LED Signs, Need to Know: Insurance and Warranty

History:

In the time of King Hammurabi the first hint of today’s modern insurance appeared, carved into a Babylonian obelisk monument. It came to be known as the “Hammurabi Code” and offered a type of basic insurance when a debtor couldn’t repay loans due to a catastrophe- death, flood, disability and more.

Insurance underwriting appeared in the 1600’s as shipping interests between Europe and the Americas started to develop.  Edward Lloyd, an owner of a coffee house, was one of the first to explore this new concept as he provided a meeting place welcomed ship owners and merchants seeking insurance. Does the name Lloyd seem familiar? It should be as Lloyd’s of London is now universally known as a provider of insurance across the globe.

Today fire insurance, property insurance, health insurance and life insurance provide protection and, in the case of life insurance, establish immediate estates for the surviving family.

The basics are simple- spread the risk around, so everyone pays a little to prevent any one person from losing it all.

LED Signs:

If anyone has been involved in the LED sign industry one truth should be clear- stuff breaks. No argument there. If you sat on a pole, 24/7, through storms, heavy traffic, power surges and other insults eventually one of your LED modules might give up too!

What separates a quality LED display from a poorly designed LED display is how often it breaks.  Is it okay for an LED display to fail once per year?  While you may see a service truck out monthly repairing an imported LED display, that high frequency of repair is not common on USA produced products. So, let’s assume one service call per year on your quality LED sign.

Assumptions & Calculation of Service Cost for a Quality Sign Ownership:

Average length of time the sign is owned- 8 years.

Average man hours per service incident- 4 hours at $100/hour.

Average parts cost- $150

Lifetime service cost of ownership = 8 x (($100 x 4) + $150) = $4,400

That’s a lot of money. Wouldn’t it be better to help defray that cost with a 3^rd party insurance plan that had a guaranteed life even beyond the life of the manufacturer or the insurance company?

Warranty versus Insurance:

Is insurance a warranty, or is a warranty some kind of insurance? I think the answer to both questions is “yes”.

It’s smart to ask “what iron-clad assurance can you give me that your LED Sign warranty obligations can be met?”

What if the manufacturing plant slides into the ocean? What if an F-5 tornado hits the plant and wipes out everything?

Did you know that many warranties extended by LED sign distributors and so-called "manufacturers"are not even legal technically? State law tries to help determine how warranty execution is guaranteed in the event the company offering the warranty fails. Many companies ignore these laws against "self insuring" and attach some ridiculous warranty period to their product at the same time they are struggling to pay for their next imported project from Shenzhen, China. They may be one sales deal away from failure as their cash flow approaches zero.  The warranty is as good as their next sale.

Remember the old game of chance where you have 3 cups and a ball? What cup is the ball under? Don't let the old chancy game of "self-insurance" make you guess who's paying for the service.

Having a 3^rd party warranty provider, an insurance company, one deeply involved in the industry who conforms to the legalities of warranties, with reserve funds established is the best way to go. This way service execution is guaranteed even if the 3^rd party warranty provider’s company were to fail. The warranty, or the “insurance” has a life of its own.

Many sign companies and certainly many end-users of LED displays never consider this. However when the time comes for warranty servicing and the upstart "flying by the seat of their pants" LED sign "manufacturer" has long ago closed its doors and folded its operation, the installing LED sign company quickly realizes it has to service that cheap LED sign over and over again. Live and learn, huh? Not too many times however to stay solvent.

Ensure that your project is insured, and that a warranty creates true added value for you and your customer. A 3rd party insurance protection plan provides that assurance.

These comments belong to me, Mike Prongue, and do not reflect the views, opinions, hopes or dreams of anyone else, anywhere else and this includes Vantage LED. I appreciate your constructive opinion which may be sent to me at michael@vantageled.com.   

Be S.M.A.R.T. with your choices: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Time-driven ways to ensure your investment with Digital Signage is a good one.

-Deacon Wardlow

I’m an avid hiker, mountain climber, outdoorsmen and it all started at a young age. The first time I solo climbed a mountain was nerve-wracking. I had climbed hundreds of times before, but never on my own (and by climbing, I’m referring to a solo “hike” not actual rock ascension). The sensation was exhilarating, being out on my own with the beauty all around me. The experience could easily have been a nightmare. Without a map, compass and the right experience in place I could have been frightened and gotten lost or seriously in trouble.

To make the right decisions, you’ve got to have all the information in place and know where you’re going. You’ve got to have SMART goals to achieve your desired end result.. SMART goals are - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-driven. By making the right choices from the start, you can save yourself (and possibly many others) frustrations, headaches and time (money). Here's a brief bit on how to start (and finish) SMART:

SPECIFIC:
Be specific about what your objective is with the Digital LED Signage System. Do you want to reach out to the community? Share information about a group/business? Create business opportunities? Draw people into the store? Share specials and pricing to the public to incentivise them to stop in? Perhaps all or a few different selections from these options? The more specific the objective, the better fit you’ll get with a solution.

MEASURABLE:
How will success with the system be measured? Will a call to action (i.e. SPECIAL RENTAL PRICES ON COFFEE CUPS, unlimited refill with 2 hour cup rental for $2.50/2 hours!) be made and sales tracked against the special (which is only on the system)? Perhaps SMS (texting) integration? Events listed only on the LED Sign with a tracking of attendance? The better the measurement of success, the more the client can utilize the board and fine-tune the content to meet their needs.

ACHIEVABLE:
Depending on the system selected, can the end-user get what they want out of the system? In an area flooded with single-color LED Signage, a small FULL COLOR system may achieve the end-goal/objective of standing out from the crowd. If the client is an auto-dealer and wants to put up big pictures of their newest vehicles, a 2’ x 4’ display likely is not going to achieve their objective.

REALISTIC:
While a 150% return on their investment may not be realistic, what is? Can a business expect to see a 10-20% growth in business because of the LED Sign purchase? NO! They can expect a 10% (or greater) return by USING the LED Sign they purchase. Simply purchasing the sign isn’t enough, content has to be constantly and consistently refreshed/changed to keep people’s eyes on the prize.

Time-Driven:
Quality takes time. There’s an old graphic showing a triangle with three sides. Written on each side is a single word: Quality, Price, Time. Under the triangle is the phrase, you can only have two (low price, high quality; but longer build time. Low price, fast turnaround; but low quality, etcetera). These days an average build time will be 5-8 weeks. If you’re looking for a custom solution or a large-scale system with a lot of bells and whistles, you should expect the system to take a little more time to build. If someone promises you they can build a high-quality system in a short turnaround (i.e. 2 weeks) you should immediately be concerned as to how that’s possible. Think of the triangle. If they’re delivering a low-cost system with a fast turnaround, you’re not getting that third side in the deal...

Be SMART when making your selection for a quality manufacturer/partner with Digital Signage. The wrong choice could cost you a lot more than money. Making the SMART choice now, will benefit both you and the end-user over the lifetime of their investment.

*I invite you to comment here and/or email me directly with requests at deacon@vantageled.com. Vantage LED has white paper resources and more educational material on the website (http://www.vantageled.com), please check it out when you have a moment. Note all posts/thoughts/writings are strictly the viewpoint of me and me alone and do not reflect nor speak for Vantage LED’s beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, etc. unless specifically stated.

Protecting your Investment: Dragon Skin™

-Deacon Wardlow 

I was checking out the new Dragon Skin™ coating (get the white paper here) at Vantage LED and asked one of the engineers how they came up with the idea. When discussion of coating materials came up, an engineer mentioned possibly partnering with a chemical manufacturer to produce a new coating material for LED display cabinets. Vantage LED met with the manufacturer of the material in CA and came up with a blend specifically for LED displays which would help protect the cabinet.  


The new Dragon Skin™ is a versatile, rugged and easy-to-use coating for LED display cabinets. The material doesn’t use Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOC) making it a safe and “green” alternative to typical paint applications. The coating results in a highly scratch-resistant exterior which is flexible and allows for the general expansion/shrinkage seen in metal cabinets over time/temperature which will often cause other coatings to crack leaving the metal exposed to the environment and damaging the finish.

The application can be done in a few minutes and curing takes less than 20 seconds. This reduces the overall handling of the cabinet and streamlines manufacturing as well as cutting down on labor costs.

I like how the rugged coating protects the display against the accidental scratches and scrapes involved in crate removal and installation. It also gives the cabinet a nice texture which is distinctive to the Vantage LED cabinets.

Overall, addition of the Dragon Skin™ material to the line offering has been met with great success and is one more way LED Message Center manufacturers are changing and innovating. It’s great to see manufacturers looking at the overall design of their systems and asking what can be improved. Even better when those improvements come quickly so the end-user can benefit!




*Always feel free to comment here and/or email me directly with requests at deacon@vantageled.com. Vantage LED has white paper resources and more educational material on the website (http://www.vantageled.com), please check it out when you have a moment. Advertisements/promotion for your business and inappropriate comments will be deleted.. Thank you!

**Note all posts/thoughts/writings are strictly the viewpoint of me and me alone and do not reflect nor speak for Vantage LED’s beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, etc. unless specifically stated.

Counting Colors: The Truth Behind the Numbers

-Deacon Wardlow

What exactly does it mean when an LED message center manufacturer is selling you on millions or billions of color? If the human eye can only perceive 10 million or so colors, what’s the point of more than that? There are important reasons for understanding the numbers and in the game to win your business some manufacturers don’t play fair.

Every color in a digital image is made up of some combination of the three primary colors of light - red, green and blue: It doesn't matter what color you're looking at on your screen. It's being made up of some combination of those three colors. By using multiple shades of red, green and blue you can create a bigger color palette. 

If all you had was pure red, pure green, and pure blue, the most you could create would be seven different colors, including white if you mixed all three together.

You also include an eighth color: black, which you would get if you completely removed red, green, and blue. These make up the 8 “bits” or shades of color which make up a “regular” message center palette. Multiply Red 256 x Green 256 x Blue 256 and you get a “pure” white made up of over 16 million colors.

Full-Color Reproducibility for 16.77 Million Colors Using 8-bit RGB Color:

• 8-bit (2^8) = 256 tones
• 256 tones (R) * 256 tones (G) * 256 tones (B) = 16,777,216 colors
• 16,777,216 colors = 16.77 million colors

So if a “regular” color palette is made up of 256 tones/shades of Red/Green/Blue, how can you get billions or more colors? While many control systems are only capable of 8-bits. More advanced systems can achieve 12+ bit color palettes (4,096+ tones per Red, Green and Blue). These more advanced systems can honestly claim billions of colors. Many 8-bit systems will use frame rate control (how the LED pulses to create vibrancy/brightness) to “fake” the additional 4+ bits of color. If a manufacturer of displays can change some component to give the appearance of more colors, what’s the difference?

The higher bit, the better the color depth available on a screen. While the human eye can only perceive 10 million (or so) colors, the color depth of an image is perceived in how “sharp” an image looks with contrasting shadows. True color depth is best achieved with a higher-bit system allowing for clearer, crisper images and better color quality. Manipulating frame rates can lead to refresh rate issues which can cause a message center to look “blurry” with poorly defined lines and image quality.

In an apples-to-apples comparison, high quality systems are defined by true color reporting, not by playing with the numbers to give you a false impression. The next time someone plays a numbers game with you, dig into their system to see what they’re trying to draw attention away from. It’s likely they’re trying to flood you with more information and a “bigger is better” mindset to place themselves in a unique position away from the competition. The next time you see big numbers, check the real value under the engine of the system; find out how many bits their controller really handles. Don’t let people play a numbers game on you.




*Always feel free to comment here and/or email me directly with requests at deacon@vantageled.com. Vantage LED has white paper resources and more educational material on the website (http://www.vantageled.com), please check it out when you have a moment. Advertisements/promotion for your business and inappropriate comments will be deleted.. Thank you!

**Note all posts/thoughts/writings are strictly the viewpoint of me and me alone and do not reflect nor speak for Vantage LED’s beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, etc. unless specifically stated.