Neon lamp is a low-voltage cold anode glow discharge light source. Gas discharge luminescence is a physical phenomenon in nature. It is an important basic process that neon lights convert electric energy into color spectral lines through gas discharge. In general, gas is a good insulator and cannot conduct electricity. However, under the conditions of strong electric field, light radiation, example bombardment and high temperature heating, gas molecules may ionize, producing freely moving substitute particles, and traveling current under the action of electric field makes insulating gas a good conductor. This phenomenon of current passing through gas is called gas discharge process.
Manufacturing technology of neon advertising signs;
Below we will introduce the complicated production process of neon advertising signs from scratch one by one.
Works of art and quotations:
Through continuous discussion and revision with customers, make computer drawings and quotations, including:
1. Material, style and size of iron frame and bottom plate;
2. Color and size of metal characters;
3. Color and size of fonts and patterns;
4. Is the neon lamp a single tube? Double pipe? Three tubes? Or a secret pipe? What is the diameter of the neon tube?
5. Is there a bottomless pipe or jumping words? What is the density if there is a bottom pipe?
6. What are the current and voltage requirements?
7. price.
8. others.
When the customer confirms all the details, he will start purchasing materials and construction.
Ironmaking design and construction:
Due to the difference in function, strength and cost, the forms of iron frames are first determined, such as hollow frames, single-sided iron frames and box-shaped iron frames. If it is a super-large iron frame, due to the height and length limitation of road transportation and the confusion of cable TV cables, it is necessary to calculate in detail how to process it in sections and how to form a whole. Super-large neon lights need maintenance racks and ladders. The materials of the bottom plate of the iron frame are iron net, perforated iron plate, flat paint plate, U-shaped paint plate, N-shaped beautiful paint plate, aluminum plate, white iron plate, plastic steel plate and so on. The price, texture and air leakage are all different, which should be considered differently due to various actual conditions. Determine the site installation method and location.
Stereotype:
In order to enhance the visual effect of neon advertising signs during the day and the concentrated effect of neon lights at night, three-dimensional characters are usually installed on the panel. Generally, the materials of three-dimensional characters are:
Bronze characters: usually used for concealed pipes, with high texture, but easy to rust. Recently, there are so-called titanium characters, and the rust situation has been greatly improved.
Improvement, copper characters are generally used in porch or indoor.
White iron characters: commonly used for concealed pipes and exposed pipes. Mirrors or paints have a high sense of value, but the cost is high.
Lead metal character: it is the most widely used metal character in the industry at present, with low unit price and easy construction, but it is easy to paint off, especially white.
White iron paint is generally maintained for three or four years.
If the font is too small or the budget is low, you can also use Arano in gold or silver. The surface is like copper or white iron, or plastic steel, which has a three-dimensional effect. The disadvantage is that neon lights have no iron box grooves, and the light is not easy to concentrate, so it is difficult to distinguish fonts from a distance.
The lowest cost is to paste the words directly on the baking tray with Cardinal Sid. The disadvantage is that it feels flat, has no three-dimensional effect and has poor texture.
Hollow neon lamp is the lowest-cost neon lamp with iron frame, and the neon lamp is fixed directly with glass tube. Because the iron frame is hollow, the placement position of the transformer is limited, and the high-voltage line must be elongated, so it is easy to break during the day and has no advertising effect.
Preparation and blowing of neon tubes;
The basic structure of neon lights is briefly described. The lamp body is a 9-20mm glass tube, and both ends are sealed with electrode tips.
Glass tube diameter:
Glass tubes with different diameters are used for different sizes. Basically, the larger the font, the larger the diameter of the glass tube used. However, due to the stroke characteristics of Chinese characters, 1 1- 13mm and 14-20mm glass tubes are mostly used for special purposes. We do not recommend using tubes below 10mm, because the inner diameter is too small, and the glass tubes are easy to short-circuit and consume a lot of electricity.
Type of glass tube:
Glass tubes can be divided into pigging tubes (transparent and colorless) and colored tubes (colored glass). Pigging can be divided into sodium glass and lead glass. Sodium glass can be directly provided by domestic Taibo company, with low price and stable quality. The forming speed is fast when processing blowpipe, but if the temperature is not uniform during processing, there is a danger of bursting. Lead glass is mainly imported from the United States or Japan, which has high price, slow bending speed and high relative cost, but good conductivity and luminosity, and is suitable for use in cold climates. Color tubes (stained glass) are made of yellow, red, blue and green pigments in the glass factory, and they are all blown by hand, so the price is high and the diameter error is large.
Neon lamp is a cold anode light-emitting discharge device with long-distance discharge, which uses short-wave ultraviolet to excite phosphors (such as tungstate, borate, silicate, phosphate and other phosphors). Its luminous principle is that 254 mm ultraviolet light is generated by low-pressure mercury discharge, and then different phosphors are excited by this 254 mm ultraviolet light, thus obtaining dozens of neon lights.
After the glass tube is sent to our factory, it is necessary to thoroughly clean the inside and outside of the glass tube with cleaning solution and clear water, and thoroughly clean the chemical impurities and dust. When the water is completely dry, you can coat the fluorescent powder in the glass tube. Generally speaking, phosphor has five basic colors: meat powder, green, blue, white and purple. If you want to show yellow neon, you should coat the yellow lamp with white phosphor and light it with mercury. The interaction between phosphor, mercury and inert gases (neon and argon) is described in detail.
Neon light blowing:
Because most of the works of art confirmed by customers are A4 size, when blowing neon lights, A4 manuscript must be projected by computer or hand to restore the fonts and patterns to the actual size. Because of the complexity of Chinese characters and the singleness of individual patterns (compared with English), domestic neon lights can't be mass-produced by any mold or method. Any neon lamp needs a pipe blowing master to blow the pipe in front of the hot gas torch, slowly and orderly. Except for a mouth, a hose and a pump, there is only a pair of dexterous hands, and there is no other mechanical energy to accelerate the blowing of neon lights. Because blowing neon lights must be close to the gas stove, it is difficult to master the characteristics when the glass softens, and the room may be full of gas waste gas, so blowing neon lights is a very hard process and the cultivation period is very long. Recently, few young apprentices are willing to join the neon blowing industry.
The quality of neon tube is closely related to the skill of the blowpipe master. The master of pipe blowing can't process neon tubes without basic skills such as blowing, connecting, pulling, bending and twisting. The high-tech blowpipe can be operated freely, and it can be done quickly and well. The poor technology can be done slowly, and the lamp itself is even easy to explode, which leads to the short life of neon tubes.
Judgement of neon lamp blowing technology;
How to judge the quality of blowing? Just look at the shape of the U-bend. The uniform thickness of the tube wall at the whole bend of neon lamp will lead to a longer service life. If the glass is not softened enough or excessively when blowing, the thickness of the pipe wall at the elbow may be too thin or too thick and wrinkled, or one side is thin and the other side is thick, which will affect the service life of neon lights.
Sealing electrode tip, heating, vacuum and inert gas filling:
Sealing electrode tips, heating and vacuumizing: To blow a neon tube artwork, it is necessary to connect the electrode tips at both ends. The electrode head is divided into a positive electrode head and a negative electrode head, the negative electrode head is completely sealed, and the positive electrode head has an extended bubble tube for connecting a vacuum pump when vacuumizing. Vacuum heating is another important factor that determines the life of neon lights. If the vacuum heating is not thorough, the oil and impurities remaining in the neon tube and electrode head can not be fully extracted, and of course the brightness and life will be poor. However, if heated excessively, the active phosphor will solidify, which will also affect the brightness. However, the phenomenon of incomplete vacuum heating is more obvious in neon lights where mercury must be added. Traditionally, a mercury bubble chamber is blown in the middle of the small bubble tube of the anode electrode head, and the mercury is carefully put into the bubble chamber, so that the mercury will not be heated during vacuum heating, and the mercury will evaporate and escape into the atmosphere, which can improve the vacuum degree of neon lights. However, in the industry of Taiwan Province Province, some masters put mercury directly in neon tubes and heat it directly in order to save time. Because mercury begins to vaporize and diffuse into the lamp body when heated, it can not reach a relatively high temperature when heated by ultra-high pressure, and impurities and grease can not be completely discharged, so the life and brightness are not ideal.
Inert gas filling: After the vacuum exhaust is completed, we must fill the neon tube with an appropriate amount of inert gas. Argon or neon is usually added in China. When the neon tube is filled with argon gas, the neon lamp will show a cool color system (blue, white and other series), and when the neon tube is filled with neon gas, the neon lamp will show a warm color system (red, pink and so on). The following figure shows the color change caused by different phosphors, inert gases and mercury addition or not:
Glass tube cleaning tube cleaning tube cleaning yellow tube green tube red tube blue tube
core
Phosphorus meat powder green powder blue powder purple powder white green meat powder
Argon mercury flesh color green blue white purple lemon yellow fluorescent green dark green red sapphire blue.
Neon, red, orange, pink, purple, red, dark orange, crimson and pink.
After the neon tube is coated with glass tube fluorescent powder, blown, sealed with electrode head, connected with vacuum discharge system, heated by high-voltage discharge, vacuumized and filled with inert gas, the preliminary work of neon lamp project is completed, and then the installation project is completed. Neon lamp installation project is an important link related to the whole neon lamp project. If the quality of neon lamp tube is excellent, but the quality of installation project is neglected, the reliability of neon lamp will deteriorate, the failure rate will increase, and even accidents will occur, which can not be ignored.
Lamp foot:
Lamp foot is an important tool to fix the height of neon lamp frame and isolate it from signboard panel. The installation method is to install the lamp feet along the outline of the neon lamp, and basically try to form a big triangle, so that the neon lamp can be tied more stably and the lamp feet can not be played too closely. If the signboard panel is uneven and the height of the lamp foot is not carefully adjusted when binding the lamp, the neon lamp may break.
Wiring:
Neon lamp belongs to high-voltage cold anode discharge lamp, and it must be equipped with high-voltage leakage transformer to make the lamp light up. When installing, connect multiple neon lights in series, and then connect them with transformer terminals with high-voltage lines. The neon lamp is fixed in front of the signboard, and the transformer is hung behind the signboard. Therefore, it is necessary to dig a high-voltage line hole on the signboard panel to pass through the high-voltage line. Metal plates and high-voltage lines need to be insulated with glass tubes or ceramic insulators.
Why isn't the neon light on?
Because most neon lights are exposed outdoors, the air quality is getting worse and worse. Coupled with years of wind and rain, there are many external and internal factors that lead to the failure of neon lights.
1. Of course, the neon light is broken. In addition to poor blowing, it may be that annealing and vacuum are not enough, the lamp itself is interrupted by foreign objects, or the life of neon lights has just come to an end.
2. The series line or high-voltage line between lamps is broken due to wind and sun.
3. The high-voltage line melts due to overload, the insulating glass tube melts and cracks, and it is short-circuited with the metal plate. However, the short circuit of the high-voltage line is too long without maintenance, which may further drag down the transformer.
4. The service life of transformer has passed. It is the only way to prolong the service life of neon lights and transformers to make transformers have normal load and no overload. Of course, this is related to the overall production cost.
5. The leakage of primary power supply may cause multiple neon lights or the whole signboard loaded by a single transformer to be unlit. For example, during the 92 1 earthquake, the signs of many transformers were not completely fixed, and the primary power supply was broken due to excessive shaking and friction, resulting in leakage.
6. The voltage is extremely unstable, which may cause all transformers to be damaged in a short time.
7. The wires used in the primary power supply are irregular and too thin, which causes the wires to go off and cause a fire.
Conscience advice:
If a neon lamp manufacturer tells you that his neon lamp will not be broken, please don't believe it, because the whole production process of neon lamp from glass tube to lighting is done by hand, and it is difficult to guarantee that any detail will not go wrong. Don't just decide your neon lamp manufacturer by price, do a test on some professional issues. If you have time, go to their blowpipe factory and their installation site, which may improve the life of your neon advertising signboard.