Technical/FAQ

Our LED tiles are manufactured in China. The company that makes them was formed in 2005 which for this type of technology was pretty much at the inception. The owner of the company is the original developer of the product. He was an electrical engineer working in the field when he got the idea for his design. It took him several years of working after hours to perfect the design and refine it to the product you see today. He then left his employment to start the company. They now have two divisions with approximately 200 employees.

The LED tiles have been shipped to over 80 countries, including United States, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Peru, Georgia, Jordan, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Lebanon, Russia, Sweden, Poland and Taiwan. The temperature extremes of some of these places far exceed Australian conditions (Eg. Sweden -30°C, Las Vegas is +41°C) 

The average running cost depends on a number of factors such as sign type (colour and pitch), the overall size, the daily duty cycle and the power cost in your State.

As an example a mono red,  2.4m wide and 0.96m high, 10mm pitch sign running daily for 18 hours in NSW would cost approximately $100.26 per year to run. The same sign in Victoria would cost $89.99 per year to run. Electricity price based on Average Annual Price Tables published by AEMO 06/2014.

The calculation is:-

A  mono red sign:

10 cabinets x 28watts x 18hr x 365 days x $54.50/MWh (NSW) = $100.26

10 cabinets x 28watts x 18hr x 365 days x $48.92/MWh (VIC) = $89.99

A full colour sign with all the same specifications:

10 cabinets x 73watts x 18hr x 365 days x $54.50/MWh (NSW) = $261.39

10 cabinets x 73watts x 18hr x 365 days x $48.92/MWh (VIC) = $234.63

No, “off grid” solar is not really an option yet. Generally speaking it’s expensive to setup, requires ongoing maintenance (and expense) and is not necessarily as ecofriendly as people would have you believe.

• The cost of an initial reliable system is around $18,000 for the hardware alone. This is generally more than the sign

• You need space nearby for the solar panels – about 12 large 200W panels

• You need somewhere nearby to house the batteries, inverter, regulator etc.

• Batteries need to be maintained and housed in a  dry and well ventilated place (even if they say maintenance free – see the account of a maintenance free battery exploding http://www.rayvaughan.com/battery_safety.htm

• Installation labour which includes mounting of solar panels, wiring and commissioning can be upwards of $5,000

• The batteries need to be replaced every so often which is an added cost and the old ones need to be disposed of

• The manufacture of PV cells and batteries is not as clean as the power they produce

When you compare all this to about $100ex per annum for normal “on grid” power its usually a fairly straight forward decision – even if in some cases the  initial capital outlay for getting power to the sign seems expensive.

Yes, they are supported here in Australia by a third-party maintenance company. We carry spare modules and controller cards. Any faulty component can be easily cold swapped on site.

Yes. Our technicians are factory trained. Having said this, anyone on your staff should be able to service the units. The primary level of maintenance is to cold swap the damaged/faulty tiles which involves removing 8 screws and undoing 3 cable connections (all of which cannot be confused as they are keyed to only fit one way). Once cold swapped, the damaged/faulty item will be repaired by our service technicians here in Australia or can be sent back to the factory.

The sign uses a modular architecture whereby the LED tiles and the controller are separate units which makes both diagnosis and repair easier. A new controller can be cold swapped on site in minutes as can the LED tiles. The controller card is around the same size as a PC video card (about A5 size).

Although our LED modules can use any of several generic LED control cards and software suites, we use and recommend the ViPlex Express software. The beauty of using generic software means you are not stuck with proprietary software made by the sign manufacturer (as is the case with some other types of signs). This means the software is more likely to be updated in response to industry advances, rather than the advances (or lack thereof) associated with just that one manufacturer. Updates to XViPlex Express are freely available via the web.

Yes The front of the modules are IP66 rated and the rear IP65.

As the modules are sealed, the sign does not require any maintenance other than the occasional wash down to get rid of bugs that might like to call it home. Both front and rear access are available but in most cases we standardise on front access.

Yes, a temperature and ambient light sensor are both available for a small additional cost. There is also a speed sensor for traffic applications.

This depends entirely on your network. The sign appears as a normal device on your network, so as long as your network allows remote access then yes, you can perform updates from anywhere.

Yes. The software is a little like PowerPoint in that you can define areas on the screen for different objects, such as text, time, pictures movies etc and you can have them all running at the same time on the same screen.

Yes. It runs a diagnostic on boot up and will auto restart after a power failure.

Yes. This is a fundamental feature which also includes items like scheduling the on/off times, the high/low brightness times and even re-starting the controller.

Yes. It has both a count up and count down timer.

Yes and other popular multimedia formats such as  Flash, QuickTime, WMV and MPG.

The modules have very good colour resolutions. Mono screens have a grey scale of 65536.

In colour 48bit mode its 280 Trillion colours, in 24bit mode its 16.7million.

Our standard warranty is for 2 years and covers all parts and labour associated with the repair of the modules. It does not cover the removal or replacement of the modules from the sign, freight or other associated costs such as scaffolding or other lift equipment should it be required. In some applications we have offered extended warranties of 5 years.

The operating life is ≥ 100,000 hours (=15yrs @ 18hr/day @ 25°C) – this is defined as the point where the LED degrades itself to half the original intensity

Use only use premium quality LED’s! We use Epistar LED’s made in Korea, one of the world’s largest producers. They make a very good and consistent product that is not known to crack or distort.

If any pixel stops functioning the module will be replaced under warranty. Outside of warranty will incur a service charge.

Yes. All LED’s will suffer degradation in higher temperatures. This is an inherent characteristic of ALL LEDs. We don’t have any specific data on this because each LED manufacturer makes their own claims and it can vary from one LED production batch to the next. We do have anecdotal evidence of a customer who replaced a LED module after 2 years and they found minimal colour difference between the new and the old modules.

We have no specific data on this as this depends a lot on intensity settings, duty cycles and environment. The sign can be programmed to dim anywhere from 0% (fully bright) to 100% (off), and then you need to look at the duty cycle – how many hours per day is the sign on, and finally the operating environment . The half-life (50% brightness) of the EPISTAR LED’s is given as ≥ 100,000 hours (=15yrs @ 18hr/day). One thing to be aware of is that the degradation is not linear, so they will degrade more in the early years and less in the later years.

Yes, and we go one step further, they  are thermally activated, so they don’t just run all the time which prolongs the life.

This is another difficult one to answer outright as it depends on usage, but the fans are rated for a minimum of >140,000 hrs (=21yrs @ 18hr/day)

All minor servicing and maintenance can be done on site. Any electronic component failure is usually done at a service centre once the module in question has been swapped out.

No, there is no certification on the install. We use licenced trades people working within local building regulations. They have current and valid Workers Compensation  and Public Liability Insurance. They also have a current SWMS (safe work method statement) which we can give you a copy of. The product itself has CE, CCC, FCC, ROHS and ISO9001-2000 certification.

LED’s are fairly rugged in their own right however like most electronic devices they can be damaged.

Each LED in our modules is protected from both the sun and impact damage by a small protective shade sill that protrudes past the LED.  If required, as an added protection, a clear polycarbonate overlay can be placed in front of the LED surface.  The force of any object hitting the sign will be dispersed across a wide area, reducing the possibility of impact damage.

Graffiti can usually be cleaned off the polycarbonate and scratches usually don’t affect the viewed image. In the worst case the polycarbonate can be replaced.

The diagram below shows the profile of our typical LED panel.

Yes. it will vary from site to site but you can expect to pay under $500 plus parts for an optional preventative maintenance call. This would be a typical inspect, clean and replace any suspect parts scenario. Alternately you could look to a break/fix scenario at our standard hourly charges plus parts.

Yes you can. This is the beauty of our modular panels. You can replace modules easily to upgrade from mono to colour (or visa versa), or to go from one pitch or brightness to another.

To make your sign bigger or smaller we just modify your existing frame and either add or subtract modules  depending on your requirements.

In many cases we can minimise the costs of upgrading by offering a trade in discount on old modules.

The Xmplayer Software is used to control your LED sign.

The current release is 3.1.56

To get an upgrade click on the download link, send us an email request or phone us.

All you need to do is run Registry Editor (regedit.exe), locate the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/System

Create a new DWORD entry with the name EnableLinkedConnections and give it a value of 1:

Restart the machine.

For full details see:-

http://www.winability.com/how-to-make-elevated-programs-recognize-network-drives/

The ITTV  Software is used to control your Digital Signage network. This  powerful management software can be installed on any PC or laptop computer, and provides a user-friendly tool to plan the play-list for each media player or group of media players. A drag-and-drop ‘wizard’ based, scheduling, uploading and previewing interface enables the easy delivery of play lists and content. 

The Media Player Control Software offers precise scheduling of each clip/message or group of clips, and supports the design of scroll text banners with as many messages as desired for each media player. The system also supports the scheduling and display, in real time, of web pages and RSS feeds for ultimate flexibility.

If for some reason your  ITTV Viewer Software needs to be re-installed you will need to send us a request for a re-issue of the activation code. Please download the Re-issue Licence Form Download Form

Please note there is a service fee associated with the re-issue of licences.