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The Assault of our "Traditions" In another topic I started a week back or so is below but now I'm continuing in a new thread, because...jokes aside. http://www.thesignsyndicate.com/forums/index.php?/topic/6677-pillsbury-dough-boy-makeover-and-93-saving/ Something big has changed, a more understanding behind the news article. A look into "Sign Mythology" See Sign Proposal from Lawrence Sign below: wcms1p-122428.pdf It's not very often, but I just read this a short time ago and I have to say my stomach dropped, you know that sick disgusted feeling you get right there in the center of your stomach? I'm attaching a document that was made public on another site thanks to Mike for making it public. If this doesn't sicken everyone in the electric sign industry I don't know what will, and this should. There is something that everyone in the electric sign industry should uphold no matter what light source you prefer or what your opinion is on applications. I'm speaking about upholding our traditions, and never giving them up to mis-characterization and mis-information. Neon has been around for a long time and there a place for it like everything else in life based on it's own merit and function in upon which it serves. Neon is also a tradition, OUR tradition no matter what you produce in this trade! You may have not been in the electric sign industry for a long time, you may be relatively new, and you may have never even touched, fabricated or installed any before ever. But that should not keep you from appreciating it's function and pure elegance. Right now it's being assaulted, mis-characterized, and outright LIED as a whole, just to make a buck for something that will not last as long as it can. There is a time and place in everything when it comes to the electric sign industry but Flexible LEDs should NOT be used to replace a historical sign, especially when the person doing the push sell of a repair or retrofit is doing so with false information and mis-leading the buyer. Well, that's what Lawrence Sign is doing right now. It's one thing to read an article online or in a newspaper, it's another to see a proposal from seller to buyer in print with false information which does nothing but desecrate and annihilate our traditions, that they themselves are apart of. LED Flex Strips do not have usable light at 100,000 hours. Red LED's degrade in light, Red pumped Neon does not. Red neon does NOT consume 20 WATTS per foot, that's ABSURD!!! That diameter neon lamps for that size project consume 3 to 3.5 watts per foot. it does not take $15k a year in cost of operation vs $1,000 a year to convert over to LED Now that we have a real proposal to go off of we can calculate/estimate the cost of operation. We can estimate that with the 11' letters have approx 93 feet of Neon (3 rows inches x 8.5), the lowercase and small capitals have 56' of lamps = 1,258' of lamps 1293' x 3 watts per foot = 3,774 watts 3,774 watts x 12 hrs x 365 days a year x $.15kwh / 1000 PC = $2,479.50, NOT almost $16,000 in annual cost of operation ​When it comes to the supposed "Yearly Maintenance" I don't even have a comment on that part, it just gets more ridiculous. If hail is a big concern for breakage then clear polycarbonate can come in real handy. So can hinge system. A Industry as a whole, this sign trade needs to care no matter what your preference is and how long you've been in this industry, as someone new to it, 2nd, 3rd generation....otherwise we will loose a big part of who we are and we shame those who came before us, we shame those who started our grand traditions. It won't come from our leadership in the form or associations, their just as guilty if not enablers of mis-information and mis-characterization of our traditions. The trade magazines? Just as bad, only trade magazine that actually reports now and IS "journalism", is "Signs of The Times". In the end, it's about how you and I conduct OUR business, how we sell to our clients, and how we want our "Signs" left behind. We're forgetting why we came into this industry, what it is to look back at something long after we put it up, long after. Lately it's just been bastardized by outsiders who just want to take our trade and traditions and turn it into a cheap commodity all because THEY have something THEY want to sell to us, we can even go a step further to say what THEY want force on us and what THEY want forced upon the end user. Integrity - To do what's right and not what comes easy, even when no one is looking. Traditions - It's who we are, and what we want to pass on to those after us.

The Sign Syndicate - November 2013 Video Update

Posting some advance pics of our newest light test, "Project Blue Light Special" This will be a smaller test than the Red Light District, mainly because there aren't that many Blue LEDs readily available unless you buy direct or pay for a special order. All Sign Syndicate Board Vendors are welcome to join in and submit their light sources. So far the specs are: (Updated 05/30/13) 2051 Acrylic blue, Makrolon (Sheffield) Polycarb 2051 EGL Horizon Blue (12mm) SS Lights LEDs (Insem) *Sloan V-series (Non-Willing Participant) NC LED AA LED Powered by Ventex (Neon), and Axiom (LED) power supplies We'll do the first test numbers this week and it will be available to all just like we announced http://www.thesignsyndicate.com/forums/index.php?/topic/6247-the-sign-syndicate-light-tests-special-announcement/

The New November results are out! The Great White Hope - The High Powered white Neon & LED comparison (25,000+ Hours) - This month we added some products from our Board Vendors, International Light Technologies new LED line as well as LumiText's new LumiString Project Tighty Whitey - The Mid and Mini White LED only comparison (18,000+ Hours) - This month we dropped a major manufacturer and added a whole bunch of Board Vendors LEDs. International Light Technologies, Lumitext's LumiString, EGL's Veritas, and Ventex's slimline. Also adding as a Non-Willing participant, SloanLED's "Value Plus, and V-180 series" The Red Light District - The Red Neon & LED comparison (12,000+ Hours) - This month we also from our Board Vendors we added EGL's Veritas and International Light Technologies LED lines Border Security - The Neon & LED Border Tube comparison (2,600+ Hours) - Interesting results this month. Maybe to be expected and not to be expected? I think we have to keep a close on this test.

On 2/16/2011 on N. Glantz's FaceBook page there was a question raised on their wall by a client or fan of theirs. They were asking if there was any sources they could go to to obtain information on benefits of energy savings using LEDs vs Neon in channel letters to show their clients. I pointed to some links here on some threads with various info. N.Glantz replied back pointing that person to Sloan LED's calculator. I then replied back after using the calculator that it was a pretty accurate compared to most that I've seen. I then set up a quick ROI calculations using the GW3 modules with neon on a set of 10 channel letters, and what the basic costs were, the ROI was something like 15 years or so, something like that it was long term. Letting the person know that using that particular module, it wouldn't benefit savings on energy annually because of the upfront cost. Now the post on their wall was deleted. That's not very nice. Was it something I said? Maybe if I would have plugged in JT LED's it would have stayed, but then we would get into a brightness issue as well. Some people just don't like the truth when it doesn't benefit them, what TRULY happened to standing behind what you sell. just because it was a higher cost vs neon for CL's doesn't mean it couldn't be used for something else in another application, or on a high rise building and such. This industry of ours, sometimes. How many more days till Vegas do we have? I need a beer.