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EGL Company, Inc., a New Jersey based manufacturer of specialty lighting products serving the neon sign and custom lighting industry is proud to announce the appointment of John Tulk as head phosphor and coatings engineer. At EGL John will focus on developing new coatings and colors that offer more lumens per watt than traditional neon colors, as well as perfecting EGL's neon phosphor and coatings for the P.O.P and neon signage industry. John's background at Sylvania, Osram Lighting, and Voltarc Technologies, Inc. make him the perfect match to the unique challenges he will face at EGL.

"We are pleased to have John on our team. His distinctive work experiences and knowledge of phosphors, coatings, and fluorescent and neon lamp making is an ideal fit with EGL's position as the world leader of custom color neon lighting products" said Harold Cortese, President and CEO of EGL Company, Inc.

John's professional career started at Sylvania's Chemical and Metallurgical Plant in Towanda, PA working in their phosphor group. At Sylvania's Towanda facility and their fluorescent lamp plant in Massachusetts John gained extensive knowledge and expertise in phosphors and fluorescent lamp technology. In 2000, John left Sylvania to join Voltarc Technologies, Inc. to become their Coatings Engineering Manager where he held this position for eight years before joining EGL in July of 2008.

"I'm excited to be at EGL" said Mr. Tulk. "There are endless color possibilities with neon and fluorescent lighting that is unrivaled whether we are talking about LEDs, fiber optics, or any other light source. I look forward to applying my knowledge and experiences to help EGL remain as the world leader in custom colors as well as to help EGL distance itself from its competition."

EGL Company, Inc., a family owned business founded by Ralph Cortese in 1930 is recognized as the world leader in neon, cold cathode, and specialty lighting products currently providing the lighting industry with over 10,000 products.

Neon signs are not just for museums and collectors.  Presently, they make up a majority of retail signage in this country (whether they are the exposed, boxed or channel letters variety) and have been in use for 100 years. Although landmark neon signs are considered a treasured American art form worth preserving, let's not forget that neon is still the best commercial lighting system on the market when it comes to brightness, energy-efficiency, durability and environmental impact.

Unfortunately, with the recent rise of other light sources such as LED and fiber optics, neon has been under attack with unsubstantiated claims that, due to a lack of an unbiased comparative studies, have been taken as fact. So when claims are made about neon, consider the source of these statements and their validity.

Brightness and Energy Efficiency

Most people don't realize that the difference in energy consumption between neon and LED is minimal and, in most cases, non-existent. What is remarkably different is the brightness, measured in lumens, emitted from comparable LED and neon signs. For example, the best white LEDs produce 10-20 lumens for every Watt consumed while 6500K snow white neon produces 35-45 lumens per Watt, even up to 50-60 lumens depending on fabrication. To equal the brightness of 6500K snow white neon signage, the amount of white LEDs needed would actually consume 2-8 times more energy per linear foot, according to studies done by The EGL Company.

Durability and Environmental Impact

Let's also consider how the standard life expectancy of LED compares to that of neon and the environmental impact of replacing and transporting LED lamps (often from overseas). The truth is that neon tubes burn without brightness or color degradation for up to 15 years, requiring very little maintenance or replacement.  In fact, the USA Today article "Save Neon Signs, Fans Urge" references signs that are 60- and 70-years old where, in some cases, the neon tubing has outlasted its metal housing. In the meantime, the LED industry struggles to pinpoint what the standard life-expectancy of its product should be, but has pinpointed how much degradation in brightness and degree of color shifting is acceptable before lamp replacement.1 This represents a great liability for retailers who have invested in LED technology to illuminate their signage and logos.

 Until recently, the neon industry has been silent about these facts and the negative consequences manifest in distorted public opinions and misrepresentations. As a result, The Neon Group has formed as a network of professionals representing the many facets of this American tradition from component manufacturers, supply distributors, power supply manufacturers and neon wholesalers to sign makers, lighting designers and artists.

"By creating a united front, we are protecting the interests of the neon trades, educating a misinformed public and promoting awareness of neon as a valuable lighting system," asserts Loren Hudson owner of Hudson & Hudson Neon, Inc. and president of The Neon Group.

The Neon Group urges end-users to learn about the benefits of neon and how it compares to LED at our website at www.TheNeonGroup.org. If you are a professional in the neon trade and are interested in supporting our mission, please consider joining our group - a membership application form is available on our website.

When considering illuminated signage, probably the most important factor to be taken into account is sign brightness.  From the point of view of attracting attention to your business or promoting your corporate identity, generally speaking, brighter is better. For many years neon in its multitude of colors has been the medium of choice for performing this task - either in the exposed form or as a means of illuminating channel letters. This type of gas discharge lighting has always been considered very energy efficient, but this attribute has recently come into question, due mainly to the introduction of LED based products. Schemes such as the LEED system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and legislation (such as California's Title 24) have also focused attention on the efficiency of light sources. So, just how efficient is neon and how does it compare to other sources? As we shall see, in most instances, neon based illumination systems still provide superior performance in terms of "light out for dollar in" - particularly when we take into account relatively recent advances in the areas of phosphor and transformer technologies.

Light Source Efficiency

Lumens/watt (lm/W) is often used as a measure of the efficiency (or to be technically correct, efficacy) of a source in converting electrical energy to light. The lumen output of a source is a measure of the total amount of light emitted. It is sometimes provided by a light source manufacturer but is very difficult to confirm without employing the services of a testing laboratory. Watts are a measure of power consumed, and there are two types of power - real power, which is measured with a wattmeter, and apparent power, which is obtained by multiplying input voltage by input current (also called VA). Real power is what you pay the electricity company for, and it's important to verify that real power is being referred to when discussing lm/W figures.

Lumens per watt is a fairly good comparative unit, as long as light sources of similar color are being compared. To put things in perspective, for white light sources, an incandescent bulb has an efficacy of 17-20 lm/W, while at 100 lm/W, a modern T5 fluorescent lamp is one of the most efficient common sources. The best white LEDs used for signage have efficacies of 10-20 lm/W.  How do neon sources compare?

High efficiency phosphors and transformers

There is an enormous range of colors available to the neon sign manufacturer today, made possible by the blending of different luminescent phosphor types, but this was not always the case. Up until the late 1940's very few, relatively inefficient, phosphors were available. The subsequent introduction of the calcium halophosphate family of phosphors together with improvements in the standard blue and green emitters enabled the neon sign industry to offer a full spectrum of color together with a large range of whites of different color temperature. These phosphors and their blends are still in use today - albeit with some subsequent improvement in efficiency. A typical halophosphate white, for example 6500K Snow White, running on a correctly loaded standard ferromagnetic 30mA transformer has an output of 150 lumens per foot of tube for 15mm diameter glass resulting in an efficacy of 35-45 lm/W. The real breakthrough came in the 1960's with the development of rare-earth phosphors that emit light in narrower wavelength bands giving deeper, more saturated colors. In the 1970's and 80's additional rare-earth phosphors were developed and adopted by the lighting industry for use in fluorescent lamps, resulting in light sources which remain among the most efficient available. The trickle down effect finally reached the neon industry in the mid 90's. Lumen per foot output increased by over 30% for whites, leading to efficacies of 50-60 lm/W. Nowadays, all manufacturers of coated tubing offer a large range of colors and many different color temperatures of white based on blends of these "tri-phosphors".

Rare-earth phosphors are particularly efficient when used to illuminate channel letters. Standard "broadband" phosphors have much of their light filtered by colored acrylic faces, but the narrow wavelength bands emitted by rare-earths means that more of the available light is transmitted, giving a brighter, more vibrant sign. For example using rare-earth green neon behind green acrylic results in the face being 25% brighter than when using standard green, and 300% brighter than with standard 6500K Snow White.

Following the successful introduction of high efficiency electronic ballasts into the fluorescent lamp market, in the early 90's, many companies began to market electronic transformers for driving neon. Today there are several companies that make electronic transformers with excellent reliability records. The use of these high frequency power supplies further boosts the efficacy of neon; for example the 50-60 lm/W figure for tri-phosphor white neon is increased to around 78 lm/W at 30mA.