This Sign is LIT

Fruits of my 1.5” thick acrylic sojourn.

For the sign makers out there what would you have charged?

12’ long, 1.5” acrylic, mounted on compressed pvc with U channel super struts providing rigidity, waterproof/outdoor, tons of painstaking soldering, 12’ of tile-ing through the S3XXL, ~22’ of SMART 3 pin LEDS.

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wow… thats taking it to the next level

how did you do the tiling on the digital side?

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Nice job, @MarkDGaal!
What’s controlling the LEDs? How did you handle waterproofing that? Any reason you chose the addressable LEDs over the cheap RGBs with an RF remote?

Nothing crazy, just 5 setups Inside of F360 using the locator pin as the origin. You should checkout the manufacturing model preview feature in F360 if you haven’t already, it helps with tile-ing.

Very impressive work. I’m also impressed with you shop. Wish mine looked that clean.

Great job.

Phil

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Ha, only space where I had 24’ of open space to tile a 12’ board.

Mark that looks incredible, sorry no idea what to charge for something that nice.

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@neilferreri

Because the store front is located on a prime street for DC’s Pride Parade I wanted something fun for the store. Far as waterproofing this LED rope comes with a “bubble” over the entire string (way better than the vinyl sleeve they typically use on 12V).

The controller and PSU live inside the building with only a single 5V wire coming outside. Waterproofing on the letters themselves was done with attention-to-detail and submersion testing.

Electronic Parts:
https://amzn.to/3m6HYLz (LEDS)
https://amzn.to/3942gkY (Waterproof JSTs)
https://amzn.to/3pOORDi (Controller)
https://amzn.to/3nMzDgc (PSU)

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Awesome!
Did you end up finishing the letters’ walls manually ? (sanding ? torching ?)

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Just sanding; 120,220,320,400,600 took about 3 hours. However, there will be a to be continued on that thread; upcut bit is on the way.

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@Dennis you still lurk around here for an answer?

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Hey!
So I am a licensed electrical sign contractor, I have to carry a million dollar liability insurance policy so this affects my pricing. I’m not cheap. That said -

I take all my material pricing and times it by 2.0
I add up all my shop time, time it takes to build the sign, charge $45 per hour.
I add up install time, including driving to the job site and my drive home, charge $85 per hour.
I add all this up and that is my price.

Sometimes the market or the client can bear a high price and other times I just make baseline 20%.
it’s never the same and I have to be flexible.

HTH.

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@MarkDGaal thank you for posting your work, it is always inspirational to say the least! And thank you @Dennis for the informative reply! That info helps guys like me a lot!

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