Where can you get these lights?

[doug king]

I met a member today from this site and Scott has really helped me out on my intent to sell acrylic signs... He has some products that are really good but I am dieing to know where I can get these lights from, its hard to compete in the same size when these folks are selling their signs for 10.00

Here is a proof of concept I did with some LEDs from a hobby store and a piece of wood...

red-kanji-sign 028.jpg

red-kanji-sign 036.jpg

Here is what one of my members on my website linked me to on Ebay... the seller is selling the sign and all for 10 bucks.

Please Educate me on the lights and what is the real deal......

J122B.jpg

J122.jpg

[Scott Erwin]

I would look up Dan Hintz... He is, in his words, Self-proclaimed LED guru.

He seems to have a lot of information about LEDs and may be able to help you.

[George D Gabert]

someone posted this source a while back
cuttingedgesandcarving.com

I do not know what his pricing is

GDG

[Dan Hintz]

Doug,

You'll need to be more specific as to the type of information you're looking for. If you want manufacturers, I do not have any specific ones in mind, but I guarantee you the lighting unit are coming from Asia. While the guy is most likely selling the same designs over and over again (no design time necessary) to cut costs, I can't even begin to touch that kind of a price point with just the lighting unit. Labor in Asia is (mostly) dirt cheap, so they sell things at barely above their materials cost... I could never hope to compete with that. If I were to manufacture a similar lighting unit to my specs (even in Asia) and had an assembled unit shipped to me, I would be looking at $15-$20/each. Add in machine time for etching the acrylic, and it's a lost battle, for sure.

[Mike Christen]

its worth buying them just for the light base. it is shameful how cheap Asia products are, no one can compete!!! The plan is to drive everyone out of business and have the monopoly

[doug king]

Doug,

You'll need to be more specific as to the type of information you're looking for. If you want manufacturers, I do not have any specific ones in mind, but I guarantee you the lighting unit are coming from Asia. While the guy is most likely selling the same designs over and over again (no design time necessary) to cut costs, I can't even begin to touch that kind of a price point with just the lighting unit. Labor in Asia is (mostly) dirt cheap, so they sell things at barely above their materials cost... I could never hope to compete with that. If I were to manufacture a similar lighting unit to my specs (even in Asia) and had an assembled unit shipped to me, I would be looking at $15-$20/each. Add in machine time for etching the acrylic, and it's a lost battle, for sure.

Thanks Dan, you confirmed what I was wanting to know. I am pretty good at finding things I want or information using Google. I have to tell you there is a huge shortage of distributers of good light bases.. I ran across several wood bases and several LED but only a couple of edge lit LED kits that were good. Ironically I found Scott on the Internet then when we were emailing back and forth he referred me here (which he didnt know I was a new member). Scott has the lights that look very similiar but go up much bigger....

I have a plan on the lights... I have a captive audience, I control the advertising and honestly no one is going to want to try to compete with me on ebay... I have 26,000 members on my site with 45 million hits a month.. I have the plan worked out where I will sell the base (which can also be hung by a chain upside down.) and one piece of acrylic and still make a profit. Research with my members tells me that they want multiple acrylic signs that they can change out themselves. My margin will be greater on the second and third purchases... I will make money on each sell but at the same time if I can get a light in their hands they will be back for more.......

I figured the lights were outsourced or purchased from Asia, the product looks good and your right you cant beat that price....

I wonder how they get away with all the copyright infringements.

Thanks all,

Doug

[Mark Ross]

I'm going to throw my $12 dollars (2 cents after being adjusted for taxes, inflation, deflation, stock market variance, gas price gouging, gold price manipulation

(Steps off soapbox...picks up bullhorn...steps back onto soap box).

The company I work for, we manufacture here in the USA. Some products. Some very specific high end, or safety related products that Asia simply can't touch. Goody for us. One of the things we wanted to do was in house LED strip lighting.

Guess what...I cannot even import all of the raw materials for what I can buy finished product from in China. So if I have a product I can buy at 80 cents a foot, but my raw material costs (not including shipping, just raw material costs)are $1.20, why would I try to build it here?

How is this possible? The Yuan does not float like many other currencies. Since it doesn't, they can manipulate prices all they want and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. If we cannot compete on price, we have to have better service, better warranty, better quality. We can't win on price, and forget trying to cater to the mind numbed "Walmart pricing mentality". It is a logic argument you cannot win.

So that being said, that looks like a nice light. Umm...is it an officially licensed NFL product for 10 bucks? I would venture to say not. If you import and sell it, the NFL knows they have no regress against the Chinese, just look at the drywall issue. So the NFL isn't going to sue Wahn Hung Lo over in Beijing, but you can bet your sweet bupkiss they are going to put the smack dab down on Joe American who brought that crap into the US.

As far as a good quality source for USA made lights, I am not sure. Lighting is the main product that the company I work for does. I will see if I can get one of the ten dollar ebay specials and figure out what is in it, and what it would cost and since (like they say, if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em) we already have an agent in China, I might be able to chase it back to whatever factory is producing it.

(steps off soapbox grumbling, "And don't even get me started on ROHS/WEEE compliance...we have a mass spectrometer at work and I can tell you horror stories of so called lead free product from China...")

[Dee Gallo]

Check with Jim Good, he's a member here and has excellent LED packages of varying sizes and colors, for very reasonable prices. You get the base and the blank plexi, plus you can buy adapters for plugging in.

cheers, dee

[Dan Hintz]

they get away with the copyright infringement because there's no one to police them. Even here in the US the trick was to sell a product until receiving a C&D letter (or going so far as to being sued), then close shop and start a new company selling the same stuff. The US legal system has put a stop to such shenanigans, but the same thing happens in Asia... only in that case, there's no C&D, it's only a company big enough to convince the foreign government it's in their best interest to shut down the specific chop shop. It's not a permanent solution in any way, shape, or form in those cases, but it slows them down juuuuust a bit.

I laid out a PCB design for LEDs last year with the hope many here would want to incorporate them into their own bases, but it was mostly nibbles on the line rather than full bites. It was designed to support a high-brightness, surface-mount LED in any single color (though the color could be selected on a 2-3 LED-grouping basis, so a 2 foot board could have multiple colors on it) to keep costs down (most of my products are designed for a more costly but higher level of functionality). The board was 1/4" wide and the length was user-selectable in roughly 3" increments... height/thickness was on the order of 1/8" with the LEDs installed.

If you're interested in something like this for more than onesies and twosies, send me an email/PM and we can talk further. I can provide you with whatever you need at any level of construction, from just the populated PCBs to a fully assembled enclosure... just be aware that I will never be able to touch Asian pricing (though I guarantee my quality will be 100x better).

[doug king]

they get away with the copyright infringement because there's no one to police them. Even here in the US the trick was to sell a product until receiving a C&D letter (or going so far as to being sued), then close shop and start a new company selling the same stuff. The US legal system has put a stop to such shenanigans, but the same thing happens in Asia... only in that case, there's no C&D, it's only a company big enough to convince the foreign government it's in their best interest to shut down the specific chop shop. It's not a permanent solution in any way, shape, or form in those cases, but it slows them down juuuuust a bit.

I laid out a PCB design for LEDs last year with the hope many here would want to incorporate them into their own bases, but it was mostly nibbles on the line rather than full bites. It was designed to support a high-brightness, surface-mount LED in any single color (though the color could be selected on a 2-3 LED-grouping basis, so a 2 foot board could have multiple colors on it) to keep costs down (most of my products are designed for a more costly but higher level of functionality). The board was 1/4" wide and the length was user-selectable in roughly 3" increments... height/thickness was on the order of 1/8" with the LEDs installed.

If you're interested in something like this for more than onesies and twosies, send me an email/PM and we can talk further. I can provide you with whatever you need at any level of construction, from just the populated PCBs to a fully assembled enclosure... just be aware that I will never be able to touch Asian pricing (though I guarantee my quality will be 100x better).

Honestly with the NFL and the other companies that are listed on Ebay, budweiser, all the baseball teams, basketball..... It would be pretty easy to stop all imports or block Ebay from selling them... Will the govt do that, no way someone might get upset. I find it amazing though that the record companies will go after a 20 yr old kid for recording violations for copying a CD and get a fine of 200,000 but won't lobby to stop all the copies that are being distributed across the world...

Im ranting now...

Dan I would love to get your research, I have a technical background and I could incorporate this into a project to make our own....

Doug

[Steve Clarkson]

Just to let you guys know......I'm working on an alternative to using LED's for edge-lit acrylic. Comes in numerous colors and uses about 10% of the energy consumption of LED's.....and hopefully will be as bright, if not brighter than LED's. The question is....will I be able to keep a 1/4" x 24" strip under $10......

I'll let you know more in a few weeks.

[doug king]

Just to let you guys know......I'm working on an alternative to using LED's for edge-lit acrylic. Comes in numerous colors and uses about 10% of the energy consumption of LED's.....and hopefully will be as bright, if not brighter than LED's. The question is....will I be able to keep a 1/4" x 24" strip under $10......

I'll let you know more in a few weeks.

Honestly the 10.00 really isn't a big deal, I can sell them with a higher priced base but I needed to know the real deal on the Asia imports so that I can speak to it when someone post up about it. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't really a distributor out there that made them and sold them for 3.00 and I just didnt know about them.. If you have a good solution then please let me know. I will have a long standing relationship with someone...

Doug

[Sergio Arze]

You can make a USB LED strip for under 1 Dollar.
If you need some help contact me Good luck.

[Sergio Arze]

sorry about the pic!!! I know you will be able to do way better if you take your time.
1"x1" scrap acrylic
1 USB cable
1 LED
you can purchase 100 led's from ebay for under 7$ shipped
and usb cables under 30 cents.

[doug king]

Make no mistake I could make my own bases, I already have... If you really want some options on LED's try out this website http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...Fled_prods.htm I have been using them for years, however I wanted a base that was metal and could hang, that uses AC power, has a power switch and has a lot of light... Its hard to beat the ones that I found on the Internet. They may cost a little more than making them myself but they should show the difference in a professional job and a home built.... Not wanting to talk down on anyone's work but its hard to mass produce bases like this at home....

Doug