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The Background on LED Lighting
By Jeff Wooten
The next time you pull into a gas station to fill up your car of stop by the local dairy bar to revel in the latest frozen treat or window shop outside your favorite department store, pay particularly close attention to the architecture and the glow it is emitting. Chances are excellent that you will be viewing the full effect of LEDs in border lighting applications. The good news for today’s sign designer is that LEDs are available in a variety of sizes and formats for such projects.
LEDs are proving to be a popular choice for new or retrofit border lighting applications, and there appear to be a multiplying number of establishments wanting to accentuate their surroundings with this technology.
“A wide range of markets have chosen to employ LEDs for architectural border lighting applications, including real estate development companies, retail owners, casinos, architectural firms, nightclubs, law firms, restaurants, strip malls, supermarkets, and of course, signage companies,” says Sara Waterman of AgiLight, Inc., the manufacturer of BrightLine flexible LED light tubing bases in San Angelo, Texas. According to the company, the versatile BrightLine lighting device “offers neon-like brightness and uniformity of color glow and can be bent or formed on-site to install easily in channels or on flat surfaces.”
Photo courtesy of Kingbright Corporation.
“Gas stations are another market accepting LED technology for border lighting applications,” adds William Chu, regional sales manager for Kingbright Corporation, a worldwide component manufacturer of LED lamps, clusters, light bars, and other related products with its U.S. headquarters in City of Industry, California.
“Not only are companies using LEDs around windows, but they are also utilizing it in displays, to highlight vehicle signage, and of course, to enhance architectural lighting on buildings,” says Jack Dubord, president and founder of LEDpac, a San Diego-based company with several U.S.-made LED products designed for border lighting applications. “Our new Treklite is sophisticated and fully adaptable to be used in commercial or residential lighting: Anything from art galleries to stage lighting.”
There are several reasons for the interest surge in LEDs for these types of applications, regardless of whether they are retrofitted or newly installed modules. From Dubord’s vantage point, his company’s LED products are “attractive because of their energy efficiency. There is no bulky hardware, thick wires, or neon double backs to distort the visual flow. You see sharp, clean edges and bright illumination. (Dubord also points out that his company’s UL Recognized Treklite and Channel Lite products comply to Title 24 commercial and residential codes.)
Chu suggests, “Customers have complained that with neon, you may need to manufacture more to compensate for the likelihood of breakage during transportation.”
“[Other reasons] are breakage-free installations, flexibility, and low-voltage operation for safety,” adds Waterman about LEDs’ appeal. “Also, BrightLine experiences virtually no temperature rise and is cool to the touch, making it less of a fire hazard and a much safer alternative in applications within reach of passers-by.”
Waterman’s comments touch on a selling point highlighted by other manufacturers: Low fire-hazard risk. “A lower fire hazard is one of the primary reasons that gas stations are switching over to LEDs,” says Chu. “Higher voltage increases the risk of the lighting mixing with the gas fumes and catching fire, which will increase insurance premiums.”
“LED is more shock-resistant and more robust in a physical structure,” confirms Kingbright Corporation Engineering Manager Man Yu, also pointing out that he believes the lifespan for LEDs (most manufacturers say 100,000 hours) is another attractive option.
When one works with LEDs in lighting applications, it is important to understand that the technology functions better at cold (or cooler) weather (which may be one reason that there is also an increase in LED usage for refrigerated displays at the local supermarket). “LED lighting technology appears brighter at cooler temperatures,” explains Wu.
On the other hand, a business utilizing LED needs to realize that hot weather may lessen the performance. “The hotter it gets, the lower the current, which means it will be dimmer,” says Chu.
To prevent this problem of overheating, Chu suggests three factors than an LED designer or installer should consider:
“It is especially important to make sure the design or installation of the LED border lights are not overdriven at a much higher current.”
“You need to make sure that the LEDs are not packed too closely together, which in the end will make it too dense to cool down in ambient temperatures.”
“Verify that the lighting circulation is good.”
LEDs can also be installed on a variety of materials, including wood, plastic, steel, etc. However, it is important that a sign maker be fully aware of how to mount this technology in new or retrofit applications. For the sign maker more experienced with neon, LED might look simple, but it does carry some factors to consider. “The installer should know that the BrightLine product is heavier than neon, so it needs a secure mounting platform,” advises Waterman. “But overall, the replacement of border neon is very, very simple. We are developing an end cap that connects directly to the conduit to carry the 110V AC input line.”
LED border lighting applications are available in a host of colors (though, at this time, non as many as neon, nor as fine-tuned): Basic red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and white, mainly. However, according to Kingbright Corporation, red and white appear to be the most popular. “Everybody likes white, and it can be used in many different applications,” states Yu.
“Red is much more eye-catching,” adds Chu. “It is one of the most cost-efficient colors.
“Using LEDpac Treklite SLP (available in red, blue, green, amber, and white for border lighting applications) produces a beautiful, seamless light spread and brightness in a clean, professional manner,” says Dubord.
AgiLight currently offers colors in a translucent plastic sleeve and is currently developing a product with a colored sleeve. “This will allow the color of the border lighting to be visible both during the day and at night,” says Waterman.
So the next time you view that crisp glow being generated by a business on its architecture or around its windows, then hopefully these insights will help you better understand why LED was selected.
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