Lightning surge protection for LED outdoor signage
robertturoff
| Posted in Mechanicals on
A customer of mine wishes to replace his fluorescent tubes with LED tubes in his outdoor sign. I’m concerned about lighting strike surges. He has 12 two lamp 120v strips in his sign. Any recommendations? Thank you very much in advance for your reply.
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Replies
Robert,
A company specializing in outdoor signage should be able to advise you.
There are commercially available surge protectors for LEDs used in outdoor signs, but I'm not sure whether these surge protectors can protect against a lightning strike. Here's one: Thermally Protected Surge Protective Device.
In addition to Martin's recommendation of a surge protector, I'd recommend getting LED tubes from a reputable manufacturer. The design of the electronics in one of those tubes involves many decisions which entail compromises between cost and robustness against surges. The competence of the engineer designing the electronics is also important, for example to know the likely failure scenarios. And the degree to which the company invests in testing is also highly variable.
Unfortunately, it's hard to know what brands to trust anymore, because there are companies whose business model is to buy companies with good reputations and then to sell inferior products hoping the reputation continues longer than it should. But as far as I can tell, Philips and Sylvania are still solid brands.