The Red Light District - Year 1 & 2

[Erik Sine]

Originally Posted Feb 26 2010 11:56 PM

2-26-10 - Present
The Red Light District

The only thing we ask is, if you like what you see and if it helps you make better buying decisions for your sign applications that you build then you can support us and the tests we do by either upgrading your free membership to a Board Patron which has it's additional benefits or by purchasing electrical sign supplies that we sell here on The Sign Syndicate as you'll see in the test result sheets!


One thing that we don't sell here on The Sign Syndicate for the exact reasons of these tests is sell Neon Glass or LED Modules because I know most would think us bias if we did. So because of this, we'll only sell electrical sign supplies that compliment these light sources such as LED power supplies, and neon wiring & Transformers etc.

You'll also notice a lot of Light Source MFG's signed up here on the Sign Syndicate and submitted their lamps for the testing. Some did not, and you'll see "Non-Willing Participant" next to their name in the Tutorial product listings. Most did not want to because they did not want to be compared to their competition or called out on their claims when they show up to your shop and tell you you should buy theirs because they are superior to their competition. Well, all we can do here is include some of those MFG's anyway and throw them up on the board and see where they might fall. We hope some of them at some point join us and take part because they want to. They ALL have an open invitation to do so. We thinks it's a good idea and there is a lot to learn and most of the time it just begs more questions than results can answer. If you are a Light source manufacturer interested in having your lamps included then please upgrade your free membership to a Board Vendor (which includes a free advertising package for the duration of your membership) and submit your lamps


Project Description

This is a Comparison and test of both Red Neon & LED light sources for large channel letters.


Project Specifications

All channels simulated for multiple stroke channel letters are cut and fabricated to 4.24" x 23.5" with 5" returns. The red acrylic faces are Plaskolites 2288 LD acrylic, I use this same red acrylic for my signs and I'm VERY hapy with it.

The power source for all 12 volt LED light sources will be powered by a single adjustable 60 watt Axiom LED Power Supply, all other power needs will be dedicated.


Products used (Initial Start)

• 13mm Neon lamp
• CAO Group
• Axiom
• YYZ
• Eurocom
• AVA Technology
• Ventex (*Non-Willing Participant)
• Sloan CL5 (*Non-Willing Participant)
• US LED Right Light (*Non-Willing Participant)
• AA LED
• Relume (*Non-Willing Participant)
• NC LED
• GE (*Non-Willing Participant)
• EGL (Veritas)
• International Light Technologies
• SS Light
• Permlight Twister Ruby Red (*Non-Willing Participant)
  

2/26/10

All Channels have been fabricated for our initial start. I still have yet to decide a red acrylic manufacturer to use as the standard but pretty sure it's going to be 2415, secondary is 2283. I'm in the midst of fabricating a hinge-able rack to mount all the channels, then fit on on the carousal of other light projects.

Stay Tune!


Early Construction Picture





3/7/10

With this particular project I took the liberty of adding more modules into the channel if they were needed to stay away from getting hot spots. I did this similarly to Project Tighty Whitey, but not with the GWH since these projects are smaller. I'm doing this and out of spec because I want to bring this project close to that of a sign fabricator than just a benchmark test.

I can't help LED hotspots, but I eliminated the spacing hot spots from modules being too far from one another. Most of the modules used in this project needed one additional, making the call out to 2.5 mods per foot.

I don't have all product channel complete with faces yet but, In all honesty there isn't a whole lot separating light products from one another, all reds just about look the same. I think what WILL separate the products is performance and light output over time.





3/10/10

We are OFFICIALLY started. Here are the first initial reads and first batch of products. For this project I'm probably only going to add one or two more products as this is our smallest project. You will see that the power consumption numbers are missing for Ventex and the neon light sources. This is because I'm going to get the actual power consumption numbers without power loss to match the figures I have for all the class II products which I used a power source to obtain, all those figures are actual load numbers.

I still have yet to take a picture of the current Project

Download: CLICK HERE
Password: march mad

Revision: 3/11/10 9:44AM PST
- Fix chart corrections




3/18/10

Today we had a gas out of the neon unit. I thought something had to be wrong, a day or so ago I thought I noticed a dimmer light, but thought nothing of it. So we'll get it gassed up again and throw it back in asap


3/26/10

Today we put the CCFL unit back in.




4/10/10

Nothing added or changes made this month


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Password: april showers





5/10/10
This is the third reading for this project already. Temps took a slight rise since last month, we see sliver of a drop in LED's and a rise in light for neon.

I'll most likely be adding JT LED's red this month to the mix


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Password: America




6/17/10
This month we removed Axiom's LED line, why? Don't know but it's no longer being produced. This month we added GE's MiniMax and later this month, AA's red LED.

Hopefully


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Password: Lakers



7/15/10
Interesting in the large lumen maintenance compared to the white LED projects. Some large and small drops. Neon with only gas, unphased.


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Password: vegas





8/21/10
Strange and unexpected. Didn't see a slight rise in light output coming from the LEDs in this heat an almost equal temps as last month.

We added AA LED's Modules at the start of the readings for this month.

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Password: preseason




9/12/10
Again, unusual cooler San Diego Weather.

This month, a BIG thank you To Telford helping out with this project on getting an accurate power consumption figures for both the Ventex Venbrites and the 13mm neon lamp. These are the power figures WITHOUT power source efficiency loss.

There is a 5watt power loss for the neon, and 4.8watts for the Ventex. All these light soures are running about 22% efficient. The more product there is on each individual PS, the more efficient they run. We can use a PS to run one module a .36 wattmodule but it will take 5 watts to run it.


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Password: nfl




10/15/10
We added in NC LED's red LED modules this month. Looking for other vendors to through in as well, maybe JT LED.

Again, as the ambient temps decrease we are seeing the LED light output increase.

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Password: armybooty




11/13/10
Some of these products are surprisingly rising as much as 10% since last month. I know temps are dropping, but that's a big jump!

For the amount of hours so far I have as far as the LED side of the products go, CAO & AVA Technologies have had the minimal loss of light to date. For something that's not supposed to be susceptible to light it's odd to see the neon lamp rise in light

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Password: thanksgiving





1/8/11

At some point and I'm not sure when, the red neon lamped burned out again. The lamp is being looked at and hopefully have an answer later. This is the second time, my suspicion is we may have to go with another SST, currently we are using a Ventex CL4. It may be too much power with too high a minimum. I'm goign to call the manufacturer and possible switch over to a Tech22 which has a much smaller minimum. This is very disappointing when the project standard takes another dump likes this but we have to move on.

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Password: wildcard





2/13/11

After a very disappointing break down of a neon unit it is now replaced. It was gassed out, and now we have 15mm/60ma trodes on the unit.

Also this month we introduce Relume. I'll try and post a shot of the product but the brightness is WOW! It's slightly brighter that CAO but without the hotspots, and very even lighting as you see in the evaluation report for this month.

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Password: packers





3/13/11

We are pleased to announce Red Light Districts 1st Birthday!

Another year, another year of proving or disproving the sign industries lighting assumptions and claims.

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Password: march mad





4/10/11

Colder than last month for LEDs, so we see a rise and still a fall for some even though it is colder.

I will be adding two laster this month, one being Principal LED which product I have but just haven't had a chance to build out a channel, and a non-willing participant. The other hasn't arrived yet, but they are a willing participant who want to be here.

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Password: expo




5/14/11

This red test to me is still one of the most interesting. Again, the result tell a different story than how the comparison would be perceived when it comes to light degradation. So, I'm glad we decided on doing this red after all.

Hoping to get some new Board Vendors soon who said they would like to join up and throw their products lines into the mix as well, hope that happens so we can expand this project more as well.

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Password: bad date




6/12/11

Not much in temperature differences to last month. But again, even that slight difference some light sources slighty rose and some declined.

This month we discontinued Relume, the manufacturer is non-supportive and their original rep who made contact with us is no longer with them. So since this product is so proprietary, we decided to end it. That's too bad too, they were doing pretty good. I'll make one more last attempt with them in the next 30 days and see what happens.

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Password: summertime




7/15/11

Like the other tests, it's slightly warmer than last month.

Nothing much to report other than noticing the Ventex & US LEDs taking a rather large 8% light degradation since last month. Not sure if it mean anything but time will tell. What is noticeable is the US LED line taking a 36%+ hit since it's start at 10,000 hours. That's the largest light loss out of any light source besides the CCFL lamps we had issues with early on, but those were sudden outages.

Now that Relume is gone I'm sure I will finally run the Principal LED red

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Password: uncle sam




8/16/11

Warmest Month.


Now, can I get anyone to agree with me that this is one of the most interesting of the 5 tests in results??? Can I get a "HELL YES"?!?!?!

Red was said to last for so long and that this test would be a complete waste of time, I didn't think so and had my doubts when I would look around town and see a lot of failure. So Enter The Read Light District.

Biggest light loss since the start is US LEDs "Right Light" at 10 k hours, the least light loss product is CAO Groups Luxembright. The same is reflected in light loss since last month.

I'll try and add Prinicipal's Line, we'll see.!

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Password: NFL




9/16/11

Red LED light output seem to be more susceptible to ambient temps than white, a slight change and light will jump or drop. This month every red light source rose.

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Password: patriot




10/16/11

Even with cooler temps a lot of the LEDs are still degrading 2%-3% per month. This month we added in International Lights Red LED, and quite possibly another LED next month. Be very interesting to see how red degrades compared to the whites. When I look around town I have to admit I even see a faster degradation in light in red channel letter signs than I do in red.

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Password: bye week




11/19/11

Some new additions this month.

EGL's new Veritas LED's and International Light Technology's new LED line.

All light output went up this month with cooler temps this month. Not much else to report other than happy to see more Board Vendor products entered in.

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Password: thanks




12/17/11

With the coldest ambient temperatures for this project we see a rise in light output from all LED light sources, even a small rise from the Neon lamp which is a little odd since temperatures should not effect light output from gas lamp.



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Password: snow





01/16/12

I cannot believe we are already coming up on year 3 of this project. I think along with taking pictures of the cabinet as we go along I need to take pictures of my head, just to see how much more gray hairs I'm getting as the years go on.

As for the LEDs, the USLED red modules seem to have taken a chuncky degradation of light every month since their intorduction, with over 40% we'll look to either replace them with the same or another one of their makes. Just to be sure!



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Password: playoffs






02/19/12

It's going to be hard to compare the new pictures that we have for this project and how the light loss looks and what's maintained because well, red is red, it's hard to capture.




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Password: mine





03/17/12

It's official, we've hit the Two year mark!

As I stated in PTW, we'll be looking at what to add for this project in our trip to ISA. What to add, what to possibly drop. One product I never did add is JT LEDs.

Not too much to report, but check out the results and YOU be the judge!



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Password: madness





04/22/12

10 degrees higher in temps this month than March, so we see a loss in light in just about every module except one, weird. Bus as that famous saying goes, "it is what it is".

At the ISA Expo we saw lots of possible vendors to add to this test, there were some impressive vendors. One that we saw just joined up to enter the fray and we're proud to announce InSem out of Southern California who's bringing in a Korean LED, SS Light. What's unique about the SS LED is that's it's fairly bright and the leads aren't polarized, which means it doesn't matter where the positive and negative lead go so you can't get it wrong. In other words it's "Dummy Proof". So that's a nice feature to have!

The SS Light Module for The Red Light District(Top)



Eurocom has opted to not resume with the testing or whatever reason and hope we see them again the future but we appreciated having them. So for now they have been removed from all test comparisons



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Password: opening day




05/22/12

What's new with the RLD, not a whole lot than the other tests. We'll be inserting NC LEDs red as soon as we get it. Summers here and we need to make a shopping run and add, add, and add some more to this!



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Password: mayo




07/10/12

We skipped a month from May to July so we can get back to doing this on the 10th of every month.

I asked the question on the open forum, what MFG modules would you like to see in our tests. We're open to suggestions.


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Password: endless summer




08/19/12

This is THE hottest month so far in our testing since we've started. We will be temporarily cutting back on the hours of these tests, that time hasn't been determined yet but again, it will only be temporarily.


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Password: nfl




09/22/12

Hopefully we'll get a big overhaul with new product soon. In the meantime enjoy this months results


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Password: touchdown



02/10/13

It's been some time since we've entered anything here.

We're back into the swing of things five months later, ad we're going to consolidate and change these logs instead of entering them in four different places but we'll discuss that another time. But testing will now be done on a bi-monthly basis

Later this month we will be adding a NC LED Red



NOVEMBER 2012
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Password: turkey

FEBRUARY 2013
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Password: ravens




06/07/13

Well, we added NC LED's Eco line of red. We'll be removing a few and adding a few. Want to see LEDs from a particular manufacturer, let us know!


JUNE 2013 TEST RESULTS DOWNLOAD: RedL060713.pdf
Revision: