Marquee lighting... LEDs or fluorescent?

[LeedsFan]

Is there any reason to stick with the old standard fluorescent lighting for the marquee? Can a marquee look any different depending on what light source is used? The marquee will be from MameMarquees so will be A1 spec. I'm thinking of getting LED strip lighting that just plugs into the 12V supply of my PC. The installation for LEDs will be much easier.  But I will get fluorescent if the consensus here says it makes a difference.

[Beretta]

well im gonna go LED for it's power savings and longevity.

florescent is fine as well, you will have to replace the bulbs it in before led's, not to often but it's one more thing to worry about, and it will use more power, although they're still pretty power effiecent..

most people will use cool white fluorescent bulbs as they give the best colors for back lighting..

im not sure if white led's would be superior to this but surely wont be inferior..

i dont think you loose anything with LED's, but there is surely gains to be had.

[Ginsu Victim]

For $8 at Wal-mart you can get an 18" fluorescent fixture with bulb. Works awesome and mounts easily.

[BORIStheBLADE]

I have the LED's for the marquee and they could be a bit brighter. I am still happy with them.

[protokatie]

One thing to consider is that "white" LEDs tend not to have a good spectrum. Often they are Yellow + Blue, which to our eyes looks white, but in a marquee you may want a light source that is broad spectrum. Certain colors on the marquee that the light is shining through via LED may appear slightly off color, or even dim. I would imagine that the yellows and blues (for the yellow+blue "white" LEDs) would appear bright, but reds and greens would be very dim by comparison.
There ARE other types of white LEDs tho, such as RGB based ones, and ones that emit UV and use a phosphor coating to convert it into broad spectrum white light.
If going with LED's on this, make sure to get the right kind of white LED (UV+Phosphor).

[SirPeale]

I'd go with florescent lighting.  It's the industry standard after all, and parts are readily available and cheap.  An F15 T8 fixture can be bought, complete, for around eight dollars @ Wal-Mart.

[mj147]

Yep my 8 dollar WalMart florescent has been going for 3 years and I have yet to replace the bulb.

 I installed a "newegg special" psu  and didnt want to add any unnecessary strain on it.( if any from led's) 




mj147

[mvsfan]

yeah, i used a standard 18" t12 fixture i had around.

i also put a happ blank door on top of the cabinet. no marquee removal or screws to mess with, just open the door pop in a new bulb and your good for a couple more years.

[Level42]

Yep my 8 dollar WalMart florescent has been going for 3 years and I have yet to replace the bulb.

I've got several original tubes in my original cabs which still work....go figure....

[AndyWarne]

We sell a CCFL tube which runs from 12 volts which is intended for this purpose, so thats a third option.

Andy

[SirPeale]

Yep my 8 dollar WalMart florescent has been going for 3 years and I have yet to replace the bulb.

I've got several original tubes in my original cabs which still work....go figure....

They can last a very long time, but 20 years is unlikely.  How do you know they're original?

[Level42]

Just depends on how long they have been on....

F.I. I live in my current home for 12 years now. We have a fluorescent tube kinda' like the size of one used in a marquee under a kitchen cabinet. That tube has been on for every dark hour when we're at home. Of course we're not home every night, but the vast majority we were. It went bust a couple of weeks ago. Of course, if a cab was in an arcade on for 24 hrs/day, it won't last 20 years....but not all cabs were on that long....

F.I. My Meteor has a tube with Japanese markings on it. The cab came from Germany where it was very likely  imported when it was new. It's _very_ unlikely that they replaced it over here with a Japanese tube....

My SW has a tube manufactured in Ireland......the cab has the original importer stickers on it, so I'm pretty sure it spent it's entire live in The Netherlands and getting a tube from there (in the land of Philips) is pretty unlikely.

Of couse, there's no firm proof but it is amazing. 10000 hrs. are normal ratings for a tube. That's a VERY long time in home cab use....

[Beretta]

about 14 months.. of full on use.
led's however usually have 100k hours+ life time, which is about 11 and a half years.

course i've only seen a LED fail once in which it was not over juiced, they die pretty quick if you give them more then they're rated for.

fluorescent last a long time, no debate, and really there is no BIG reason not to go with them.. but LED's i think are better in the long run.

not ot mention you could if you so desired wire up the marquee to flash or something.. wont bother LED's flourescents on the other hand dont like to be turned off and on.. especially not rapidly.

if for example you powered up to play a game for 20mins, then turned it off then came back a few hours later and did the same thing that sort of use would wear the light out a lot faster then it's rated "10k hours", leds on the other hand would'nt mind one bit..

although i suspect that type of use would'nt be to healthy for the crt either but dunno.

[protokatie]

not ot mention you could if you so desired wire up the marquee to flash or something.. wont bother LED's flourescents on the other hand dont like to be turned off and on.. especially not rapidly.

Just to add clarity to that, it isn't so much the tubes that dont like to be cycled, it is the ballast (starter unit) and other electronic components that don't like to be cycled. Although it isn't very good for the tube to be cycled as well, it isn't the achille's heel here. The only real problem I could see with a tube being cycled is that it would have more thermal shock over time and thus lead to small "cracks" allowing in more air, and also the possibility that the phosphor layer would react and break down a little quicker.

[Turnarcades]

We sell a CCFL tube which runs from 12 volts which is intended for this purpose, so thats a third option.

Andy

Seconded, we use cold cathode on our cabs and it works a treat - backlit nicely but not glowing like a beacon. The low power consumption helps and they are easily connected straight to a PC via an in-line IDE connection.

[RandyT]

Seconded, we use cold cathode on our cabs and it works a treat - backlit nicely but not glowing like a beacon. The low power consumption helps and they are easily connected straight to a PC via an in-line IDE connection.

The weak point in the CCFL situation is almost always the inexpensive inverters which convert the 12vdc to to 90 or so volts it takes to run the lights.  I've seen them fail on a commercial installation we did with them in my last job.  Also, bear in mind that even though the input to the inverter is 12v on most of these, the lights are still very much "high" voltage devices.  They are also more fragile than LED's.

The cheapo Walmart fluorescent lighting fixtures are usually ok for a while, but don't go for the absolute cheapest option.  I have literally been through 3 fixtures and bulbs with these things in a couple of years, and they looked like they really needed tossing at that point due to what the constant heat did to the plastic housings.  Of course, mine were on 24/7, so this may have had something to do with it.

RandyT

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, good point. My Wal-mart cheapy is only on for an hour or two at a time. Never left constantly running.

[mvsfan]

thats a good point too. dont use the low voltage stuff its known for problems. i helped install low voltage recessed lighting in an entire office building once, and the company was there fixing them all the time since they were installed.

anyways, a cheap fixture is alright if its got a good ballast in it like a Ge or Advance ballast. and dont get anything with seperate starters. nowadays you shouldnt have to although they still make those.

[mvsfan]

also some of the really cheap fixtures have ballasts in them that dont last long and you usually cant replace them. they look like a small white plastic block with wires coming out of it about the size of an inkjet cartridge. these things are junk and the fixtures that come with them are usually too small to fit a proper ballast into wait, your thinking id just mount a big one somewhere in the cabinet right? DONT. they got to be seperated from the wood somehow. when ballasts run they get pretty warm, and especially when they go bad, they get super hot, enough to set wood on fire.

thanks.

[Namco]

Get one of these cheap light bulb fixtures with a couple florescent bulbs, 30 watts total with the lighting power of 120 watts incandescent.







This came with my cabinet, but I can't imagine it'd be that hard to find.

[mvsfan]

yeah if youve already got a cabinet that came with two incandescant sockets like my dynamo did,

just replace the incandescants with CFL and save some work.

[Turnarcades]

The weak point in the CCFL situation is almost always the inexpensive inverters which convert the 12vdc to to 90 or so volts it takes to run the lights.  I've seen them fail on a commercial installation we did with them in my last job.  Also, bear in mind that even though the input to the inverter is 12v on most of these, the lights are still very much "high" voltage devices.  They are also more fragile than LED's.

RandyT

True, the inverter is the weak point, but as they come with a switch to turn them on/off automatically with the PC, they are not stuck on for long periods of time, the tubes themselves do not give out much heat and in the event an inverter goes you can get a replacement for about £2 in the UK. For the relatively short time they are running inside a cabinet in play they seem to be fine and I ran one in my last cabinet for two years with no problems before I sold the cab. The fragility is not really an issue as once they are mounted inside the marquee space there is nothing to damage them.

[AndyWarne]

The weak point in the CCFL situation is almost always the inexpensive inverters which convert the 12vdc to to 90 or so volts it takes to run the lights.  I've seen them fail on a commercial installation we did with them in my last job.  Also, bear in mind that even though the input to the inverter is 12v on most of these, the lights are still very much "high" voltage devices.  They are also more fragile than LED's.


RandyT

We have sold 257 of these CCFL tubes with inverters. No reported failures at all.