Now Is the Time for Change

At a recent sales meeting, a deal soured because of a misconstrued public perception. A customer decided not to purchase an electronic display for fear that the public would view the company as an "energy hog" in the face of power shortages and the threat of rolling blackouts.

No, this wasn’t in California! I’m certain this foreshadows many future perceptions.

Pondering this dilemma, I remembered my column about a looming recession ‘Recession Strategies’. I asked that if we faced a recession, what would be its severity, and how would it affect our business?

It’s obvious that we will experience a recession, and, for those of us in the electronic-display industry, it’s the nastiest sort of a downturn — one based on an energy shortage. Any financial downturn is potentially disastrous, but an energy-based setback is a nightmare for the moving-message industry.

With every newscaster from California to New York talking about rolling blackouts and rate hikes, the traditional incandescent lamp message display stands out as a public-relations nightmare.

For five decades, the fallible, yet predominant, mechanism for the electronic moving-message display has been the incandescent lamp. Despite performance issues and high costs of operation, nothing has unseated it as the accepted light source for message-center technologies.

The time is now

For the last two decades, semi-serious attempts have been made at implementing replacement media, such as reflective discs, fiberoptics, liquid-crystal (LCD) and light-emitting diode (LED) displays. Each new technology was fraught with at least as many problems as the light bulb, stalling momentum to force a change. Now, in the face of disaster, the momentum exists; the time is now.

I’m a huge fan of LEDs. My last three Moving Message columns have focused on some aspect of this new technology. Why? It’s not because of an obsessive lust for gallium nitrate, indium or arsenic. No, LEDs, in their current and future state of development, will revolutionize the sign industry. In short, this is a product we can sell. As the technology continues its development curve, it will simultaneously improve in quality, cost and marketability.

What does this have to do with the energy-shortage recession? In a word, everything!

LEDing to a solution

Every major problem associated with incandescent lamps is solved with the LED. It offers low energy, low maintenance and high brightness. Long-lasting, it’s not subject to breakage from vibration. It charges and discharges instantly. Mounted on a black field, it has an unparalleled contrast ratio. It can be configured in miniscule pixels or packaged into giant clusters. It’s everything that the incandescent lamp is not. And therein lies the answer to our recession woes.

In North America today, I estimate there are at least 45,000 incandescent-lamp message displays in use. Depending upon their size, those displays use between 15,000 and 500,000 kwh of energy per month. Thus, lamp replacements cost between $125 and $15,000 per month. Worst of all, the greater the number of lamps, the harder it is to maintain a flawless presentation.

The frank reality is, and has always been, that lamp message displays are expensive to own and operate. It’s a true testament to their effectiveness that so many are in use despite operational issues.

This downturn presents an exceptional opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. The bottom line is that lamp message display users are already spending the money on operational expenses they could use to upgrade to modern LED technology.

Seeing the light

Several companies have begun developing LED clusters to replace the traditional incandescent lamp. The basic concept is simple: Replace the spot of light traditionally generated by an incandescent lamp with a spot generated from a cluster of LEDs.

Most of these companies focus on smaller character applications. Visiontech Electronic Message Displays (Springfield, MO), Action Media Technologies Inc. (Chatsworth, CA), Time-O-Matic Inc. (Watchfire Signs) (Danville, IL), Daktronics Inc. (Brookings, SD) and Perkin-Elmer (Waterbury, CT) offer matrices of LED clusters in character heights up to 17-1/2 in. These displays can replace traditional changeable-letter marquee boards, and can also be used as price indicators for hotels and gas stations. Each company offers characters in the traditional red and amber colors.VISIONTECH Electronic Message Displays, Action Media Technologies Inc., Time-O-Matic Inc. (Watchfire Signs), Daktronics Inc.

One company has ventured into the large-character replacement market — Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO), Las Vegas. Blake Gover, YESCO’s director of engineering and new product development, noted, "We feel that there is a tremendous opportunity in the replacement of existing message-center signs."

Brent Brown, founder of Integrated Systems Engineering (Logan, UT) and a pioneer in the large-lamp industry, has worked as YESCO’s consultant in the development of this new line of products. "We have created new cluster products with character sizes which match the same sizes used in the traditional lamp products. We make characters ranging from 18 to 60 in. as standard products. We can make them larger if the application warrants it."

In addition to the traditional amber and red characters, YESCO also offers a "color-corrected" cluster that presents an off-white color, nearly identical to that of a high-voltage incandescent lamp. Brown noted, "Our feeling is that many people will feel uncomfortable with red or amber. We created a replacement option which replicates the traditional message-center color."

Writing on the wall

California isn’t the only state with electricity problems. In fact, average commercial utility rates for the California utilities didn’t rank nationally in the ten highest until the latest rate hikes in April. Led by Long Island Lighting Co., utilities in the Northeast had the highest cost per kilowatt hour, according to a survey completed last November. Currently, 15 utility companies have rates averaging over 10 cents per kwh of usage. Another 15 have rates between 9 and 10 cents. Those rates make lamp replacement with LED a "no brainer."

Other regions will begin to experience gasoline-price rate hikes. Oil ranks second as the predominant fuel to generate electricity. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the writing on the wall.

Contact your local utility. Ask for the current average cost per kwh for commercial applications. A rate exceeding 7-1/2 cents provides justification to replace the lamp technology.

Happy hunting.