Paper or plastic? Steak or fish? Neon or LED?

A custom sign set you apart from your competition. By it's nature, a custom sign can be made up of limitless combinations of materials. Of these materials, the illumination source is just about the most important. In the past, your choices were fairly simple. You had neon or flourescent tubes. If you wanted to illuminate a channel letter, you only had one choice, neon. Today there are a few more choices to put your name up in lights.

LED is really the wave of the future. They are used everywhere, computers, billboards, tv's and yes, signs. It is a technology that is rapidly changing and evolving. Even as you read this, some company has just made the LED more efficiant or inexpensive.

While neon may never go away entirely (let's hope not at least), there will always be needs for it. Since LED illumination is most likely the way you will choose, lets discuss some of it's advantages.

Cost

Just like everything else driven by innovation, LED used to be much more expensive than neon. Over time the gap narrowed and now tilts towards LED as the more economical choice.

Footprint

While this isn't always a factor, consider the fact that a traditional neon channel letter is 5" deep and an LED letter can be 2" or 3" deep. If you owned a chain of companies who all needed signs, that savings on materials is going to be very attractive.

Shipping & Installation

Because LED signs and thinner than neon signs, they are also lighter. This makes them easier to ship and install.

Brightness

Brightness and clarity are two of the most important features of an LED sign. LED signs are bright and easy to see even in direct sunlight, whereas it can be hard to tell if a neon sign is on or not in the daylight.

Going Green / Saving Green

Sounds like a buzz word but if helping the environment while saving some cash sounds good to you, LED is definately your choice. LED signs use very little power. LED signs use about 8-10 times less electricity than a comparable neon sign.  This makes them safe and cool to the touch.  Operation costs are dramatically less as you will see on your utility bills.  Lastly, LED signs do not use toxic materials like argon and mercury.

Maintenance

LED signs are virtually maintenance free. Neon signs are suceptable to failure. Breakage, gas loss and tranformer issues are common with neon. Repair costs for neon, as you can imagine, are very high. While we repair neon tubes every day here at United-Maier Signs we always prefer happy customers instread. LED signs are very durable and last up to 100,000 hours, even if left on around the clock.

Animation

You can't drive down a highway or busy street without seeing LED signs. Many times you will see them with rotating ads or scrolling messages. Did the receiver make the catch? Check the replay on the 30 foot LED score board.