lights on the signs weren’t working, but they just weren’t bright enough in daylight. I still believe neon is the best lighting solution in many different applications. It gives a very even illumination, there’s more range of colours, it’s very controllable and with the latest electronic programmers, you can have quite involved sequences of colour changes.” Steve also has a problem with the some of the claims for life expectancy of LEDs. “LEDs are promoted quite well but I feel that sometimes not
always fairly. People are very good at quoting life expectancy for LEDs but they haven’t been around long enough for these to be accurate whereas neon has been around long enough to know accurately how long it lasts,” says Steve.
LEDs - a growing force A neon sign from Avenue Signs showing multiple colours and good brightness.
Richard Rinn, Managing Director at Insight, is also wary of some of the assertions made about LEDs. Insight Sign Systems is a major supplier to the UK sign trade, the company was the innovator of Trough Lighting, bringing out the first ever made to measure extruded aluminium lighting system, Highlight, almost 30 years ago. Last year Insight replaced its two Highlight fluorescent profiles with one, named Highlight Mk4, which is was designed to suit its LED system, Lumirescent. Richard says: “I think LEDs are the future but we are all being rushed into using them to replace all other forms of lighting when in fact they are still a few years short of accurate testing to ensure they
64 Sign Update ISSUE 125 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010
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