Jump to content
Due to a large amount of spamers, accounts will now have to be approved by the Admins so please be patient. ×
IGNORED

Pinball neon signs


ocyen

Recommended Posts

Hi all.

 

I was browsing Aliexpress to buy some things for the house and I stumbled across these signs. They look pretty awesome! I haven't bought any so I can't vouch for their quality but I will probably grab one soon. Having a wall of the manufacturer's logos would be cool. Plenty of other designs if you check out the seller's other items. Lots of arcade signs for sale, too.

 

Not sure how the licencing works with these signs... but that's China I guess!

 

Capture.JPG.4194388c46932f77bb5871fa8f054d1e.JPG

Capture2.JPG.c9c30e6f3e63c259790644d4050f28ef.JPG

Capture3.JPG.b736df05f27d2f32f76600499f373abc.JPG

Capture4.JPG.b25f42882d1a9fac419e798c0eb0c42e.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When they start flickering or fail to start, don't throw them out, take them to a proper neon place and have the tubes re-gassed with pure neon gas rather than the impure gas they will have in them now.

 

To save a couple of dollars in gas costs in manufacture, shit gas is used. It is the impurities on the gas that foul up the igniters much like crap fuel fouls up spark plugs.

 

When they fail to light straight away through the fouled igniters, it makes the electronic transformer circuit to work overtime much like a failing starter does to the ballast in a fluro only it blows the electronic transformer and then you get nothing.

 

Proper pure neon gas and an old school neon transformer as well as new ignitors, (if they are dead as well), all from a neon place and you now have a neon that should last longer than your life expectancy.

 

This is exactly what the neon guy told me when I had my Budwiser and Coke neons repaired.

 

If you have them re-gassed before they start to flicker and still starting immediately, a re-gas is all that is required because your igniters haven't coked up yet and the transformer hasn't been stressed out yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought id chime in and clear up a few points here..

 

Chinese neon signs tend to be under gassed to keep the loading on the transformers down. They like to use 8mm glass which makes the tube resistive at its recommended gas pressure. If the gas is contaminated or shitty then the tube itself will run hot whereas a properly made tube should be cool to the touch. The under gassing leads them to burn out before they should. A well made neon tube will last 80+ years.

Neon tubes are made from 2 gasses - neon and argon. Neon is red in colour and Argon will be what is in every other colour. Argon tubes contain a tiny amount of mercury to create UV light ( Argon + mercury gas = UV). No decent sign shop will regas these for you.. its just not done as we still use hand to mouth techniques and any evaporating gas will go straight back into the glass benders mouth.. so its the biggest NO NO in the industry. Red Neon tubes, no problem.. we can regas these with no issues.

2 types of transformer are used.. iron core which is a heavy wire wound type and electronic which are high frequency drivers.. these are much smaller and lighter than the iron cores. A step down will not work to drop the current on an electronic ( current determines brightness).. sometimes a trailing edge dimmer in line will work but it depends on the make of electronic transformer. Iron cores are inductive and so a dedicated inductive load dimmer is required... its possible to drop the voltage in half with these with a step down but sometimes you will find that the transformer will refuse to strike and so in the industry, we use dedicated dimmers.

A failed tube will not kill your transformer.. all it will do ( on an electronic) is trigger the safety shut down features built within it.

Turn the sign off, bridge out the failed section or replace and the whole sign will light up again. Biggest killer of electronics is the make of the brand itself or electrical spikes taking out the input fuse which is embedded and impossible to replace. A step down on an electronic SHOULD prevent it from lighting the tube as it sees the reduced voltage as a fault.. if it doesn't then its not Australian standard approved and I would question its safety as an electrical product. A stressed out transformer is a shitty product as an electronic should have the following features - Automatic shut down should the circuit be broken ( neon is a series circuit)... self calibrating in that it will only deliver what power the sign requires, over voltage and under voltage protection ( again shuts the whole circuit down). 99.9999% of " beer" signs these days have electronic transformers.

Iron core transformers have the safety devices added as a separate entity.. these MUST be calibrated to the sign loading, so each sign will have its own dedicated and properly sized transformer and should only be replaced with that particular size should ( and its rare) it fails.

If the sign starts to go dull at one end its a fault of the transformer NOT the tube.. go talk to a neon shop and get them to supply a transformer that has " Anti mercury migration".

 

Hope this clears up a few of the points mentioned before..

 

Cheers!

Retropin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought id chime in and clear up a few points here..

 

Chinese neon signs tend to be under gassed to keep the loading on the transformers down. They like to use 8mm glass which makes the tube resistive at its recommended gas pressure. If the gas is contaminated or shitty then the tube itself will run hot whereas a properly made tube should be cool to the touch. The under gassing leads them to burn out before they should. A well made neon tube will last 80+ years.

Neon tubes are made from 2 gasses - neon and argon. Neon is red in colour and Argon will be what is in every other colour. Argon tubes contain a tiny amount of mercury to create UV light ( Argon + mercury gas = UV). No decent sign shop will regas these for you.. its just not done as we still use hand to mouth techniques and any evaporating gas will go straight back into the glass benders mouth.. so its the biggest NO NO in the industry. Red Neon tubes, no problem.. we can regas these with no issues.

2 types of transformer are used.. iron core which is a heavy wire wound type and electronic which are high frequency drivers.. these are much smaller and lighter than the iron cores. A step down will not work to drop the current on an electronic ( current determines brightness).. sometimes a trailing edge dimmer in line will work but it depends on the make of electronic transformer. Iron cores are inductive and so a dedicated inductive load dimmer is required... its possible to drop the voltage in half with these with a step down but sometimes you will find that the transformer will refuse to strike and so in the industry, we use dedicated dimmers.

A failed tube will not kill your transformer.. all it will do ( on an electronic) is trigger the safety shut down features built within it.

Turn the sign off, bridge out the failed section or replace and the whole sign will light up again. Biggest killer of electronics is the make of the brand itself or electrical spikes taking out the input fuse which is embedded and impossible to replace. A step down on an electronic SHOULD prevent it from lighting the tube as it sees the reduced voltage as a fault.. if it doesn't then its not Australian standard approved and I would question its safety as an electrical product. A stressed out transformer is a shitty product as an electronic should have the following features - Automatic shut down should the circuit be broken ( neon is a series circuit)... self calibrating in that it will only deliver what power the sign requires, over voltage and under voltage protection ( again shuts the whole circuit down). 99.9999% of " beer" signs these days have electronic transformers.

Iron core transformers have the safety devices added as a separate entity.. these MUST be calibrated to the sign loading, so each sign will have its own dedicated and properly sized transformer and should only be replaced with that particular size should ( and its rare) it fails.

If the sign starts to go dull at one end its a fault of the transformer NOT the tube.. go talk to a neon shop and get them to supply a transformer that has " Anti mercury migration".

 

Hope this clears up a few of the points mentioned before..

 

Cheers!

Retropin

 

Awesome info!

 

What would you suggest doing to one of these overseas units straight off the bat? Or is it better to do nothing and just take it in for repair once it starts to fail? I haven't ordered one of these yet so I've no idea what components are actually in them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ive had some of mine for 10 plus years.the chinese variety., they are all electronic.the chinese ones use multi voltage 110 to 220 v .as in my previous post ,they will run off 240 but some are super bright, and if they are, i dim them to a normal brightness with a 240/110v trany for longevity. they are all packed very carefully and very rarely have a breakage,unlike years ago i was getting 50 percent broken.ive bought around 40 and never had a problem with failing electronic ballasts .if i did they are under $20 .
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...