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A person who has been able to organize a business may think about making an advertisement with his own hands. This solution is especially relevant for those entrepreneurs who have just started organizing their own business and cannot afford expensive advertising. However, in conditions high competition informing through various advertising tools buyers about their services and products is the norm, allowing them to survive in tough market conditions.

An advertising sign is one of the effective ways to attract the attention of a potential buyer and briefly provide him with all the necessary information about a product or service. Anyone can do it with their own hands if they read the tips given below.

Any man could use quality tools in his home. In the article “Choosing a drill: versatility or specialization? » learn about the nuances of one of them.

To create an advertising masterpiece yourself, it is not enough to be enthusiastic; you need to have some materials and tools on hand. Moreover, many tools do not even have to be specially purchased, because they are standard stationery supplies, which each company purchases: scissors, ruler and pencil. In addition, you should have a tape measure, discount or bank card(any, as long as it is plastic) and scissors that allow you to cut metal. You can’t do without technology either, because a computer and a printer allow you to design an advertisement and print it.

• thin sheet of steel (preferably galvanized). The minimum sheet thickness must be at least 0.6 mm, the optimal format is 1000x2000 mm;
• self-adhesive film. It should be several colors (any colors you like best). It is better to choose an opaque and glossy film with strong adhesion;
• Auxiliary materials include rags, double-sided tape and glue (hard).

After everything is prepared, you can begin to implement your plans.

Every business owner wants to stand out from their competitors. Currently, technologies for the production of illuminated advertising have stepped far forward and offer the widest selection of materials and technologies for the manufacture of signs for every taste and budget.

Let's look at duralight and LED neon as an affordable material for making not only signs, but also decorative lighting for the entrance area, the facade of your building, or even the interior (both the reception and interior design elements). Why duralight or LED neon? The fact is that these particular materials do not require any special knowledge of sign manufacturing technology, which requires taking into account many nuances. In addition, modern duralight is made on the basis of the same LEDs, due to which its light output will be maximum, applicable to its manufacturing technology.

WHAT IS USED IN LIGHT BOXES AND SIGNS?

Let's figure out why LED duralight, light modules, strips and LED neon are better than good old neon tubes, morally and technologically outdated incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps. I think that incandescent lamps are being immediately swept aside. Such lamps were used in outdoor advertising about 40 years ago, and only due to the lack of other alternatives. The only case is duralight (until quite recently it was assembled based on miniature incandescent light bulbs).

OBSOLETE MATERIALS FOR BOXES AND SIGNS.

• Incandescent lamps— high heat transfer is not applicable for our conditions. In winter, during operation, such a lamp melts the snow and ice around it, the plastic elements of the sign, it is flooded with water, when it turns off and cools down, it becomes overgrown with ice, which eventually melts again and safely burns out along with the electrical wiring elements. Extremely low efficiency - high power consumption, low light output. Let's forget about them.
• Luminescent electrics— it is impossible to create complex elements from fluorescent lamps. Such electrics take a long time and turn on poorly at low temperatures. Small selection of lamp color options. IN Lately It is used only in light boxes, or for illuminating shop windows. Safely being replaced by LED technologies, which have a higher light output efficiency, many times greater mean time between failures and are less demanding on temperature environment. In isolated cases, energy-saving lamps are found in small signs made using handicraft methods. I consider such use unacceptable, if not from an aesthetic point of view, then at least because of the low IP class, which can be very fraught for those who like to “save money”.
• Neon (gas light) tubes- being currently one of the oldest technologies, it does not have many disadvantages compared to LED neon and even LED duralight. But there are also significant disadvantages - for gas-light tubes, the operating temperature regime is considered to be a relatively narrow range from -25 to +50 C. At lower temperatures, increased currents are required to operate the tube, which sharply reduces the service life of the tube itself. Under real operating conditions, it was noticed that temperatures of -15 and below lead to a significant drop in the brightness of the neon tube, as a result of which the key inscription of the name of your store, made in neon, is inferior in luminosity to the underlying box on fluorescent lamps. Also, neon advertising requires very high voltage power supply, which is dangerous for indoor use, and you have to think about where to place bulky and heavy power transformers. Another significant disadvantage is that the glass is fragile! Well, besides, we are considering the possibility of making advertising with our own hands, and with neon tubes we cannot do without the help of competent specialists and expensive equipment.

MODERN LIGHTING MATERIALS FOR LIGHTED SIGNS AND BOXES.

As a result, it turns out that neither luminescent nor gas-light technologies are suitable for us to make illuminated advertising or its elements with our own hands. This is where we come back to using it for our purposes. LED duralight, LED neon, LED strip and light modules as the most accessible and profitable materials for us .

• Round duralight.
• LED modules.
• Flexible LED neon.

PROS AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING NEON AND DURALIGHT.

Pros (+).

• Durability— LEDs mean time between failures is up to 100,000 hours continuous operation. I have never seen a MTBF declared below 30,000 hours even from Chinese manufacturers.
• Extremely low power consumption— LED neon flex consumes 4-8 Watts per linear meter (neon tube is about 20 W-meter). In general, as practice shows, with the same glow intensity, LEDs consume 4 times less energy than fluorescent lamps, and about 10 times less than incandescent lamps.
• Operating temperatures— the range recommended by LED manufacturers ranges from -70 at the lower limit of the range to +85 (cautious manufacturers limit this threshold to +50) at the upper limit. At the same time, the brightness of the glow is maintained, as well as the instant start.
• Flexibility— both duralight and LED neon are essentially flexible plastic tubes with LEDs and electrical circuit elements lined inside. I would like to note that duralight bends easier, with a smaller bending radius and along any axis, unlike LED neon. Due to this factor, it is more convenient to lay out flat and fairly large sign elements (for example, the outlines of letters) with LED neon, while with duralight you can easily repeat any outline of a design element.
• High IP65 rating— most of the tubes currently produced can operate completely immersed in water without any problems.

Minuses (-).

We have discussed a lot of advantages of LED neon and duralight, but there are probably also disadvantages? Yes, both LED neon and duralight have their drawbacks.

• A common disadvantage is the multiplicity of cuts. Due to the fact that elements of the device’s electrical circuit are located inside the tube, both duralight and LED neon have a certain cutting pitch (multiplicity), which varies from 0.15 to 3.0 meters for duralight and from 0.91 or 1, 52 meters for LED neon. In this regard, some design restrictions are imposed, since you have to hide the excess length of the light cord somewhere.
• It is believed that the disadvantage of duralight compared to LED neon is discreteness of duralight glow. Those. You can save money and make the contour illumination of a sign from duralight, which is cheaper than LED neon, but in the end we will get either uneven light with pronounced points of illumination (if the illuminated surface is close to the sign), or a too weak and inexpressive glow (with increasing distance from the sign to the illuminated surface). Naturally, this point can be considered a disadvantage only when performing certain tasks, but when choosing a design solution, you should always take into account that the step between the LEDs in duralight is very noticeable and amounts to 0.5 - 2.5 cm, whereas LED- neon has an even glow, indistinguishable from neon, along its entire length.

• And finally, I would like to note once again that LED neon bends well only in one plane, and in other planes the bending radius is significantly inferior to duralight, which cannot be ignored if you want to highlight a complex small shape.

USEFUL LINKS ABOUT DURALITE.

One way to promote a new or old business is outdoor advertising. Some have the opportunity to invest heavily in “promotion”, but others can only count on minimum investment. In such a situation, the question arises of how to make a sign with your own hands.

Before you start, decide what the banner should be like. It is recommended to pay attention to three factors - accessibility (in terms of cost of materials), competent content and manufacturability.

Materials and tools

Answering the question of how to properly design a sign, let’s consider the list of materials and tools required for this.

Materials to make a beautiful sign:

• Galvanized steel sheets 100*200 cm (note that the minimum sheet thickness should be 0.6 mm);
• Self-adhesive film, made in several shades (pay attention to the opaque glossy film);
• Rags;
• Solid glue and double-sided tape.

Tools to create signs:

• Stationery scissors;
• Scissors designed for cutting metal;
• Ruler with a simple pencil;
• Roulette;
• PC connected to the printer.

If you don’t know how to choose a design yourself or decide on colors, then look at examples on the Internet or use the help of friends, relatives, etc.

Instructions for creating advertising

Step-by-step instructions on how to make a sign:

1. Decide on the parameters outdoor advertising, then mark the steel sheet. To make a sign that meets the parameters of 200*50 cm, the sheet is cut into two parts. In this case, the film base needs to be made up of several pieces, since the width of the film is usually 45 cm.
2. Cut the sheet in accordance with the drawn markings. Burrs remaining along the edges can be processed with a file.
3. Make templates according to which the letters will be cut. To do this you will need a PC and a printer. You can use any graphics editor. In it, decide what font and letter size is required.
4. All letters need to be glued. Select a film of the shade in which the letters should be made.
5. Roll out a roll of film of the desired color on a sheet of metal, then lay out the letters and decide on the order of their placement. Glue the letters carefully.
6. The final stage is edging. For this, hair from the same self-adhesive film can be used.

Now you know how to design a sign yourself.

Measure your future sign. Think about what size it should be. It may also depend on the materials you already have. Once you decide on the size, think about how much white space you want around the edges of the text. Then, based on this, calculate what size the letters should be.

Download the fonts you need. Of course, you can use the fonts that come with programs such as Microsoft Word. However, most of them look hackneyed, because they are available to almost everyone. Download some new fonts if you want to use something original.

• If you're making a sign for work, it's a good idea to use some nice paid font.
• In case you want to get fonts for free, there are sites on the Internet where you can find them. The easiest option is the DeviantArt website.
• If you decide to let the professionals make your sign, it's best to let them choose the fonts themselves because they most likely won't have the fonts you chose. However, discuss this issue with them.

Step-by-step instructions on one of the methods for making advertising letters backlit with open LEDs.

There are many ways to make backlit advertising letters. Fluorescent lamps, neon, LED clusters and even miniature incandescent lamps are usually used as lighting. These sources have some disadvantages.

Fluorescent lamps are of decent size and relatively unreliable; compact lamps with a glow color other than white are almost impossible to find. At sub-zero temperatures, the light output of such lamps drops significantly, which is especially important for the Russian climate. Electronic ballasts greatly increase the weight of the structure; electronic ballasts rarely make it possible to squeeze more than 80% efficiency out of a lamp.

Neon is expensive to manufacture, install and maintain, is fragile, requires high supply voltages, and is therefore vulnerable to places with high humidity.

LED clusters good quality They are quite expensive and have dimensions that do not always allow their use in narrow spaces.

Below is a method that allows you to achieve good visibility of a letter from a long distance with low power consumption and low cost of light sources.

So let's get started.

To make letters 35 cm high we will need:

1. PVC plastic 3 mm
2. PVC film Oracal 641
3. 5 mm red LEDs with a dispersion angle of 60 degrees. This product uses 4R5 LEDs
(A 120-degree angle is preferred for this type of signage, but the client wanted the letters to be visible from as far away as possible, so a 60-degree angle was preferred.)
4. Connecting wires, hot glue gun.
5. Any tool:)

First, we cut out the letters themselves from PVC plastic according to the template. We mark the front side taking into account the LED pitch of about 20 mm, while retreating from the edge of the letter about 10 mm. We drill the plastic with a wood drill with a diameter of 5 mm.

The next step is to roll up the front surface with red PVC film.

After this procedure, you need to cut the film on the existing holes with a cross. Preferably carefully, within the hole. You can, of course, roll up the letter first and then drill the holes. We don’t do this because the film tends to “dry out” over time, and we have a chance to get a white border around the drilled hole. In addition, the film does not drill so well; you end up with rags that you have to tear off by hand.

It is convenient to perform the following operation with one of the LEDs, holding it by the terminals. Carefully “pierce” all the holes from the seaming side so that the petals of the cut film stick to the walls of the hole. Thanks to this procedure, the LEDs will stay in the hole more tightly and the film will not creep away over time.

The next step is installing the LEDs. They just stick all the way in.

Since the supply voltage was 12 V, the LEDs are combined into groups of 6 in series. (The voltage drop across the red LEDs is about 2 V). The placement step of 20-25 mm was not chosen in vain. This made it possible to get by with LED leads as connecting wires. The leads are unbent parallel to the surface and soldered together. With some skill, this is a short process.

I recommend orienting the LEDs with the anode or cathode to some certain side so that there is no confusion. As a result, we will get several chains of LEDs connected in series. The last chain is unlikely to consist of 6 pieces, so we place the missing LEDs inside the letter. We connect all groups in parallel and get two outputs - plus and minus. For greater reliability, install a 0.5 W 10-30 Ohm resistor in the positive wire gap. You can have one for the whole letter, you can have one for each chain - as you like. You can also install a diode to protect against polarity reversal during installation. Everyone's means of protection are different :) We count the number of chains - let's say there are 7 of them. It is best to set the rated current of 5 mm LEDs at 15 mA, which means our letter will have the following parameters: 12 V, 105 mA. , that is, it will consume about 1 W.

Connect the letter to the power source.

Subsequently, the production of the letter continues according to the usual method - sides of any height and a removable backdrop are glued. Covering with film - to taste.

These are several photographs of the finished object at different shutter speeds. The frame is quite strongly curved, this was the idea - so that it could be clearly seen from different angles. While the sign is turned on in test mode and the current of each LED does not exceed 5 mA. Photos were taken at different shutter speeds. In the last photo the hand twitched :)

It is easy to notice that the letter “L” glows somewhat brighter than the others. This is due to the fact that the last chain in it contains only one LED. It was a pity to throw away five additional LEDs to provide the required parameters, so we used a resistor. At a rated current the difference would not be noticeable, but at a low current - if you please :) At the moment, the sign stands out among others at a distance of at least 500 m. In the future, a controller will be installed to obtain dynamic lighting effects. The total consumption of the sign in test mode is about 5 Watts. The client, however, is already satisfied with the brightness, so increasing it will be a pleasant surprise :)

About 600 LEDs were used to make the sign; the manufacturing process took two days.