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IIRC, they were YECSO's own brand.

In reality, it wasn't much of a fire at all. A few sections of LED tubes burned up, causing more black smoke and stains than actual flame. Think about it... someone spots the smoke and calls the fire department. By the time they arrive they said they did actually see flames tat needed to be put out - but nothing was burning other than a couple of square feet of plastic that burns very slowly to begin with. Here was the final result: There would never have been enough temperature for the fire to spread through the sheet metal, though it's possible it could have spread to more pieces of plastic tube that would have created a lot of black smoke. Oooh. LED fire.

OLEDs represent huge possibilities, but I think even 2011 is extremely optimistic. Specialty products maybe, with mass market stuff at least 2 years or more behind that.

It would help if you made clear one thing... are you talking about repairing sign / channel letters and/or border lighting that is lit with LEDs, or do you mean repairing LED message centers and scoreboards? These are 2 very different things.

Melbourne, major city in Australia. Sorta pointless where I went with that whole post now...

Recognized being the key word - which is different from Listed or Classified. Having very recently jumped over all these hurdles - it really does depend on how the company chooses to be listed. If your system is "UL Classified" it is supposed to be used as a complete system - with the exact modules, lead wires and power supplies that were provided for testing and approved in the system. Sloan's modules may only be approved for use with their own power supplies, as per their listing type. We chose to go "UL Recognized" which allows our LEDs to be used with any UL approved Class 2 power supply that meets the specs of the product. That said - UL apparently does allow mixing and matching as they recognize that 12V systems will generally have the same specs and limits if they were originally approved as sign components. Some products were originally listed in the SAM even if they were not sign components, but under cabinet lights, display or amusement lights, etc... which was allowed under UL48, but also allowed the products to be used for kitchen lighting, accent lighting, etc... but in those cases had to be used with the power supply they were listed with. UL48 has been superseded by ANSI/UL 879, which no longer includes products specifically designed for use in places other than signs (portable lights, landscape, etc...)

I take it you're in Australia? I'll admit to having some old vinyl from the Hard-ons, maybe even still have an original pressing of Smell My Finger. Gotta love youtube.... these are bringing back some find memories - we covered some of these songs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=997KZ45th0Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlWjWmVXUcM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs8MuMxYol8 More of my faves from back in the day... some very poor quality, but you've got my on a 1987 kick. Covered most of these too. The Accused - Bethany Home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSO_GN_RiBw (Seattle gods, long before Nirvana & Pearl Jam) GBH - Diplomatic Immunity Attitude Adjustment - Johnny http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-nsyPLqto0 (the precursor to Metallica - One) SOD - March of the SOD (one of the heaviest riffs of all time - lol @ Scott Ian in that vid)Misfits - Walk Among Us Circle Jerks - Wild in the Streets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij_3wYvClhA Dayglo Abortions - Proud to be a Canadian (gotta mix in some Canadian punk)Corrosion of Conformity - Animosity and eventually Corrosion of Conformity - Clean My Wounds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRf7fzkSIrA /waste of my late lunch hour. Back to work for me.

Best concert I ever went to was Voivod, Anthrax and White Zombie. Amazing atmosphere and very good show put on. I used to go to a lot of small/medium thrash/metal/punk shows where *real* mosh pits (the ones that go in circles) came out of nowhere, none of this Green Day crap. Fave shows way back when would have to be Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys... but you can't listen to that stuff at the office. Lately I just stream from shoutcast.com either 80's music, hairband metal, or movie soundtracks.

Oh I agree that GE is very expensive and that more cost effective alternatives could have been included - but there's something to be said for being a multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation. The perception will be that they are very large and can handle any sized project, and the Holiday Inn re-imaging is large by any standard. Companies are doing credit checks not just on their customers, but suppliers too (sign shops, manufacturers) and even though some of those companies have equivalent (or superior) products - it's possible that only GE, Philips and Osram actually passed the criteria required. If that's the case, it's no surprise that GE won. As to the energy savings - it doesn't matter what else is available today. If they do a comparison between the winning new product (GE) and what existed before (magnetics, etc) then the comparison may well be correct. Unless we know what basis for comparison was used and what criteria was set in place for companies to qualify as suppliers, we can't start introducing other alternatives into the mix and accuse anyone of lying. If Holiday Inn did not consider these other supplies as legitimate alternatives (for reasons listed above), then complaining is kinda pointless.

One thing to remember is that they are not going to do a comparison of a new LED system vs a new high efficiency neon system. Your comparing GE to Elite Lamp Tri-phos on high efficiency trannies was never part of the mix. They likely did their math using measured data from older magnetic trannies and whatever neon or fluorescents wee in place. If that's the case, then it's far more possible that these numbers might be closer to correct. If someone is replacing their 1992 Buick LeSabre (old neon signs) with a 2008 Honda Civic (GE LEDs) , the correct comparison for calculating savings is between those two, not between the Civic and another 2008 Jetta (Elite Lamp). ...if that makes sense.

Does the G flash on and off on purpose? Reminds me of Revenge of the Nerds... H O T E L C O R A L E S S E X

Vince... or Vinko?

No - that would be the lawyers.

ilght may have the patent, but if a company can prove that they had their own version prior, or prior art as it were, then ilight would avoid butting heads with them for fear it would publicly invalidate what they have. You don't have to be the first one to to make something to be the patent holder, just the first one to file the patent and from my recollection, neo-neon had similar stuff out prior to ilight (neon-flex). Also - it's been a while since I looked - but I don't think ilight's patents delve to far into the Sloan/TetraBT territory where the LEDs are in hollow, colored tubes. They have more to do with embedding directly into materials that both encapsulate and diffuse at the same time.

The new logo isn't so hot: I prefer the more recent one with the swoosh through the H:

It would have to be a one time customer and someone you're not worried about either A) ruining a relationship with, or B) looking weak financially. As gerardi mentioned, I think this has to be signed and sealed at the time of your order and not something to do after the fact, otherwise I believe it's referred to as invoice discounting. If you're willing to take a discount - why not offer it to the customer directly? We get creative with our discounts in order to get favorable payments, so it may not hurt to place a call to a decision maker and speak openly. Say you've got some very big projects or investments pending and you'd like to free up your financials to assist in the new projects - any business can understand this logic. Offer them 3% or 5% or whatever you feel it might take. They might be happy at getting a discount. If it's a repeat customer, however, it might not be a good precedent to set - as they might start withholding payments until you start offering discounts every time. Just realized this was my 666th post. Up the Irons!

Welcome Clive - it's been a long time. Glad to see you've found this forum, as it's a much more balanced place to discuss different sign & lighting technologies.

Happy Birthday Sean. We gonna see you at CONSAC later this week?

That's advice a lot of designers should take. Hi Shelly - just wondering if those letters are face it only, or do you have some halo lighting casting onto those white backer panels?

I've never communicated with him outside of trade shows, so no, I don't have an address for him. He's generally a personable guy who will take time to talk, though maybe it's different when at the office. The bigger a company gets, the more insulated the owners can get from communicating with the public - that's what they pay other people to do, after all.

Ron Farmer is the owner and founder. If you call their Houston office, he's the man you should ask to speak to since he has the ultimate word.

Hey man, I still play that game and the whole point is to get into a little trouble ;)

Hey man, that's more than we're allowed and I took the leap of posting ours ;)

LEDs as replacements for other bulb styles will have limited options. The form factors don't lend themselves to very good products for the time being... ...where LEDs do best in residential is newer styles of lighting, such as indirect cove or cornice lighting, under cabinet and recessed lighting. There are some decent recessed and linear downlights out there - it just depends how the house is wired. Is he running the 12V (13.8) into the house off the batteries? Are there opportunities to run some indirect or accent lights, other than lamp or bulb replacements? We do a bunch of custom residential - but you the best results come from thinking outside the bulb, as it were.