Hiya 'Heads, A client that is in the construction business is looking for a rear lit dimensional sign for their office lobby. They like the look of reverse channel letters and have asked us to incorporate that into the design. The finished size will be about 8-10' long by 4-5' tall The materials they're asking for are polished diamond plate and possibly some digital media for some detail work. Because of the size, turn-around time and location of the finished project, we ruled neon out. Flurescent is an option, but I'm looking for long term reliability and low maintenance. Which leaves me with LED's or Fiber optics. Have any of you used LED or fiber optic lighting with a project like this? Any suppliers, sources of information, tips or tricks, pitfalls, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
Havin' fun, Checkers
Posted by Felix Marcano (Member # 1833) on :
I've done fiber ops & its beautiful, but I can NOT recommend the people that sold it to me (Supervision). The service I got was horrible & I had to pay about $600.00 for fiber I had to shove up where the sun don't shine. I'll never buy from them again.
Posted by Santo (Member # 411) on :
Brian, look in any issue of SignCraft for the advertiser who is offering a $49 Startup kit. It Offers 10 ft of LED's and transformer with jumpers. I beleieve it is expandable. It could be the excellent for smaller app's
Posted by jimmy chatham (Member # 525) on :
you might try rope light. it would worh behind the letters like neon. i don't know where to buy it.
Posted by Eric Roche (Member # 1967) on :
It depends On a Couple of things both are very viable options. Distance of the wall, color of the halo, How intricate is the design or is it just border, how far back can you set light source. etc. etc. they both have there good & bad sides. The leds indoors have a huge life span but when they finally do die it wouldnt be a customer serviceable item, where as the Fiber optic maybe one or two bulbs that can easily be changed. With a little more info we might be able to point ya in the right direction.
Posted by Checkers (Member # 63) on :
Hi Guys, Thanks for the replies. Here's what we're leaning towards, although the artwork will be revised...
It's basically 24" wide black acrylic panels with some sort of Wilsonart laminate applied to the face. The panels will be mounted about 2" off the wall with edge gripping stand-offs. The letters (currently white blocks) will be about 2" thick, rear lit and they will stand off the panels another 1". The kicker is that the client wants the triangle in the logo to also light up from the front. We plan on using rope light to rear light the large panels and then snake the rope light from the back panels to behind the letters. Trying to match the pms color of the red may be another story. Thanks in advance for the input. Havin' fun, Checkers
