Why Buy Your Light Box From Us? We've Done Our Research!

LED: The New Light Box Technology

The use of LED lamps inside of light boxes is a new technology evolving rapidly as the cost of LED lamps has come down substantially in the last few years. LED lamps are made from chips produced by some of the largest semi-conductor chip manufacturers in the world. With the global slowdown of semi-conductor chip sales, these manufacturers have looked to new outlets for their products (beyond the traditional computer markets). This has led to the advent of cost effective LED technology in light boxes.

Consumers Beware of Other Products

Not all LED lamps (chips) are the same. There is a large array of LED lamps and, more importantly, manufacturers of these chips. Manufacturers vary from large semi-conductor companies that do not cater to this smaller market, mid-ranged but proven semi-conductor companies, and several small, unproven, chip manufacturers that struggle to compete. Dozens of LED manufacturers that lack experience in this industry put forth their LED lamps without fully developing the quality of the technology. The secondary light box manufacturer who purchases LED lamps from one of these companies needs to thoroughly research, develop, and test the lamps before incorporating them into their light boxes. We turned down several Chinese LED lamp manufacturers that did not meet our standards of testing, often producing LUX readings of only 600 to 800 LUX (not nearly as intense as others we tested). The first test of quality that we apply rates the LUX, or brightness of the lightbox, in various positions within the frame. For a 24" x 36" light box, with lights placed on the 36" length (thus creating a light gap of 24" between opposing lamps), we would expect a 2400 LUX reading in the center of the frame. Given a good light dispersing technology (patterned engraving or patterned printing), we would expect to achieve this LUX. Light dispersing technology plays a large part in the overall presentation of lightbox graphics keeping light evenly distributed over the surface and reducing hot and cold spots. To read more click here.

More importantly than inadequacies in LUX intensity, we also found with many LED lamps that "degradation over lifetime" was a prevalent problem. We have seen two Chinese LED lamps, that when tested, degraded 40-50% over the first 9 months to 1 year of its life. Can you imagine purchasing a beautiful light box, and within a year it is only 50% as bright as when you first put it up on the wall?

Besides LUX brightness or lifetime degradation, another important factor to consider is the power supply that is incorporated into the light box that feeds voltage to the LED lamps. Many light box manufacturers use the "cheapest off the shelf" power supply for economic reasons. This is a hidden component that the end user will never analyze. LED lamps are so sensitive to irregularities and variations found in supplied voltage that choosing a power source is an important decision. A good power supply should regulate this voltage to a very tight tolerance of variability. If the voltage varies too much, the life of the LED lamp can be severely diminished and/or in extreme cases can cause damage to the LED bulb. There was a case in Korea, whereby a light box manufacturer supplied the largest Korean tobacco company with 1500 LED light boxes. After 6 months of installation, the LED light boxes were either degrading or failing. The problem was traced back to voltage variations, due to a sub-standard power supply being used. Needless to say, this greatly impacted the light box manufacturer financially, having to eventually credit back the tobacco company.

So Why Use Our LED Light Boxes?

After traveling all over the World and requisitioning LED light box samples from many factories we have seen it all! Common problems that we saw were low LUX readings, shoddy construction of the aluminum frames, and paper being used as backboards to the boxes. Our testing of the LED lamps led us to qualify (3) Korean semi-conductor companies (two mid-sized and one large) as high-quality lightbox manufacturers. Their LED lamps would not degrade more than 27% (retaining 83% brightness) after one year in severe testing conditions of either 100+ degrees or below 0 degrees. The LUX intensity was excellent, either using 3-chip or 4-chip LED's, depending on the size of the box. In the end, the largest company was not as good a fit as the other two companies (we and/or our orders were probably too small) so we proceeded to work with the two other LED lamp brands.

Knowing that we wanted to use one of the remaining two Korean LED lamp manufacturers, it was natural for us to search for a Korean light box manufacturer who could integrate the lamps, aluminum framing, power supplies, and diffusion patterning into a first class, high quality LED light box. We interviewed and worked with 4 companies in Korea, and inevitably narrowed our qualified choices down to two of manufacturers who now produce our LED light boxes. We feel that our LED light box is a high quality, well thought-out, researched, and tested product. Although the anticipated life of an LED lamp is about 100,000 hours (11 years), this is one aspect of the testing that cannot be proven (no company has had 14 years to test their LED's prior to bringing them to market). All laboratory projections, however, indicate this length of time as feasible. At under an inch thick, our products also have the appearance of a slim light panel rather than a box. Without the need to change bulbs, this product is the way of the future for light box displays.