Jump to content

ELECTRIC SIGN SUPPLIES
If You're Looking For Premium Electric Sign Industry Components From Trim Cap, LED's, Neon Supplies, Power Supplies, Pattern Paper.  Then Please Visit Our Online Store or Feel Free To Call Us For Inquiries or Placing an Order!!
Buy Now

SIGN INSTALLER MAP
Looking for a fellow Sign Syndicate Company Member For A Sign Install or Maintenance Call?
Click Here

For Sign Company's Who Work As Subcontractors
Before You Work For A National Sign & Service Company You Need To Look At The Reviews Of These Companies Before You Work For Them. Learn When To Expect Payment From Them and What It's Like To Work For Them, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. Learn and Share Your Experiences Yourself For Others

Click Here

LED Recycling and Retrofits


Recommended Posts

I still haven't gotten a solid answer to this by anyone yet. At least I don't think.

I'd like to hear how sign companies recycle LED's?

What are companies like Heath, who are changing out one LED system for another like that of the huge CITGO sign?

Also, when retrofitting existing signs (Fluor or Neon) what do you do about the U.L. listing when you make a change on the field?

You are now altering a fixture that you or another company labeled in a shop set to an approved procedure based on fabrication and installation, what UL file or specifications are you using to make those alterations on the field to an approved manner?

What are the UL inspectors telling you to do?

Are you re-filing electrical permits as well with the local municipals

We've already seen a couple of jobs here get incorrectly labeled so I'd like to get this corrected for the industry.

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. - Winston Churchill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We receive calls all the time from sign companies, electricians, and business owners who retrofit signs using our product because of one of our YouTube videos they watched

I always ask the same question Erik - what about the UL label? Most ignore me and do whatever they want

Jim Ruchards from UL told me, before he passed away, that most people do this outside UL and get away with because there will be no inspector. It is the new sign and the permit that brings out the inspectors.

I see what you are trying to do Erik - best of luck

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is not anything I'm trying to do with a hidden agenda here, nor am I trying to hurt any part of the industry. Just bringing and discussing something not most want to talk about or discuss in the open, the same can be said for those sign companies and contractors who toss hg filled lamps in the trash when removing old signs or fixtures. It's just convenient, and until their becomes an easier/cheaper process it will continue to happen.

Flip side on the other side of the tracks when it comes to LEDs, I'm sure UL and others will figure out an easy way for this too, there is money to be made so change will come. There IS no stopping that.

Companies are taking the back door for retrofitting. It's okay, I have nothing against doing it against code, after all, "a lot of regulation is too much" How ridiculous is it not? Same for hg lamps, it's ridiculous, same for "plastic bottles for our environment", it's ridiculous. The problem is Eco_tyranny, what come from the earth returns to the earth, simple. But there is huge money to be made environmentalism.

I don't have a bone in the game of Neon, Fluorescent or LED lamps, I produce neither but use all, some more than others. I truly do enjoy using them all, I really do.

But what I see as someone who considers himself outside the game and arena when it comes to running this site (because I have to wear a different hat), are shots being fired over the bows of certain ships that belong to a certain group, I'm just making sure if shots are going to be fired, they get shot over all bows and through the fog, that's my job. My job here is to keep it real, level, and honest.

I don't care if a custom UL sign shop goes against code and breaks their integrity off with laboratories like UL and others in the promise that what they produce and alter which has a label (theirs or not) is to be by specific code and not altered otherwise. Sure It's up to the inspector of the county where the permit was pulled, but it's the job of the inspector to be knowledgeable that the fixed lighting fixture cannot be altered and that the original UL label is no longer valid because of alterations done. I'm betting the counties that go through the inspections who call out for labeled fixtures don't have a clue. It's just a small loop hole that needs to be corrected, i'm sure it's just a matter of time. But if it does exist, I'd like to know what it is.

I have no financial gain here nor trying to favor one component over the another because again, I don't have a vested interest in one over the other. It's just when I visit certain sites or read certain trade magazines, or news articles I always see the same shots being fired over the bow of a certain group, and it's getting even deeper beyond some products that contain mercury.

So, should I not ask the question and not be fair which is my job to point out (Which obviously others won't, nor will we ever read about it), what about the problems with code to another product?

Is it not fair that if short comings are going to be called out on an individual product, that the same cannot be said about the other?

I know at times, and I do get asked about it. I've been accused of favoring neon, and at times I get accused of favoring LEDs. I can't control what people say or start as topics here, what becomes popular, and what doesn't. All I can do is, as an administrator here is, point things out, and get to the truth.

If there wasn't so much mis-characterization, and mis-information thrown out there then everything would be "pretty". There is "some" blame on both sides some more than the other.

Fact is, some have been comfortable for which the way things have been for a very long time, for those who have been here for a long time. Sometimes change for those do not come easy and it's hard to let go of a time vested interest. Change for those new to the trade/business can come very easy. I don't care either way, because I understand there is enough room on the playground for everyone. A LOT, don't understand this, they just want to be the bully on the playground and have it all.

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. - Winston Churchill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • !llumenati

Interesting thread - I was hoping that more would participate. Perhaps we could entice ULJim to respond? Or perhaps our new ETL people as to how they would handle it with their organizaation and labels?

For the most part, at this shop. The letters are brought into the shop and re-done here. Most times they are new faces, leds, etc. Alot easier to UL them when its done right. We have gotten involved in jobs here in the windy city where they are now having a period where non permitted signs can now be permitted without major penalty, etc. In doing so - they do have to be UL --- and thus it becomes quite interesting. Some just can't be brought up to code, period, regardless of the $$ thrown at it. Well, maybe if enough $$ was tossed in the hole, or the palm.

gn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • !llumenati

I have been asking the same question. MET Labs gave the only answer to me. Even UL when I asked about it on a show floor the only answer was to ask my local inspector. I dont think they can enforce it like they cant enforce non UL signage. "unless there is a problem and they are called in by a township to inspect, after a catastrophy has happened.

There was a mall that I did many moons ago in Rockland county, NY where the landlord wanted all the red neon changed to white with new faces required the UL inspector, fire marshall and building inspector on site. Tennants werent to happy about the excess bill that was passed on to them. The only thing that was done was change tubes. Now your talking about changing entire lighting systems at a whim and it's OK.

I to would like to know what recycling is done to the replaced LED systems. Any flourescent system can be 100% recycled if the proper channels are followed. I think a good case study would be the CVS or walgreen program that has been converted back and forth a few times with differnt systems.

Oddly enough the vast majority of neon that was removed, replaced and removed was clear red.

The Citgo sign is an excellent one location case and would definately like to see the results from that one.

GOOD things happen for a reason......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • !llumenati

Oh yeah - in this shop, as far as the removal and recycling of neon and fluorescent tubes - we have a local recycling company that I had met when I was at ICON. He's totally EPA and Illinois EPA certified. Actually redid some of his equipment so that he can recycle neon - as its more of a machinery thing with the recyclers. All neon tubes go in his specified barrels, and fluorescents get boxed up and returned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gary on those barrels, what do they tell you to do regarding larger lamps that don't fit? Like border tubes?

BTW- anyone know what happened to Ed Domonico of Community Environment Alliance of Las Vegas? He had a very interesting tale to tell about the politics of recycling, especially when it came to California. Which would have made recycling here easier and not difficult as it is now

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. - Winston Churchill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • !llumenati
what do they tell you to do regarding larger lamps that don't fit? Like border tubes?

Would seem to me that a glass shop would take the old boarder tubes to the fires, heat them at the appropriate spots, pull the tube into points, separate them, round up the remaining points in the fires, cool, and file the resulting segments into barrels. Kind of like making single electrode tubes - shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes a tube, and the Hg remains safely sealed inside. Just a thought...

"Freedom has ceased to be a birthright; it has come to mean whatever we are still permitted to do" - Joe Sobran

I was tired yesterday, I'm tired today, and I'll be retired tomorrow - TD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • !llumenati
what do they tell you to do regarding larger lamps that don't fit? Like border tubes?

Would seem to me that a glass shop would take the old boarder tubes to the fires, heat them at the appropriate spots, pull the tube into points, separate them, round up the remaining points in the fires, cool, and file the resulting segments into barrels. Kind of like making single electrode tubes - shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes a tube, and the Hg remains safely sealed inside. Just a thought...

For this one - most tube benders couldn't pull this off.

Here in Chicago - we can actually break the tubes into a polyethylene barrel with a sealed lid. We can't "crush" them, per se. Definition of that word is up for grabs. However, with the poly barrel - unlike a metal drum which would be a no-no, it can then be recycled. Had a major company around here use a bulb crusher machine to break up their fl lamps and their neon tubes. Figured they were being cute. Recyclers would NOT take the bulb barrel for recycling - meaning the sign company had to dispose of the entire thing as hazardous waste -- $$.

gn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Board Patron

The bulb crusher I was looking into did their own recycling - you call them when your barrel was full and they bring out a new one and take away your old one. There is a mercury filter/trap incorporated in the mechanics of the thing, so the barrel company deals with proper disposal of that. The only problem in WA state is that if you process a certain amount of fluorescent lamps (I think it's just over 2 barrels worth)you become a "large volumn hazardous waste" tree hater and have to comply with WA large volumn stuff. We have a company in Seattle (EcoLights) come and pick up our uncrushed bulbs - way cheaper and not considered hazardous because they aren't broken.

I wonder why we haven't looked into recycling neon this way... nor have I heard anything about it.

Edited by HansonSigns
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • !llumenati

The bulb crusher I was looking into did their own recycling - you call them when your barrel was full and they bring out a new one and take away your old one. There is a mercury filter/trap incorporated in the mechanics of the thing, so the barrel company deals with proper disposal of that. The only problem in WA state is that if you process a certain amount of fluorescent lamps (I think it's just over 2 barrels worth)you become a "large volumn hazardous waste" tree hater and have to comply with WA large volumn stuff. We have a company in Seattle (EcoLights) come and pick up our uncrushed bulbs - way cheaper and not considered hazardous because they aren't broken.

I wonder why we haven't looked into recycling neon this way... nor have I heard anything about it.

This is where it gets sticky and complicated. Yes, there is a merc filter/trap in the bulb crusher but it is not designed for the amount of mercury that we put in a neon tube-and there is a considerble difference between our tubes and fl tubes. The filter of which you speak is to prevent the fumes from getting back out - not to filter and capture the merc that is, in a fl tube, encapsuled in the powder. The second bigger issue is the "intentionally" breaking of a tube" to fit into the tube, or larger one (for U shape fl tubes) that you can buy. Make sure if you go the way of a bulb crusher for neon tubes - that you get in writing from whomever is responsibile for the bulb crusher recycling - that you're good. I'm not familiar with WA laws as they are all different - but the use of a bulb crusher doesn't put you in the "large volume hazardous waste" issues. But, again, since all states are different - check with your local recyclers --- and not just one of them that might be guessing. Hazardous waste and recyclable waste have totally different regulations - and its the difference and the proper handling of that changes the categories.

Actually neon CAN be recycled the same way and legally. Put it in a "approved" package and it can be shipped by FedEx, UPS or whatever with the proper labels. Again, the problem is the "approved". It is approved if it hsa a plastic liner, etc. Approved if the tubes are NOT intentionally broken to fit. If they break in shipping, that is okay - because they are in a plastic liner and the merc can't (isn't supposed to) be able to get loose. But, unlike fl tubes - there is no standard "box", "containter", "barrel" that would, across the board, work for neon. This was brought up at the Orlando ISA show a couple years back when I pissed of Veolia and the head of the recycling association with questions. Actually I can't say I pissed them, as they were quite cordial, just that my questions for them concerning reality didn't allow them any defined answers taht would work. Long story -- but look for a good, responsible recycler and they can take alot of the misery and questions out of the issues.

gn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Board Patron

Our recycle co allows us to cut neon tubes to allow them to fit into the containers but we are not supposed to crush them up.

Installation & Maintenance Services

Brian Phillips | expresssignandneon@sbcglobal.net | P. 812-882-3278

Express Sign & Neon | 119 S. 15th Street - Vincennes - IN 47591

express%20neon%20sig.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
  • Create New...