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Some questions from an LED newbie.
Hi,
I am working on a couple of LED test projects. I haven’t done this before so might ask obvious questions.
One is a small 1×0,5m sign (with an MDF plate back) And a bigger, 3.2×1.4m sign.The small sign is 15mm opal that is routed so that letter just has 3mm thick walls + 20 PVC foam face with a track routed for LEDs.
What kind of LEDs would you use in such a thin sign?
Most I find are supposed to be used with 40+mm channel letters. I have Lucoled BL10s in “L” and generic LED from a local shop cut and joined in “OS”.
Generic LEDs are not really viable, lots of work to bend them to follow the shape and they are still visible a bit.
I have covered the back of Opal with chrome vinyl to reflect more light.The bigger sign has letters with 35mm from the back end opal face. I used 21 Lucoled BL16 LEDs in “L” and I am happy with the result.
I used Lucoled BL10s in “C” and they had to be placed with just a 1cm gap to get an acceptable result (top of the “C”) If I increase the gaps LED become visible (bottom of the “C”).I also ordered SloanLED BendoLUX but it will take two weeks for those to be delivered.
Sloan LED has only 1 distributor in Norway. So another week l I will be able to test those. The LucoLED will come much much faster.Anyway, I calculated that I need 445 of the BL16s for the big sign, and that sounds awfully a lot.
Or is it normal to use hundreds and hundreds of LEDs in such a sign?
Would something like LucoFlex fit this kind of project better?
I have attached some photographs.Thanks and best wishes from Norway.
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4 Replies
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Hi Tomas
I have attached a photo of LEDs that I would suggest trying. They are very small and bright and are used for this type of sign/lettering. I have not got around to using mine at the moment, I only purchased them because I saw how well they worked in a sample of solid “LED acrylic” lettering. they were super bright and had no spotting.
I will take a photo of them tomorrow if I get a chance and respond again, here.I am not sure how quickly a delivery would be to your location and country, but it might be worth emailing Kahlid at Citi-LED and see if he is able to ship to you faster. The guys at CitiLED are very helpful and have helped me out numerous times with advice and products for different sign projects.
Click link: Citi-LED Website
email: sales@citi-led.co.uk
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Thank you Robert, looks like informative website, loved that you can filter by letter height.
Would be very nice to see wee LEDs in action 🙂
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I’ll second Rob’s recommendation for these specific LED’s, they work great in block acrylic letters – we’ve used these a few times
Cheers
Dave
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So that is normal to use hundreds of LEDs?
I tried spacing them according to the degree that manufacturer is stating, made a drawing with 160 degree angle, placed in virtual track with a decent overlap, measured the distance between LEDs but in reality that was not enough. Gaps are clearly visible.
So maybe this is wrong type of LED, maybe I should use neonflex type LED, with a diffuser?
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