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Geneva Olson

Geneva Olson

Expert Storyteller
We don't sell lighted signs so this is not quite in our wheel house. We are replacing the lights in our own sign. We are ordering the lights from one of our wholesalers and having someone install them. What I need to know is what we need to get (probably from grimco) and how many we need. My husband read somewhere that we need 5000 lumens. Can anyone enlighten me (pun intended) on what we need to purchase through grimco?

TIA
 
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unclebun

Active Member
You're making it harder than it needs to be. What was the original lighting for the cabinet? Two 10' fluorescent?

If so, replace it with it with two 10' Hanley NRG Streamliners. No power supply necessary. If it was 5 or 6 two footers, then the same number and size of the Streamliners. Might need a connector cable and a surge protector.
 
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JBurton

JBurton

Signtologist
If it were me, I'd just relamp it with new fluorescents, assuming the ballast still works. If it has already been retrofitted, replace with some principal sticks, though your selection is limited by how far the lamps are from the face, not necessarily the depth of the can.
I'm not a big fan of the ballast bypass sticks that run off 120v. We don't have a lot of experience with them, but the fact that they rely on the old wiring and sockets, which will eventually degrade, requiring you to rewire and buy new sockets, really kinda defeats the purpose of a retrofit. The aluminum sticks that fit sockets and are cut to the same length as original lamps are ideal, and take about 10 minutes to relamp and rewire if you're good with a pair of strippers.
 
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unclebun

Active Member
JBurton said:
If it were me, I'd just relamp it with new fluorescents, assuming the ballast still works. If it has already been retrofitted, replace with some principal sticks, though your selection is limited by how far the lamps are from the face, not necessarily the depth of the can.
I'm not a big fan of the ballast bypass sticks that run off 120v. We don't have a lot of experience with them, but the fact that they rely on the old wiring and sockets, which will eventually degrade, requiring you to rewire and buy new sockets, really kinda defeats the purpose of a retrofit. The aluminum sticks that fit sockets and are cut to the same length as original lamps are ideal, and take about 10 minutes to relamp and rewire if you're good with a pair of strippers.
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Actually they sit in the sockets but they are powered by their own power wire which you splice to the power feed coming in to where it used to attach to the ballast. Then they daisy chain together, totally bypassing the sign's internal wiring. They only use the socket as a holder.

There is an alternative, just straight sticks which also sit in the sockets but instead wire to an LED power supply. If there are no sockets, then you buy little holders which attach to the sign wall with double sided tape or a screw.

It's getting more and more expensive to buy the HO fluorescent tubes and ballasts. And the electricity cost difference to LEDs is immense.
 
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unclebun

Active Member
If you get the Synergy Stiks, I would not get the 7100K color lights. That's too blue. Daylight is generally 5500K and your fluorescents are more like 4000K. With the Synergy Stiks you'll also need to get a 24V power supply. The 10' Stiks draw 24W each, so if there are two, that's a total of 48W. Three would be 72W. So you would be fine with a 96W power supply.
Download the data sheet and the retrofit guide from Grimco's product page and it will have all the info and instructions.
 
Geneva Olson

Geneva Olson

Expert Storyteller
How does that equate to lumens? I bought the original lights in our sign and I didn't know what I was getting and they are severly weak. It looks like we need 5000 lumens? would that be correct? It also looks like I will be getting 12 of them. 120" in length? How many lumens will 3 produce?
 
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McDonald Signs

McDonald Signs

McDonald Signs & Graphics
We retrofit old lighted signs alot. You can get from Grimco the LED Light Sticks that replace the fluorescent bulbs that fit in the existing sockets (I'm not a big fan of these sockets but have installed some like this and they work good)
or what we do is just buy bags of the Hanley LED's PF-3120W 7000K wired together like christmas lights and 60W or 120W power supplies and put them where you want inside the cabinet. Don't overload the power
supplies with too many leds. The LEDs we use are 1.2W each so multiply how many leds are on each power supply and say if it's a 60W power supply try to keep the LED watts down to 40W+ or so to keep it under 60W.
On a SF wall cabinet you stick the LED's to the back wall of the cabinet with the 3M tape on the back of the LEDs or if it's a DF Cabinet you'll need to make or purchase vertical supports to stick the LEDs on both sides
of the vertical supports. You can purchase them but we started taking the supports out of 3/4in metal conduit cut to size needed and each side end bent in an L shape each end then installed in the cabinet with 2 screws top
and bottom to keep supports from moving/spinning. I usually space the supports/leds around 8in to 12in apart inside the cabinet usually right next to the old sockets the way they are spaced. You can run a jumper wire from
each vertical support to save on LEDs. We Install the power supplies on the vertical sides inside the cabinet, not on the bottom of the cabinet that can collect water. Also after LEDs are installed we run a bead of good clear
silicone down one side of each LED module bonding it to the rear wall of the cabinet or the vertical supports in case the 3M tape on the LEDs fails which it does sometimes even when installing.
 
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unclebun

Active Member
Geneva Olson said:
How does that equate to lumens? I bought the original lights in our sign and I didn't know what I was getting and they are severly weak. It looks like we need 5000 lumens? would that be correct? It also looks like I will be getting 12 of them. 120" in length? How many lumens will 3 produce?
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You don't need to worry about lumens when you use the retrofit systems. They are made to work in the same place a T12 HO fluorescent bulb would work. Is that not what you had before? At any rate there's no way you would need 12 of the Synergy Stiks in a cabinet only 2 ft tall. It would either be 2 or 3 stiks. That's the whole point of using the stik type retrofits. The lighting calculation and spacing has already been taken care of for you. Now if you're trying to wire the sign with just LED modules that's another story.
 
Geneva Olson

Geneva Olson

Expert Storyteller
unclebun said:
You don't need to worry about lumens when you use the retrofit systems. They are made to work in the same place a T12 HO fluorescent bulb would work. Is that not what you had before? At any rate there's no way you would need 12 of the Synergy Stiks in a cabinet only 2 ft tall. It would either be 2 or 3 stiks. That's the whole point of using the stik type retrofits. The lighting calculation and spacing has already been taken care of for you. Now if you're trying to wire the sign with just LED modules that's another story.
Click to expand...
back in 2020 when we moved into this place, i had bought some lighting through one of my suppliers and changed out what had been in there. We had bought those strip lights and a power supply. An electrician came in and placed them in. Now I'm looking to replace it with something brighter. I truly can't rememeber what we put in it last time. But this is an old building and we were just trying to get the sign lit and had to replace components.
Now, the reason why I said I was getting 12 sticks is because that's the quantity Grimco is selling me. So, I'll have left overs. (which is fine, we are also doing another business in the strip center.).
I guess I need to get my husband to look and see what's up there now.
 
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