LED Sign Lighting and Retrofits in Philadelphia
Convert tired fluorescent and neon signs to LED. Fewer outage calls, lower power bills, and a face that finally lights evenly.
Inside a Retrofit
One cabinet, cut open and split down the middle. The left side is the lighting we pull out. The right side is what goes back in, behind the face you already have.
- Existing cabinet. The aluminum box already on your building. If the shell and the frame are sound, it stays where it is and all of the work happens inside it.
- Fluorescent tubes. The long lamps doing the lighting now. They dim as they age and drop out one at a time, usually on the coldest night of the year.
- Ballast. The heavy box that drove those tubes. It hums, it runs warm, and it is a common reason a sign goes dark. It comes out and does not come back.
- LED sticks. Low voltage bars laid out for the width and depth of your cabinet, so light lands across the whole face instead of in bands.
- Driver. The compact power supply that takes the place of the ballast. We mount it where a tech can reach it later without pulling the sign apart.
- The same face. Your colors and graphics stay as they are. What changes is the light behind them, which is the part your customers see at night.
What an LED Retrofit Covers
If your cabinet flickers every winter or half a letter is dark again, you may not need a new sign. In many cases the aluminum and the faces are fine and the lighting inside is the problem. A retrofit swaps the old fluorescent tubes or neon for LED modules and new power supplies while the sign stays on your wall.
- On-site inspection of the cabinet, faces, wiring, and power feed
- An honest retrofit-or-replace call, priced both ways
- LED module layout designed for even coverage, no hot spots or shadows
- New power supplies installed, old ballasts, transformers, and lamps hauled off
- Yellowed or cracked faces replaced while the cabinet is open
Retrofits By a Shop That Builds LED Signs
A retrofit is two trades at once: sign work and low-voltage electrical. We build new LED signs in our own fabrication shop on Woodhaven Road, so module spacing, power supply sizing, and wiring layout are daily work here. When we open your cabinet, we know what we are looking at down to the component.
That pays off twice. First on brightness: modules placed by people who light sign faces for a living cover the face edge to edge, in most cases brighter than the tubes they replace. Second on service: LEDs draw a fraction of the power of fluorescent or neon and have no ballasts or transformers waiting to fail, so the late-night calls about a dark sign mostly stop.
And when something does need attention years down the line, our repair and maintenance techs service what we installed, with parts we stock. One shop, one number, from a corner store cabinet in Mayfair to a diner's channel letters on Bustleton Avenue.
Signs That Benefit Most From LED
Anything that lights up can be converted. These are the retrofits we quote most often.
LED Retrofit Questions
Should I retrofit my sign or replace it?
If the cabinet is sound and the faces are in decent shape, a retrofit typically costs far less than a new sign and gets done faster. We inspect first and quote it both ways, so you decide with real numbers.
Can you convert neon channel letters to LED?
Yes. We remove the neon and transformers, mount LED modules inside the existing letters, and install new power supplies. The look stays. The late-night outages and transformer hum go.
Will LED be as bright as my old sign?
In most cases brighter, and more even. Fluorescent tubes fade and stripe as they age. A properly spaced LED layout lights the face edge to edge from day one.
How much will I save on electricity?
It depends on the sign and how long it runs each night. LEDs draw a fraction of the power of fluorescent or neon. Bring us a recent PECO bill and the sign size and we will estimate the difference for you.
Stop Paying To Light a Dying Sign
Call the shop. We will inspect the cabinet and quote the retrofit.
267-344-8492