LED Lights Benefit the Environment

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During a time when environmental protection has become a concern for many consumers, there comes an easy, cost-effective way for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint – switching to LED lighting in their homes. While many environmental friendly home improvements can cost thousands of dollars, using LED lighting in homes only costs a fraction of a dinner out on the town. In comparison to common fluorescent and incandescent lighting, LED lights last up to 10 times longer and require much less electricity. A single light bulb can last up to ten years! This means that energy is saved and the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is decreased. If everyone replaced one fluorescent light bulb in their home with an LED light, the total negative impact on the environment would be drastically decreased. If businesses did the same, the beneficial results would exponentially increase. What is more, since fluorescent lights contain mercury and LED lights do not, the amount of hazardous waste produced by broken or dead light bulbs would significantly decrease. For the home or business consumer interested in saving money and improving the environment, the answer is simple – buy LED lights!

Light Up Your Business with a Neon Open Sign

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You just opened a business, and you’ve busted out an incredible advertising campaign that includes sending out flyers and placing ads in all the local publications. You’ve offered coupons for first time visitors, and you’ve posted your working hours prominently on your door. You even have a “grand opening” sign over the door, announcing your new business. Still, passers-by are not entering your business or are doing so reluctantly, not sure what to expect upon entry. If this is the case, you need to post neon signs on your storefront because people aren’t sure if you are really open.

A neon business sign of any kind can be a real boost to business, but a neon open sign is the initial invitation and welcome that really catches the attention of a consumer and assures them it is okay to enter the business. Especially if your shop is a small, independent retail shop, neon signs are necessary because posted hours may not always be true hours, since owners are often working alone upon opening and may need to be absent from the store during those normal business hours periodically. A neon open sign will call out in no uncertain terms that you are ready for a visit from any interested party.

Lighting up your business with a neon open sign makes a huge impact on the community, showing up against a neutral background during the day and against the dark of night after sunset. These are not the only neon signs that can drum up business for you either. Take a look at what services you are offering or what products you are selling, and pick out something unique or in high demand of which consumers would be particularly prone to take note. Have a neon sign fashioned to advertise that you offer this service or product so that passers-by can take note and be drawn into your location.

A neon open sign is the first line of attack in direct advertising, calling to the community to come right in and enjoy what you are selling, but any neon  signs can make a huge difference in the profitability of your shop. No advertising campaign that you can buy can bring you the same response, so make sure that a neon sign is part of your budget before you spend all your cash on other forms of advertisement.

What Is an LED?

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An LED, or Light Emitting Diode, is a form of electric light that became commercially viable around the 1960s-1970s. But what makes it different from any other light? LEDs are different from other forms of lamps, such as neon signs,  because they rely solely on solid-state electrical proprties.

By contrast, incandescent lamps function by heating a delicate filament until it glows, and fluorescent lamps function by exciting the electrons of gases like mercury vapor and neon. A diode, the basis of an LED, is a type of device that employs a semiconductor, a specialized material capable of partially conducting an electrical charge. This semiconductor is doped, or modified with impurities, to create regions that have different electrical properties, so that current flows easily in one way.

When electrodes of differing voltages are used, this causes the current to flow in both directions. When this happens, large surpluses of electrons begin flowing into an electron-deprived section (because, remember, current flows easier in one way, so the side it’s leaving will have a dearth of electrons). These electrons will find the “electron holes”, and when they move in, they end up causing a quantum energy-level change that, ultimately, emits light. All of this fancy technology and electron manipulation leads us to the special properties of LEDs.

First of all, an LED, just like a neon sign, does not heat up its surroundings at all (Incandescent lamps do, because of the hot filament). Secondly, an LED is excessively miniaturizable, capable of sizes less than a cubic millimeter (Especially unlike fluorescent lamps, which require gas tubes and large ballasts to regulate the current). Other properties include the ability to alter the semiconductor to produce just about any color of light desired, very long useful operation life, and very high efficiency (bested only by high-efficiency fluorescent lamps).

The typical usages of an LED vary with the size and function of the actual diode in question. Historically, LEDs have been known for their role as the indicator lights (or as they’re lovingly referred to, “blinkenlights”) on various computer and electronic devices. This role is very, very energy efficient, using tiny LEDs with almost insignificant electrical loads, making it ideal for battery-powered devices.

On the other end of the scale, very powerful LEDs (with inputs greater than a single watt) are capable of area lighting, automotive lighting, and other related applications that need a lot more power. Places that are already seeing the widespread adoption of LEDs are traffic lights and police car lights. Used properly, grids of small LEDs can create very detailed images, or large, strikingly bright LED signs as well (as demonstrated by the arrows in protected turn traffic lights).