Signdealz Blog | Commercial Outdoor Signage

Great Restaurant Signs | Golden Lotus Cuisine of China Monument Sign

Written by William (Bill) Hayes | Mar 18, 2014 2:23:00 PM
Golden Lotus Chinese cuisine has been a stable of the Boulder food scene for over 15 years. You can find Golden Lotus at 1964 28th Street, Boulder CO. During that 15 years in business, their old exposed neon sign had seen it's better days. 

 

 

Golden Lotus Cuisine of China Upgrades to LED Channel Letters

 

The existing monument sign was an exposed neon configuration that was added to an existing monument sign. The sign had significant problems, to include the 7 transformers that powered the neon tubes on both sides of the sign. The sign would heat up during the summer and we would see about 2 to 3 transformer failures a year. The repairs over the years were really adding up and it was time for a more permanent solution.

Rob, manager at Golden Lotus asked us to come up with a plan to upgrade the existing signage. His needs were the following:

  • Maintain the existing look and feel of the signage that Boulder customers have come to know
  • Save on the energy by converting to LED
  • Stay within their budget

The Old Golden Lotus Cuisine of China in it's heyday!

New Converted Monument sign with LED Channel Letters

Monument Sign using Channel Letters

 

 

Signdealz removed the existing neon and transformers from the monument sign. The sign had become a real fire hazard. The existing tranformers were using approximately 21 amps of power on a 30 amp circuit. The new LED illuminated signage drastically dropped the power output to less than 2 amps. We had two hidden cabinets fabricated to illuminate the Chinese characters from behind.  New aluminum faces were fabricated out of .080 aluminum and painted matt black. The Chinese characters were routed and backed with yellow acrylic. The front lit channel letters were mounted to the aluminum face of the sign. The channel letters are a standard front lit channel letter, with red 2793 acrylic faces, red 1" standard trim cap, and red LED's. 

Using channel letters on a monument sign allows for more contrast on a somewhat square simple square shaped sign. Getting contrast for the Golden Lotus sign was critical, especially since their neighbors had expaned, cutting off significant portions of visibiltiy for oncoming traffic.

Replacing the Exposed Neon Channel Letter Signs on the Building

 

Signdealz faced many of the same challenges with the building signage as it did with the monument sign. The building signs had the same number of maintenance issues in regards to shorts, failed transformers, and generally a sign that was getting really old. We designed the new signs back to the orginal specifications and size and brought them up with the new LED technology.

The resulting project improved the look and feel of the building, increased the energy efficiency, and brought the new signage up to UL standards. These new channel letter signs will look great for years.