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.
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.
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.
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.
@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!