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geraldi

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Everything posted by geraldi

  1. When you put idiots in charge this is what you get!!
  2. There are different Plan Rooms and online sites that post projects. Try and find the one that has a local walk-in office. Local Contractors and Architects tend to use those.
  3. You must me mistaken. He wouldn't lie to us would he?
  4. I would think at least some of the Nationals that went back to neon made bad choices in picking their led's, power supplies and manufacturers. The most expensive option isn't always the best option. LED's and / or neon need to be picked and spec'd for the job at hand, the proper amount installed, the right size power supplies/transformers as well as wired correctly with the right size wire. I've seen a lot of led letters wired incorrectly. They work but it's hard on life expectancy. Running power supplies to the maxx is another big issue. I personally, have never had an issue or complaint with my led channel letters. I use 1 brand led's and 1 brand power supplies only and have for almost 5 years now. The main reason is we are wholesale and ship all over the US and I want to know what is in the sign and I want to know my customer won't be calling me for shipping damage or other lighting complaints. If you do your own work and bend neon it's a great option. But, if you pay someone else to build the product and install the light source you should probably be using led's in most projects. We all know how employee's respect our product and tools. Once it leaves my sight I don't know how it's handled and every time you pay for a mistake you take money from your bottom line. With led's the installer can tie a rope to it and drag it to the job site and it will probably still light up. On a side note, we converted our sign, a set of channel letters, to led's 5 years and 3 months ago. They run 24 hours a day by choice, to see how long they would last. They are all still burning and look pretty good. I'm sure the brightness has fallen off some but it's hard to tell when you look at them every day.
  5. Do clean out the interior of the letter and paint it white if you can. Makes a big difference. Light also bounces of the face and back into the can. It will take on some of the color of the dirt and get absorbed by it. With today's led's you won't see any inferior brightness when compared to neon. I have seen big changes in the last 2 years as far as brightness of led's. And, if you don't have your own neon bender, it's a no-brainer to retrofit to led's. It's getting harder to get wholesale neon and the quality has deteriorated over the past 10 years. I know of 2 benders that have retired and their apprentices have taken over. Another one drives a school bus and only works now and then. Neon is great and I hate to see benders out of work but at the end of the day we have to make a living by doing what's best for our companies. We are strictly wholesale to the trade and went LED over 5 years ago. No regrets what so ever. No complaints and no breakage in shipping. Like I said, I have seen a big improvement in brightness in that past 2 years.
  6. The same day this happened I had an installer from out of town stop by to purchase a power supply. As we were talking he brought up the subject of liability insurance. He was really upset that he had to have such a large liability insurance package. Here's the reason.
  7. We had our best year ever last year with growth the last 5 years in a row. We are strictly wholesale though. We may be getting the builds that people use to do in house and have laid off people. We've hire new people as well as expanded the shop by almost double in the last 2 years. All we can do is continue to try and please our customers and keep turn a rounds fast.
  8. What is Moonlight Industries??
  9. Stuff like this makes it really bad for wholesalers that go to work every day and do what they are supposed to. I have been a strictly wholesale shop for 6 years now and I can tell you first hand that it takes a while for the buyer and the seller to totally trust each other. And that's under normal circumstances, without stuff like this going on. We never see each other and rarely talk on the phone. Most of it is done via email. It takes a lot of trust to send someone, you don't know, thousands of dollars. I read stuff like this and it really makes me mad. Even if you have a good rep., this is a set back for everyone. I don't know what my point is. Just venting I guess.
  10. They must be old panels then. Plasti-Line went out of business years ago and came back as Image Point. Then Image point went belly up and screwed many installers.
  11. Many times the customer/owner does not have a choice of who to use. They have to use the "approved vendor". I have a customer who has a Hampton Inn about 1/8th mile from him. The owner asked for a price on a new high rise. Corporate intervened and said no, you have to use our approved vendor. Most chain franchises won't allow an unapproved vendor. You can install it but you can't build it.
  12. Integrated Sign in Lexington, Ky has some of it I think.
  13. Google Ad Words will get attention to you. But, you MUST have a good web site. People judge the quality of your work by the quality of your web site.
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