re: drpepper on lumacom In general, renewable energy as well as...

re: drpepper on lumacom In general, renewable energy as well as electricity savings has been a long-standing policy objective of New York State, under the New York Governor Pataki. The City Council vows to regulate signage and has deployed more regulatory to do something about it and do it quick. Lumacom would have little chance to obtain exclusive rights to put LED Signage on the Conde Nast – the most greener building in NY. By passing all strict regulations which Lumacom has faced, it’s time to put your hat down and admit the fact that they have a revolutionary patent which is waiting to strike the great Manhattan outdoor. Outdoor signage is one of many segments facing strict environment regulations. Apart from the massive savings on the cost of the Signage, energy savings will be issue No 1, at least here in the New York. Combination of both will give Lumacom poll position. Wait and you will see, but let the NASDAQ’s hat rim shine first.

If I remember well, the cost of the NASDAQ sign was between 30 - 40 Mil, and the overall cost for maintenance already exceeded 3Mil.



For years the billboard industry has seen several consolidations with large corporate owners acquiring smaller independent operators. The purpose of these consolidations is to provide a platform for the corporate owners to attract large regional and national advertisers. Billboard advertising has evolved from painted signs without lights, to lighted signs, to vinyl covered signs, to prism boards (three sided boards which rotate three ads), to LED signs. Presently the plasma signs are used indoors and generally do not have a screen size larger than 48 inches.



In reviewing the challenges faced with the implementation and maintenance of the sign, the benefits of OnScreen™ architecture are clearly illustrated. The NASDAQ sign is eighteen inches thick and sits over five feet off of the building façade to allow for a maintenance catwalk. There are 30 cutouts in the screen that allow natural light to enter the building through the windows. The cutouts were not part of the original design but the designers claim the positioning allows the mind to fill the spaces unconsciously. The picture above might serve to challenge that claim.

Interestingly, the windows have allowed water seepage into the modules causing damage and technical problems. When LED’s fail, entire modules must be replaced (there are 8200 of them). The designers also indicated that making the screen seem real on a curved surface was the most complicated and costly feature of the sign.
OnScreen™’s simple see-through array eliminates the need for complex modules. It is thin, flexible and pixels can be replaced individually. Placement on curved surfaces is not only possible but easily accomplished. This overview will detail the design benefits of OnScreen™ that OnScreen believes will help revolutionize the way signs, such as the NASDAQ sign, are built and deployed.
Despite the effectiveness of LED outdoor advertising, the billboard industry has been deterred as most large companies have a substantial investment in static signs. In addition, the cost to convert an LED display is approximately $500,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the size, location and resolution of the LED sign.

In many instances, because of the additional weight of the LED sign, it is necessary to erect an entire new foundation along with accompanying supports. Existing support infrastructure is often inadequate to support the new LED signs. The infrastructure itself can become one of the most costly aspects of new sign deployment.
The utilization of high brightness LED’s in the manufacture of large-scale video display boards is relatively new. LED’s have become the technology of choice for video display boards because they offer significant advantages in brightness, energy efficiency and product lifetime over traditional illumination choices. Until the advent of high-brightness LED display technology, few options existed for daytime videotext and motion displays.
Brightness is critical because the energy required to illuminate a display in the bright sunshine is significant. Energy consumption has become a limiting factor in the advancement of outdoor LED displays. Significant heat is generated when powering LED’s in outdoor displays that must compete with the sun. Current LED packages and heat transfer mechanisms cannot easily accomodate close pixel spacing on this generation of signs- a limiting factor when viewed from any distance less than a couple hundred feet. It also means that a category of product with huge market potential- outdoor television and medium scale display advertising boards- has to this point been virtually technologically impossible. The required pixel spacing, and the corresponding heat transfer with current display architectures, cannot easily be achieved.