We bought our CW back in January and one of things needing reworked was the business sign. After taking it down, I discovered the ballast was bad along with needing new panels. A new sign was not in the budget so I set out to fix the one we had. The panels wern't hard to source or finding someone to do our lettering. But replacing the ballast was an issue.
This sign holds (4) 48" flourescent bulbs at 40w each, total 160w. Don't really know how much the ballast consumes, its huge. So I decided to experiment. I did lots of research on LED lights and thought I'd try some 120v LED rope lights to light the sign. What I came up with is wrapping about 100 feet of the LEDS inside the sign. 100 feet of LED rope lights only uses 70w of power. They have 100,000 hour life expectancy. At 12 hrs a day, they should last over 22 years if my calculations are right! Plus electricity savings is more than 50% over flourescents.
Not a huge savings in electricity dollar wise. But we saved significantly compared to buying a brand new sign. Plus by using the LEDS, I won't be needing to climb a ladder every year to change bulbs. That in itself is significant.
This sign holds (4) 48" flourescent bulbs at 40w each, total 160w. Don't really know how much the ballast consumes, its huge. So I decided to experiment. I did lots of research on LED lights and thought I'd try some 120v LED rope lights to light the sign. What I came up with is wrapping about 100 feet of the LEDS inside the sign. 100 feet of LED rope lights only uses 70w of power. They have 100,000 hour life expectancy. At 12 hrs a day, they should last over 22 years if my calculations are right! Plus electricity savings is more than 50% over flourescents.
Not a huge savings in electricity dollar wise. But we saved significantly compared to buying a brand new sign. Plus by using the LEDS, I won't be needing to climb a ladder every year to change bulbs. That in itself is significant.
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