TURN-KEY
Sign Design, Sign Manufacturing, Sign Installation, and
Sign Service
A
Brighter Future...Using Less Energy™
Signs Manufacturing™ incorporates a patent pending
high-tech design into our unique new-look concept.
PinLights™ LED first-surface lighting systems feature
SolarBrite™ LEDs that are optically enhanced to appear
larger.
Cabinet signs with color graphics and PinLights™ LED
first-surface lighting is a hands-down winner.
No other face-decorated cabinet sign incorporates direct
lighting. And when compared to incandescent lighting
or fluorescent back-lighted cabinet signs it is
better-looking, cheaper, lasts longer, and uses less energy.
The US Small Business Administration (SBA) says that an
electronic message center will increase a store's volume 15
to 150%.
The attribute that makes LED Electronic Message Centers so
effective is that they use light to attract attention during
the day.
"That's beautiful!" - Emily Wright, Chit Chat
Restaurant, after seeing her new sign in our warehouse
before installation.
This is the only other sign face that can do so.
With LED first-surface
lighting, again like electronic message centers, you
determine the daytime brightness of your sign by the
density, colors, and patterns of lighting you choose.
PinLights™ gives you choices, unlike all other forms of
lighting.
PinLights™ can also comply with many cities bans on
flashing lights, which causes electronic message centers to
be banned or severely restricted, or they can flash or
twinkle (in multiple or varying colors.)
But at a minimum the decorated sign face is comparable to a
traditional back-lighted sign face when not lighted.
In other words, a PinLights™ sign will always look better,
and attract more attention, than any cabinet sign ever built
previously; and...it can cost about the same to purchase,
but use less energy.
Many companies manufacture LEDs. There are over
5,000 varied LEDs available, and they vary greatly as to
brightness, lux, light-dispersal (viewing) angle, useful
lifetime, and lifetime.
Some are very cheap, some are quite expensive.
Signs Manufacturing™ only uses SolarBrite™ LEDs that are
rated to retain 80% of their brightness for 60,000+
hours. These are the most expensive, but highest
value, conventional LEDs. Our selection of LEDs is
what makes our signs brighter, and last longer.
As
an example, a White SolarBrite™ LED is 280 lux, compared to
our BrighterSigns™ neon's 235 lux, or standard neon's 140
lux. "Lux" is the candle-power of light shining on a
surface.
However, with visible light sources "nits" are more
important than "lux." As explained below, Signs
Manufacturing Corporation's SolarBrite™ LEDs are 8,000 to
13,000 nits, depending on color.
A
SolarBrite™ LED incorporates a new kind of chip, different
from all other LEDs.
Signs Manufacturing™ is an industry leader in the
implementation of new technology in advertising.
SolarBrite™ LEDs utilize military specification coatings
on the circuit boards the LEDs are attached to, preventing
corrosion and electrical problems.
Like neon, LEDs are also affected by voltage. For
instance, an LED will also burn nearly 100% brighter if you
double the power feeding it. The LED will last about
1/6 as long, however, making this alternative quite
expensive in total cost.
We
power our SolarBrite™ LEDs properly.
SolarBrite™ PinLights™ LEDs are available in 5 fixed
colors (Red, Green, Blue, White and Yellow) or as
multi-color infinitely-variable individual lights featuring
65,000,000 colors.
Unlike virtually every other LED sign currently
manufactured, each individual PinLights™ LED is
independently serviceable.
And if a single LED does fail all of the other LEDs still
light. Our wiring is in parallel, not in series.
In most instances PinLights™ LED first-surface lighting
systems can be retrofitted to existing internally lighted
cabinet signs, pole signs and pylon signs, or Monument
signs.
What is Binning?
ALL
LED lamp production is binned,
grouped with LEDs with similar properties, 3 different
ways: color, flux (brightness), and forward voltage
(the minimum voltage the LED will operate at, using a
specified minimum operating current.) All 3 vary in
even a single wafer’s production, so binning is critical.
LED
“binning” is controlled by an ANSI minimum standard: ANSI
C78 377A. SolarBrite™ LEDs are binned to much
tighter standards, however, which is allowed.
If
a competitor BRAGS that their product is binned, they are
probably warning you that they will not be able to match
color and brightness later, when replacement parts are
needed, because their sign’s individual LED color and flux
is not adjustable.
The SolarBrite™ LongLife™ LED System
An operating
LED is a direct electrical short; it will consume all the
current fed to it; destroying both it and its power
source. However, an LED has a rather-constant voltage
drop when operating. A current-limiting resistor is
placed in-line with LEDs to restrict the forward current.
Remember that
each LED consumes differing amounts of electricity to
operate, which is partially why they were binned
(above.) Forward
voltage even varies based on the color of light produced by
an LED. We obviously must supply enough voltage to
meet the highest forward voltage requirement.
Therefore each resistor is also sized to consume the
potential over-supply of voltage from the power source
feeding all the LEDs.
Done
properly, this double-protection lengthens the life of LEDs
(reduces heat-generation.) This is a critical part of
the SolarBrite™ LongLife™ System.
Solar Powered Energy
Saving Signs
PinLights™ Cabinet signs can be
economically directly solar powered, without even using an
energy-robbing inverter, saving you even more!
They are the
only major business sign that can.
You are
saving much more than just energy, and money.
Energy-Saving ™ PinLights™ Signs
PinLights™ consume 0.1 watt per light at 5 volts DC!
One thousand lights left on 8 hours per day for 365 days
will use $4.01 in electricity.
"That's beautiful!"
Emily Wright, Chit Chat Restaurant, upon seeing her new sign in our warehouse
before installation.
Click
to Enlarge.
Patents
Pending
UL or ETL listed Sign Component
Underwriters Laboratories has evaluated PinLights™ and they have been
approved for use in outdoor, damp and wet location signs.
UL Approval #E345252.
Ours are the only approved individual LED first-surface
lighting products.
As the manufacturer we are very proud of this.
What are LEDs?
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that
emits incoherent monochromatic light when electrically
biased in the forward direction. This effect is a form of
electroluminescence. The color depends on the semiconducting
material used, and can be near-ultraviolet, visible or
infrared.
A LED is a special type of semiconductor diode. Like a
normal diode, it consists of a chip of semiconducting
material impregnated, or doped, with impurities to create a
structure called a pn junction. Charge-carriers (electrons
and holes) are created by an electric current passing
through the junction, and release energy in the form of
photons as they recombine. The wavelength of the light, and
therefore its color, depends on the band gap energy of the
materials forming the pn junction. A normal diode, typically
made of silicon or germanium, emits invisible far-infrared
light, but the materials used for a LED have band gap
energies corresponding to near-infrared, visible or
near-ultraviolet light.
Unlike incandescent bulbs, which can operate with either AC
or DC, LEDs require a DC supply of the correct polarity.
When the voltage across the pn junction is in the correct
direction, a significant current flows and the device is
said to be forward biased. The voltage across the LED in
this case is fixed for a given LED and is proportional to
the energy of the emitted photons. If the voltage is of the
wrong polarity, the device is said to be reverse biased,
very little current flows, and no light is emitted.
Conventional LEDs are made of inorganic minerals such as:
aluminium gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) - red and infrared
gallium arsenide/phosphate (GaAsP) - red, orange and
yellow
gallium nitride (GaN) - green
gallium phosphate (GaP) - green
zinc selenide (ZnSe) - blue
indium gallium nitride (InGaN) - blue
silicon carbide (SiC) - blue
diamond (C) - ultraviolet
LED development began with infrared and red devices, and
technological advances have made possible the production of
devices with ever shorter wavelengths.
Blue LEDs became available in the late 1990s. They can be
added to existing red and green LEDs to produce white light.
Most "white" LEDs in production today use a blue LED chip
covered by a scintillate coating made of Zinc solenoid
(ZnSe). The LED chip emits blue light, part of which is
converted to yellow by the ZnSe. This mixture of blue and
yellow light creates the impression of white - hence the
bluish or yellowish tint that these diodes usually exhibit.
The most recent innovation in LED technology is a device
that can emit ultraviolet light. When ultraviolet light
illuminates certain materials, these materials will
fluoresce or give off visible light. White light LEDs have
been produced by building ultraviolet elements inside
material that fluoresces to produce white light.
The semiconducting chip is encased in a solid plastic lens,
which is much tougher than the glass envelope of a
traditional light bulb or tube. The plastic may be colored,
but this is only for cosmetic reasons and does not affect
the color of the light emitted.
Most typical LEDs are designed to operate with no more than
30-60 millewatts of electrical power. In 2002, 5 watt
LEDs became available with efficiencies of 18-22 lumens per
watt.
SMD (Surface Mounted Device) LEDs have been created that
combine RGB color sources in one LED. They allow the
display matrix, pitch, to be much closer. They are
very expensive, but more importantly do not have the nits
(candela per square meter) for outdoor use.
For outdoor use, you need at least 2,000 nits for daylight
use in most situations. (The brightness of LEDs can be
turned down.)
Signs Manufacturing Corporation's SolarBrite™ LEDs are 8,000
to 13,000 nits, depending on color.
Please stop by and see all of these products displayed in
our unique Sign Lighting Laboratory and Display Showroom.
Are You a "Visual" Person?
It is difficult to picture what a sign is going to look like. What do you picture when we say "triple-layer multi-colored lighting with a textured backplate?"
Our showroom is designed to solve that problem. Most people are visual ... they need to see something firsthand to understand what it is and whether it has value to them. Seeing is believing!
Don't buy your sign from a drawing, a slick website, or photo-shopped pictures, when you can actually see and
side-by-side compare Real signs and designs.
PinLights™ Cabinet signs can be
economically directly solar powered, without even using an
energy-robbing inverter, saving you even more!
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