Are LED letters really THAT expensive!!? *Job Finished*

[Dan Osterbery]

hi need to know scales!! to be able to help

[Gordon Jones]

I would not put LED’s on moulded letters, will not work, has to be built up to get the desired effect

[Robert Lambie]

are you talking moulded as in vacuum formed or built-up letters? as i doubt you will get a defuser in a moulded letter along with the led’s?

LED’s on moulded letters can be done, i have them in my daughters bedroom wall. but you do get spotting from the led’s.

cheapest way is to buy them in and install yourself, its not rocket science. 😀

[Gwaredd Steele]

Yes. Moulded (as in vacuum acrylic moulded) letter with white LED inside with pink perspex diffuser & stand-off locators.

Rob. Do you mean spotting on the substrate or through the front of the letter?

RE installing them myself, yes, that is the next logical step, but am concerned about spotting & not being able to make a diffuser insert myself (and I suspect that’s where the money is tbh)

Dan: Sizes are 11 No. @ 7", 2 No. @ 15" & 13 No. @ 12"

I did try to go down the built up route, but they prefer the style of the moulded 😕

[Gordon Jones]

Thats why I would not do it, the spotting is not ‘halo’, so why do it?

[Gwaredd Steele]

But would you get spotting with a diffuser? I’m guessing not, hence the price. Or do you mean spotting from through the front?

One other thing I thought of, was how well would LED rope work? Still get a spotting problem?

[Robert Lambie]

you do get an eliminate of spotting "through" the moulded letter.
to reduce this i sprayed the inside black and then white. still see it bleeding through a little.

moulded letters are too shallow. there for when the led is installed and their are raised on locators the led is not far enough away from the surface to allow the the lamps spread/glow to interlock with the others next to it creating a consistent glow. instead you have glow-narrow glow-glow-narrow glow in other words spotting. i just took a picture of the ones i have in my daughters room but for some reason my memory card reader wont read my card. 🙄
defuser helps spread the light and helps prevent the leds being seen reflecting in the surface of your sign panel which is also unattractive. regardless… i still think they are too close to get a nice consistent glow.
i still cant visualise there being space for a defuser but i am probably wrong if its being sold this way.

at the end of the day you will have to make a choice…
the cheaper option has to be doing it yourself, but if your inexperience and costs worries you. it maybe best to walk away!

.

[Gwaredd Steele]

Cheers Rob. Bottom line is, the customer has just said to me what he wants & get it done – no mention of price etc, but I feel this might be more than he ever envisaged! I think the best course of action after looking into every other way today, will be to go & see the customer & say, hey, this is going to be expensive, are you OK with that? My honesty might pay off either way. He’ll either say go for it, or no way, but thanks for the heads up.

I’ve still got the job, with or without LEDs, but I don’t want to do the job, present him with the bill & receive a phone call saying are you effing joking! :lol1:

I’ll give Accent signs a ring today & inquire about the spotting, as it is they who are recommending the pink diffuser in the moulded letter, as they know far more about it than I.

I’ll also get a price for perspex built ups with LEDs for comparison.

Cheers all,

Gwaredd.

[Gwaredd Steele]

OK, have done a lot of research on this today. I’ve also gone to see the customer who did indeed cough at the price, which is a bit of a shame. Especially as I found out the flooring cost him £5k & nobody will notice or be enticed into the shop by it, but the ruddy 40 foot sign is too expensive :lol1:

Anyway, I think I’ve come up with a solution that is a compromise between true quality & cost. Something I hate to do, but see what you think.

Coat the inside of the moulded letters with a similar colour vinyl to cut down on shine through the front & install LEDs into the reverse of the letters. Then, apply a matt vinyl text to the fascia in the same layout as the letters & then the moulded letters over the top. This will create a drop shadow effect in the daytime, & hopefully diffuse some of the LEDs lighting at night & reduce the spotting/reflection.

What do you think? Pre chosen layout/stationary, budget & time prevent me from doing it any other way.

We’ve both agreed that if the halo effect isn’t perfect by doing it this way, then depending how well the shop is doing this time next year (Rodney) we’ll do it the ‘proper’ way with built-ups & diffusers.

Regardless of the outcome, I’ll post a pic up when it’s all done. Hopefully someone will benefit from all this groundwork I’ve put in! 😛

Cheers,

Gwaredd.

[Peter Dee]

It would be a brave person to go ahead without quoting a price – especially as it turned out to be more than he would pay.

[Robert Lambie]

what colour is the backing board/panel and what colour are the moulded letters?

[Gwaredd Steele]

Fascia board is pantone 233 pink, as are the ,moulded letters, infill is an ivory vinyl, so the matt vinyl drop shadow would be ivory too with a red LED in the pink letter. Logo is flat cut perspex.

Would obviously prefer pink or white LEDs, but money has got so tight now, I’m watching every tenner on this job 🙄

Edited to add, here’s my poor attempt at photoshopping what it will hopefully look like-ish in reality, both day & night. Colours have gone skewiff on the pink for some reason, but the idea’s there.

[Gwaredd Steele]

quote Peter Dee:

It would be a brave person to go ahead without quoting a price – especially as it turned out to be more than he would pay.

Brave or stupid mate! :lol1:

[Gwaredd Steele]

Well, the job is finished & I think we got there in the end! At the last moment, the customer changed his mind from wanting red LEDs to white ones, so a mad dash up to Ashby signs was needed, & I also decided to paint the insides of the moulded letters with white acrylic paint in a bid to reduce the see through effect. If I had more time & money, I would have painted them black after this until virtually no light could come through. As it was, we didn’t, & only just had enough time to apply the white paint, so you do get a bit of bleed, which is a shame, but the effect when passing is brilliant & the customer is over the moon. The addition of mat vinyl as a diffuser to reduce spotting & reflection worked really well too.

As for wiring the LEDs, I decided to wire them in series & to do this I ran a length of cable from the transformer to the last letter, then took a spur off it onto each letter. I figured this would be better than running them in parallel as A) you only drill one hole for the wire at the top of the letter instead of one in & one out, & B) if one connection fails, it only takes out that letters lights rather than all (if the A failed for example) & this is easy to trace.

In hindsight, if I were to do this again, I’d go fret-cut with moulded letters & the LEDs in the tray rather than behind the letters, but seeing as the tray was in the paintshop when the customer decided to have LEDs after all, I guess hindsight would be of no use anyway:lol1:

Cheers for all the helpful suggestions with this. Here is the finished sign. 40′ x 26¼" aluminium sign tray with 60mm returns, wet coated pink with Avery 700 series vinyl cream infill, Mactac 8900 mat text under Accent signs pink moulded letters with Sloan V series white LEDs from Ashby.

Cheers,

Gwaredd.

[Paul Humble]

Looks good, nice and clean.