LED Neon Sign Success?

[neon benders]

Hi,

Being an old glass man, I saw a nice "WinkyLux" neon sign at Target in cosmetics. Was in 10mm pink tubing, until I got close and WOW it was an LED molded fauxneon sign. Anyone making these and is there a good brand of led strips to use. Look really well made. I like the safety aspect for sure in POP displays, but very different technology and sign making than bent glass. Thx...

Mr John
Neon Maker in Texas

 

[GB2]

G2G seems to be a premium product for making such signs. I just quoted someone on a real neon sign and then I also priced it out doing an LED sign with the G2G product but the customer said they can just go online and get it for less than half the price. Unfortunately this is another case where someone, somewhere...over here or overseas...has come up with a way to make the product, ship it immediately, charge no tax and make a profit....for less than I can buy the materials.

 

[ProSignTN]

neon bender, first of all, shout out to you for having the patience to learn tube bending. I never bent any glass (except for a tube into a rose vase while waiting on my glass to be ready back in the day). I did tube design, load calculations, and installation though, so I had been around glass for years. Knew some old timers; learned things like sprinkling a log chain over tubes in the bed grooves of a Chevy truck because I was too cold for the tape to stick.

Anyway, headed back to the shop one night in the late 90's, I geared own and applied brakes. Laying there on the ground at this little factory building was about an 8" tube of red neon. Wow, how the heck did they do that? I got out of the truck and approached with caution . "Laying There On The Ground, The Pavement! 6k volts laying on asphalt, no way!" I finally got up the nerve to back hand it. Nothing. No hum, no tingle. Plastic housing & 18 ga wires duct taped to the asphalt. This was new.

Anyway, I babble. Today they go by the name i Light and have been purchased by Luminii. They make bendable (somewhat) and shapes. Looks like real high end stuff.

 

[neon benders]

ProSignTN thanks, I think all us tube benders have a same disposition. Quiet, like figuring stuff out, can work alone for hours and ability to go across a few paths as neon glass bending is art and science. The new LED looks nice and I will check out the companies you suggested. We would use blankets to hold neon down on the truck or wood frames w chicken wire. Ty the tubes down and they survive (usually).