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led lit facia sign, help please…
i’ve got a shop to re-do, i did it early last year, but they’ve decided to re-brand and change their corporate image, no bad thing as i’ve got to replace it all,
initially it was to be flat cut lettering on a long (3.9m x 260mm) facia, but oweing to the new logo, it would’ve been lost in the long thin space, so i suggested a stand off sign, to give it a bit more width, he then surprised me by saying they want to view it as an investment (wow… wish all customers thought this way) and he’s like it led lit.
now, he doesn’t want a run of the mill light box, and has left it to me to come up with something, the designs attached have been pretty much agreed,
i have the following questions.
1)
i plan to use either an opaque acrylic face, or clear and coated with transluscent white with the logo on top, either, again transluscent, or solid vinyl letters,which would be the best option ?
2)
the attached image of the end profile shows the acrylic face on 40-50mm stand-offs on an oversized white dibond panel,the white led’s will be mounted on the dibond facing forward to light the front panel, with a strip of something glued / riveted in place to keep the white light in, and the orange led’s will be facing rearward on the back of the front panel to give a halo effect around the sign, again, i plan to out something around the outside (but set in from the edge to hide it) to hide the orange led’s from view.
will this work ???
3) if this is all possible, where can i buy the led’s to suit, i have a handfull of brochures from sign uk, but to be honest, i’d rather go with a recommended supplier than ringing them all !
thanks for looking, and thnaks in advance for your replies !!
the full sign design is in the ai file, thanks for looking.
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23 Replies
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😮 😥 anyone ?
if i’m not making sense, please say so !
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Hugh, sorry for not responding. Your questions need a little thinking about and I have been a bit busy the last couple of days. Will have a think over the week-end if thats not to late, fishing tomorrow so that will give me a chance to think about a few things.
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thanks Martin,
any advice welcomed !
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Hi Hugh, I’ve no experience in this. Looks interesting though so I’ll await the finished photies!
Could you have a fret cut dibond tray with acrylic layed in all fitted over a panel holding the lights? That’s the closest thing I’ve got personal experience with but even this was only fitting as we bought it in and only added a few wee vinyl touches to it.
G
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hmmm, that’s actually given me a couple of ideas Gavin,
my main ‘unknown is how i can use the led’s, not used them before, and are the waterproof, the actual sign i think i can build with little trouble, though a see translucent front panel is the way to go,
ok people, a few more questions, but more specific.
for the front, transluscent panel, would i use a transluscent white acrylic panel, or, a clear panel, with trans’ white vinyl ? vinyl on front or rear of acrylic ? behind ?
are led’s waterproof ?
anyone use them ? recommend a good supplier ?
please ??/
thanks.
Hugh
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Hugh, use an opal acrylic for the front panel, will be much easier than trying to floodcoat clear and will probably disperse light better. Not sure about the LEDs but I wouldn’t think it makes to much difference as I would be inclined to try and prevent water ingress to any type of electrical fitting.
Thinking about it you might be better off using white LEDs or tubes for lighting the rear panel as well. The panel could be covered with orange vinyl to give the right colour, I think you will probably need to cover the rear panel with vinyl anyway as I am not sure orange LED’s on their own will give you a strong enough colour. Worth experimenting but orange LED’s shone on a white board may give you a washed out sort of colour.
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quote martin:Hugh, use an opal acrylic for the front panel, will be much easier than trying to floodcoat clear and will probably disperse light better. Not sure about the LEDs but I wouldn’t think it makes to much difference as I would be inclined to try and prevent water ingress to any type of electrical fitting.
thanks Martin, i was thinking the opal too, easier than flooding too! would you still make the lettering from translucent too ? i’m thinking that ‘i would’, but having not done this type of sign before, i don’t know what the norm is !
as for ingress, i’ll do my best to prevent ingress, my concern is that anything that touched the rear of the front, will cast a shadow, so i need to think carefully about how i go about this !
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Hugh, generally when I do lightboxes I use translucent vinyls which are generally not as glossy as normal vinyls, they are much more like a matt vinyl.
With it just being text and there being a large area of white panel visible you could quite easily use something like 751 though. Orange is quite a light colour so will still allow a lot of light through. I would get a sample of each and see how it looks. -
i see what you mean Martin, i’ll see what the customer wants to do.
cheers.
H -
Hugh,
As your intending I’m not sure the white light would blend into the orange light too much and dilute the effect. Could be wrong
As Martin says use an opal panel and I would say tubes rather than LED’s
mainly for cost but comes down to the size of the panel.
But thing is being waterproof , LED’s are not waterproof, although I believe there are some that are now.I’m no expert in this having used LED’s only a couple of times, these were bought from Ashby. They were not the strip ones as you have shown, I think thay would be an expensive option to illuminate the panel.
I would use transluscent vinyl for lettering, but worth experimenting, and remember the back Dibond panel must be a matt finish to avoid spotting of the LED’s.
It’s a difficult one, I’d like to think there are some LED experts who can offer some concrete advice.
Alternativly I would give Ashby a call, they have some good people there that can offer advice on LED lighting.
Hope this is of some help
😕
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thank you martin, i’ll have a think on my options.
Hugh
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looks like it will work but you need a way to stop the orange L.E.D s from spotting on the di-bond the more matt the surface the better but i think you may have a few problems, you would do best to do a test first.
RICH -
perhaps a neon tube around the outside (hidden) for the orange glow is the answer ? someone on here does them i think, anyone know who that is so i can get a price ?
ta.
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SMP have been advertising water proof leds otherwise try Dave at Master Products he may have something for you 01245 326020
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thank you Paul. I’ll call them both in the morning,
Hugh
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thanks Paul,
looks like dave will be able to sort me out, they do a product called ledeon, looks like neon when installed, the light is all diffused too, will see if the customer wants to go ahead with it as soon as i get the full price, i think it’s going to be a bit experimental though, it’s not necessarily designed to be used as i’m planning.
thanks again.
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mod-edit 2 see board rules :police3:
continual disregard for board rules will result in your account being deactivated.Whoops Sorry 🙂 Wont happen again
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Hugh, pleased to see you’ve made some progress with this. I’ve contacted Dave several times and have been to his showroom / workshop and seen some of his wares. I’ve several contracts waiting for advertising consent which should then use some of these leds in a flexible tube.
If this all goes ahead for you, be sure to post some pics so we can see how you got on.
Cheers, Paul.
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cheers Paul, you’ve just reminded me to chase him up, he was great on the phone, and sent me an email next day with the formal quote on it, except it was empty so i had nowt to work on, have emailed back, and tried calling, to no avail, will call him again now !
ledeon is the led’s in a tube i think, neon substitute i’m led to believe.
cheers.
Hugh
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I’ve looked at the pictures you’ve posted and if I was going to do this job I’d get an aluminium box fabricated.
If your scale is correct then the sign would be roughly 300mm x 1250mm. Get a box and capping fabricated with rounded corners and get it coated in orange. The capping would give you the orange border leaving you with an opal panel with text on it. The sign could be illuminated with 2 4′ tubes, making the whole job easy and cost effective. -
thanks for the advice Nik, i offered a light box to begin with, but the customer wants "different", it’s around 1500×400 iirc, i think it’ll work, it’s a bit of an unknown as no-one seems to do anything like this,
have done him a deal for the components, on the understanding that the over-all result might not be what he wants, ie, its all experimental !
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Only reason I mentioned an ally box was because of the strips that your planning to use to hide the L.E.D.s. These strips would have to be flush with the edge of the panel in order to illuminate the whole face panel. This would then look like a box.
Could you not use an opal-faced panel with 50mm white returns and a clear backtray? You could vinyl the backtray orange and then just use white L.E.D.s inside. You would have to fix some of the L.E.D.s to the return in order to get a better halo effect. -
to be honest Nik, this is new to me (lights), so i’m kind of playing by ear, simply taking elements of what i think will work,
the led’s i’m going to use are called ‘ledeon’. a neon alternative. the orange was going to be sunk back slightly to avoid being seen from more than 45°, the idea of the internal bits was to prevent the white light bleeding into the orange,
so the orange is only to illuminate the rear 50mm or so surround, and the white to illuminate forwards, the led light is already diffused within the tube it sits in.
the customer also wants to avoid mains electric (ie a sparky and more cost).
all that said, i’m happy to listen to advice, and offer alternatives to the customer (though i think he’s set on this…. more his idea than mine initially),
as i’m not familiar with light boxes in general, it’s hard for me to envisage what you’re explaining to me, so please don’t think i’m being arrogant toward your suggestions, i just don’t really know what you’re talking about !!
thanks.
Hugh
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