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Why you should replace Neon Signs with Electroluminescent Signs

- Lower Cost

- Shorter Delivery Times

- Lower Power Consumption

Neon signs are luminous-tube signs that contain neon or other inert gases at a low pressure. Applying a high voltage (usually a few thousand volts) makes the gas glow brightly. They are produced by the craft of bending glass tubing into shapes. A worker skilled in this craft is known as a glass bender, neon or tube bender.

Neon sign tubes are distinguished from neon lamp bulbs by their length, customized shapes, higher operating voltages, and range of colors.

Electroluminescence (EL) is an optical phenomenon and electrical phenomenon in which a material emits light in response to an electric current passed through it, or to a strong electric field. This is distinct from light emission resulting from heat (incandescence), chemical reaction (chemiluminescence), sound (sonoluminescence), or other mechanical action. The most common EL devices are either powder (primarily used in lighting applications) or thin film (for information displays.)

Electronluminscent signs are distinguished by the following features:

- True-color reproduction and animation of high-resolution graphic

- Do not require high voltage

- Vibration and impact-resistant

- Light weight and durable - easy to ship

- Cost-effective to own and operate

- Super thin and flexibe

- Safe in Food areas - no UV emitted

Comparison Electroluminescent Signs to Other Technology Including Neon Signs - Click Here

Electroluminescent Frequently Asked Questions - Click Here

EL Products - Click Here

More About Neon Signs

History of Neon Signs

The neon sign is an evolution of the earlier Geissler tube (also called a Crookes tube), which is a glass tube for demonstrating the principles of electrical discharge.

There are conflicting stories for the origin of neon signs. At the 1893 World's Fair, the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, Nikola Tesla's signs were displayed. Supposedly, a sign created by Perley G. Nutting and displaying the word “neon” was shown at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904; however, this claim has been disputed.[1] The development of neon signs has also been credited to Georges Claude; another early public display of a neon sign was of two 38-foot (12 m) long tubes in December 1910 at the Paris Expo. The first commercial sign was sold by Jaques Fonseque, Claude’s associate, in 1912 to a Paris barber.

In 1923, Georges Claude and his French company Claude Neon, introduced neon gas signs to the United States, by selling two to a Packard car dealership in Los Angeles. Earle C. Anthony purchased the two signs reading "Packard" for $1,250 apiece. Neon lighting quickly became a popular fixture in outdoor advertising. Visible even in daylight, people would stop and stare at the first neon signs for hours, dubbed "liquid fire."[2]

While neon lighting was used around 1930 in France for general illumination, it was no more energy-efficient than conventional incandescent lighting and neon lighting came to be used primarily for eye-catching signs and advertisements. Phosphor coating manufacturers have developed high efficiency triphosphor coatings for neon lamps that rival the best fluorescent tubes for efficiency, especially when used at small diameters.

Construction of Neon Signs

The neon tube is made out of 3-4' straight sticks of hollow glass sold by sign suppliers to neon shops worldwide who hand produce them into individual custom designed and manufactured neon lamps and neon signs. Manufacturing is a cottage industry and an eclectic art, in most cases, often a small family business. All neon tubes are hand made and labor intensive, even today, and the shop equipment is normally custom assembled from scratch by the craftsmen themselves from parts. There are many dozens of colors available. The color is chosen by the type of tubing used, and the gas filling.

Tubing in external diameters ranging from about 8-15 mm with a 1 mm wall thickness is most commonly used, although 6mm tubing is now commercially available in colored glass tubes. The tube is heated in sections using several types of burners that are selected according to the amount of glass to be heated for each bend. These burners include ribbon, cannon, or crossfires, as well as a variety of gas torches. Ribbon burners are strips of fire that make the gradual bends while crossfires, when used, make the sharp bends.

The interior of the tubes may be coated with a thin phosphorescent powder coating, affixed to the interior wall of the tube by a binding material. The tube is filled with a purified gas mixture, and the gas ionized by a high voltage applied between the ends of the sealed tube through cold cathodes welded onto the ends. The color of the light emitted by the tube may be just that coming from the gas, or the light from the phosphor layer. Different phosphor-coated tubing sections may be butt welded together using glass working torches to form a single tube of varying colors, for effects such as a sign where each letter displays a different color letter within a single word.

"Neon" is used to denote the general type of lamp, but neon gas, is only one of the types of tube gases principally used in commercial application. Pure neon gas is used to produce only about a third of the colors. The greatest number of colors is produced by filling with another inert gas, argon, and a drop of mercury (Hg) which is added to the tube immediately after purification. When the tube is ionized by electrification, the mercury evaporates into mercury vapor, which fills the tube and produces strong ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light thus produced excites the various phosphor coatings designed to produce different colors. Even though this class of neon tubes use no neon at all, they are still denoted as "neon." Mercury-bearing lamps are a type of cold-cathode fluorescent lamps.

Each type of neon tubing produces two completely different possible colors, one with neon gas and the other with argon/mercury. Some "neon" tubes are made without phosphor coatings for some of the colors. Clear tubing filled with neon gas produces the ubiquitous yellowish orange color with the interior plasma column clearly visible, and is the cheapest and simplest tube to make. Traditional neon glasses in America over 20 years old are lead glass that are easy to soften in gas fires, but recent environmental and health concerns of the workers has prompted manufacturers to seek more environmentally safe special soft glass formulas.[3] One of the vexing problems avoided this way is lead glass' tendency to burn into a black spot emitting lead fumes in a bending flame too rich in the fuel/oxygen mixture. Another traditional line of glasses was colored soda lime glasses coming in a myriad of glass color choices, which produce the highest quality, most hypnotically vibrant and saturated hues. Still more color choices are afforded in either coating, or not coating, these colored glasses with the various available exotic phosphors.

Applications for Neon Lights

The light-emitting tubes form colored lines with which a text can be written or a picture drawn, including various decorations, especially in advertising and commercial signage. By programming sequences of switching parts on and off, there are many possibilities for dynamic light patterns that form animated images.

Benefits of Replacing neon signs with EL signs