Help me price

30% - 40% of new cost is a good place to start, especially since they need new bulbs.

 

only thing you need to consider is the cost of leds today. I know my lfs is cutting his MH and T5 fixtures in half trying to get rid of them because of how cheap leds are becoming.

 

Yep t5 and MH are going bye bye my guess is in the next 5 years it will be led only. I have switched over all but one of my tanks to led

 

Well, I guess cheap is relative. 500 for one module, I guess I'll hang on to my t5 for a bit. (that's the ones at reefgeek)

 

I wouldn't say that soon but maybe that's becasue I'm still a MH fan

 

+1 LED's are really sweet don't get me wrong, and yeah they will become an industry standard for top of the line. It's too expensive though, and MH's are getting increasingly cheaper as a result and I really cant argue with that.

 

love my metal haildes and t5s

 

I almost felt sorry for the metal halide booths at MACNA. They seemed pretty bored. The LED people seemed quite a bit busier.

 

In the end it will become a cost thing. As shown by my name, I work in an industry that has seen LED take over, and it went from a questionable product that cost more and had a much lower life than neon, made by 50 different small companies, to a product that is cheaper, brighter, longer lasting (and put me out of a job)(I just do other things at the sign shop now, not unemployed...) in about 5 years. 5 years from now, the product that AI puts out will look quant and expensive, and you will be able to get Petco starter kits with reef capable LED lighting systems. It's amazing and sad.

 

Plus 1 NeonBenderI have worked in Sign Industry for 16 years out of high school. I am a supervisor over the neon shop and channel letters. We use all led's now. But do a lot in service still for neon. I have an awesome hook-up for led's. But I still love the way the MH look on my 125 and 90.

 

You guys aren't the ones who came up with the idea to put up super bright led billboards advertising to the public only to save electricity are you. JK  I  had to laugh when I seen them along the interstate in WI.... kind of a double standard.

 

Now, Personally, I hate the things.  I don't mind the brightness, or the color.  It's the fact they cycle a different image every 8 seconds.  But I've never heard of them as an energy saver.  They are a money saver.  Instead of paying two or three guys about four hours of work (travel, trucks, etc) each time you want to change the image, you just upload a PNG to your server over a cellular connection.  LED in general IS a big energy saver, as most people here know.  A good, well built neon sign will take about six amps to run, but you can make the same sign run on LED at a little over a half amp.  The problem with the big billboards is they are having to compete with the 'free' lighting the sun provides, and actually out-light it.  But, that's the way the industry is going.  Now, it seems that we hardly put up a new sign without a full color FMV message center underneath it, and a lot of the time the message center is close to twice the size of the old style sign that sits above it. Anyway, sorry to hijack the thread.
Michael

 

I hear you Michael. Some of the led boards are running on high at night instead of low. Also there is a lot of junk out there for led's. Sorry to get off the subject guys. /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif