Bushings for Channel Letters

[J Hill Designs]

guy just comes off like an a$$ is all...

 

[Westcoast Sign Guy]

West coast - why do you always come across so negatively? ppl are here to learn, not "you shouldn't do that - you dont know what you are doing - I DO THO" It really is a bummer.

always.

guy just comes off like an a$$ is all...

Sometimes I get the feeling too that is the way I appear to others.

You have a very good point and it is truly hard to come off in the right way typing away in a forum. I really love engaging in conversations on fixing, exploring new ways, being innovative, anything truly positive for my aspect of the electric sign trade which is my passion.

This topic scenario and order of events very much reminds me of Cappy. I start off giving advice in threads not knowing who he is. Multiple threads later you get to find more information on exactly who it is you are helping to crutch along. If you want to help a junkie, you don't help them in ways they think you should be helping them, that is how YOU help them.

You would have to define "helping someone". If a qualified individual asks a question I think I'm pretty receptive on my feedback, unqualified as you notice I will be the opposite and will be vocal about it because of the damage it does to my industry which I see and encounter on a everyday basis.

A message board, trade magazines, are not proper tools to learn the electric sign trade, nor should they be used to make money for unqualified individuals. If we are talking T-shirts and banners, I don't see a problem with it, you're not going to get hurt. Electric signs you will or worse, you will hurt someone else. You need experience behind you for the electric sign trade. You need the understanding of Safety, Electricity and what it can do to your body and to others, you need to know how to use equipment, you need to know how the elements can affect what you are doing, you need to know the codes, how to hand signal crane operators, It's not all about bushing, LED's, Neon, tube supports & steel pole schedules.


Of course if you open up one of your issues of Sign & Digital Graphics and read on articles written by columnists who aren't even in the sign trade on wholesale channel letters, they basically tell you that "if you aren't selling channel letters YOU should be....Don't be intimidated.....Wholesalers are ready to help you out!" "Anyone can do it!" They also go on to tell you, if you aren't qualified you should find ways go around it. They are taking advantage of newbies who have no business in the electric sign trade and they write these articles only to please their advertisers and pump their sales. They don't care about who they are hurting as long as they sell.

Like I said, I'm passionate about what I do. For the record, "I don't know it all", I'm still learning from those who are WAY ahead of me. I just want to help preserve what I love, and get it back on track again. My aspect of the trade has a WHOLE lot of issues that I have to worry about other than the hacks trying to get in on the lower end of the totem pole, we have problems at the very top of the pole that are far more damaging most of all.

So, take what I say for what it may be worth to you, maybe nothing at all.

 

[J Hill Designs]

Sometimes I get the feeling too that is the way I appear to others.

You have a very good point and it is truly hard to come off in the right way typing away in a forum. I really love engaging in conversations on fixing, exploring new ways, being innovative, anything truly positive for my aspect of the electric sign trade which is my passion.

This topic scenario and order of events very much reminds me of Cappy. I start off giving advice in threads not knowing who he is. Multiple threads later you get to find more information on exactly who it is you are helping to crutch along. If you want to help a junkie, you don't help them in ways they think you should be helping them, that is how YOU help them.

You would have to define "helping someone". If a qualified individual asks a question I think I'm pretty receptive on my feedback, unqualified as you notice I will be the opposite and will be vocal about it because of the damage it does to my industry which I see and encounter on a everyday basis.

A message board, trade magazines, are not proper tools to learn the electric sign trade, nor should they be used to make money for unqualified individuals. If we are talking T-shirts and banners, I don't see a problem with it, you're not going to get hurt. Electric signs you will or worse, you will hurt someone else. You need experience behind you for the electric sign trade. You need the understanding of Safety, Electricity and what it can do to your body and to others, you need to know how to use equipment, you need to know how the elements can affect what you are doing, you need to know the codes, how to hand signal crane operators, It's not all about bushing, LED's, Neon, tube supports & steel pole schedules.


Of course if you open up one of your issues of Sign & Digital Graphics and read on articles written by columnists who aren't even in the sign trade on wholesale channel letters, they basically tell you that "if you aren't selling channel letters YOU should be....Don't be intimidated.....Wholesalers are ready to help you out!" "Anyone can do it!" They also go on to tell you, if you aren't qualified you should find ways go around it. They are taking advantage of newbies who have no business in the electric sign trade and they write these articles only to please their advertisers and pump their sales. They don't care about who they are hurting as long as they sell.

Like I said, I'm passionate about what I do. For the record, "I don't know it all", I'm still learning from those who are WAY ahead of me. I just want to help preserve what I love, and get it back on track again. My aspect of the trade has a WHOLE lot of issues that I have to worry about other than the hacks trying to get in on the lower end of the totem pole, we have problems at the very top of the pole that are far more damaging most of all.

So, take what I say for what it may be worth to you, maybe nothing at all.

Ever been zapped by 15kv? oh yeah!

 

[Westcoast Sign Guy]

Ever been zapped by 15kv? oh yeah!

Yes,

Standing on a ladder on a foggy moist morning opening the middle letter of a standard channel letter wiring configuration. My face was inches away from the metal return and it arched out and hit me square on the chin ("you need to know how the elements can affect what you are doing"). Luckily It was the middle letter where very little voltage should be and it didn't knock me off the ladder. But, it was enough for me to feel like someone was on the ladder with me punching me dead in the face. That was my newbie mistake of my thinking the sign was shut off the sign at the timer, not knowing that someone had re-wired the sign behind the wall an not checking power at the tranny. The halo-phosphate of the neon lamps were so deteriorated and so bad it appeared to be off even in the very low light levels of the morning.

That was the first and last time I ever assumed a sign was off before working on one, even though it was always in the back of my head. What scares me more, because there are more deaths are Fluorescent sign electrocutions. Have had quite a few around here locally.

The day I stop being scared it the day something will happen to me.

 

[UFB Fabrication]

A car battery needs to supply 12v directional current with sufficient AMPERAGE to allow a starter motor to turn over an engine against the resistance of engine compression.

An led lighting power supply needs to supply 12 volt directional current in the MILLIAMP range... that's it.

Cars catch fire because there are lots of wires running past hot engine components and because some elements of the wiring loom are subjected to repeated high amp loading... neither of these things apply to led lighting.

Good quality led modules installed in the correct way should never present a fire risk.. there is no heat generation during the illumination process and there isn't really enough amperage to cause an electrical fire at the module side. If you use a cheap, poor quality mains to 12v DC transformer then this will present a fire risk.... but the use of any cheap, poor quality electrical component will present the same risk.

Some sign makers need an option for illuminated products an led's are, in my opinion the safest route... the only potentially dangerous part is connecting the power supply to mains voltage.

I hate to get into a wizzing contest over what is safe and what is not. But to say the alternative to someone that is not qualified or smart enough to build a neon,HID or fluorescent sign should just use LED because it is easy or safe is bad advice. Dozens of things could go wrong if not done using the proper materials.

 

[J Hill Designs]

true dat! fluo ballasts kill, neon xformers scare. 15kv @ .03 amps vs 800v @ 5 amps

 

[J Hill Designs]

I hate to get into a wizzing contest over what is safe and what is not. But to say the alternative to someone that is not qualified or smart enough to build a neon,HID or fluorescent sign should just use LED because it is easy or safe is bad advice. Dozens of things could go wrong if not done using the proper materials.

I believe he said safeEST

 

[UFB Fabrication]

I believe he said safeEST

The safest route is to have someone who knows WTF they are doing teach them or do it for them.

I have never flown a helicopter or a plane but telling me to go to the airport and just fly a plane without knowing how because its safer (?) is silly

 

[J Hill Designs]

yeah but flying a model helicopter (LED lighting) is fairly safe, yes?

 

[UFB Fabrication]

yeah but flying a model helicopter (LED lighting) is fairly safe, yes?

Till it hits you in the crotch. Then hope the wife is video tapping it and send it to Americas funniest video.

 

[J Hill Designs]

ok...

 

[Westcoast Sign Guy]

But to say the alternative to someone that is not qualified or smart enough to build a neon,HID or fluorescent sign should just use LED because it is easy or safe is bad advice. Dozens of things could go wrong if not done using the proper materials.

Unfortunately, this is why LED sales are so far advanced and so widely used these days. It' not so much existing shops converting from neon to LED, but the emergence of the vinyl shop going electric.

This is the marketing of the LED salesmen and women who have had no sign trade experience making marketing statement to newbies with no real experience with high voltage, "it's safe, it's 12 volts, its' efficient, and it's green".

If you ever talk to a LED guy who has been in the trade prior, you will see a completely different attitude and approach to their sales. Too bad they are very few.

A true tradesmen and shop will know when to use Neon or LED in the application of the sign they have going. There is no "one fits all", if that is the attitude of the shop, it shows their lack of experience and knowledge that they pass onto their customers

 

[J Hill Designs]

you guys heard of the electric company rebates for making LED instead of neon and converting signs from neon to LED? something like $12 per letter back to you for going LED instead of neon...wierd, but my supplier came by with a pamphlet from PGE last week telling all about it.

 

[Westcoast Sign Guy]

you guys heard of the electric company rebates for making LED instead of neon and converting signs from neon to LED? something like $12 per letter back to you for going LED instead of neon...wierd, but my supplier came by with a pamphlet from PGE last week telling all about it.

I've had a few conversations with SDG&E, they wanted to know why other sign shops have not been taking advantage of it. We have gone over the test results of what I have been doing with various light sources.

In the end they saw how their rebate program to the end client making the initial upfront investment minus the rebate for the retrofit does not justify any savings they get on their annual power bill. In some case it will take 20-40 years. e.g. GE programs like Holiday Inn

Some shady sign companies use this for their sales marketing.