Advertising Simulated Neon Sign Display

This invention relates to display signs of the type simulating neon signs.

Neon display signs, although they have much to commend them, have many known drawbacks among which are their high costs, both initially and for maintenance, their fragility, their negligible visibility when the electric power is off, etc. If they are located where they are exposed to broad daylight, they have a minimum effectiveness, even if the power is on. In an effort to overcome or minimize these drawbacks, display signs have come into use which, although containing no neon tube, are intended to simulate the neon tube signs. These alleviate some of the objections, but diminish some of the virtues of a true neon display. This invention is directed to an imitation type neon display which overcomes or reduces many of the disadvantages of the true neon type display, while minimizing interference with the effectiveness of a true neon type display. It is known in the prior art to use a fluorescent light bulb to transmit light through a display panel that is embossed and painted or printed to simulate a neon tube light. There the embossing introduces objectionable distortion in the light intensity when the sign is viewed at night by the light of the fluorescent tube within the display. Another objection of the prior imitation "neon tube" type displays is that often the fluorescent source of light within the display is visible through the front of the display. The use of a translucent (as distinguished from transparent) panel for the neon-simulating areas of the display causes an undesirable diminution of the light transmitted through those areas. To overcome this by using a fluorescent tube of larger output also increases the cost and, in many instances, causes an increase in heat generation to an undesirable extent.

This invention, in its best embodiment, provides a simulated neon sign display that is illuminated by fluorescent lamp light transmitted through a flat front panel that is transparent (as distinguished from translucent) to visible light (but opaque to ultra-violet light) at those areas where the neon tube simulation is printed. The printing is by "transparent" pigment. The color along the edges of the tube printing may, be somewhat diminishing intensity of hue towards the center where the color may drop to zero at a pinstripe width that follows the longitudinal center line of the printed simulating tube through which a higher intensity of white light is emitted. To avoid visibility of the fluorescent tube, which would be a "give away" that the "neon tube effect" is simulated, small amounts of dispersed opaque substances may be included in the otherwise "transparent" printing pigment.

The above and other features of this invention are disclosed in the preferred embodiment of this invention described herein.

Reference may now be had more particularly to the drawings wherein;

FIG. 1 is a front view of an illuminated display device in which this invention is incorporated, clearness;

FIG. 2 is a top view of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a side view thereof; and

FIG. 4 is an enlargement of the part of FIG. 1 that is within the circle indicated at "A".

A display device 2 comprises an open front housing 4 closed by a removable panel 6 held by a rim 7. Within the housing, is mounted a white light fluorescent light tube 8 in conventional sockets 9 that are electrically connected to a ballast (not shown) within the housing, which in turn is connectable to a source of electricity. A reflector 10, which is preferably of high efficiency is located rearwardly of the light 8 to increase the density of the lamp light reaching the rear of the panel 6. To increase the effectiveness of the reflection, the reflector is preferrably a specular reflector, very shiny, and suitably curved, although it is within the scope of this invention to use a non-specular reflector or one which may not be curved. The reflecting surface extends within the housing from side to side, and from top to bottom of the inside of the housing 4. It is a bright shiny aluminum surface. Where a parabolic reflector is used, as in this preferred embodiment, the center line of the fluorescent light tube 8 is at the focus of the parabola, and with the axis of the light tube parallel to the plane of the panel 6.

The panel is a smooth flat sheet of clear plastic material which is transparent to visible light, (where transparency is hereafter referred to it has reference to visible light). The panel 6 is opaque to ultra-violet light. On the back of the panel a desired message or picture is printed by known printing processes to simulate a "neon type" tube or tubes shaped to convey that message or picture. Tubes of the same or different colors may be simulated such as red, blue, white, etc. The printed simulation is of tubes of a size of the order of one centimeter diameter. The panel itself before the printing has been applied is clear and colorless.

The printed matter is all on the back of the panel 6 so that the front may be easily cleaned, and the panel itself being opaque to ultra-violet light, protects the printed matter from deterioration by ultra-violet rays of ambient light. The printing involves a simulation of the shape of the neon tubes and also the coloring of such tubes when the sign is lit or unlit. The message in this instance is indicated by the word "Copy" printed in red to simulate a neon tube bent to form those letters, and the additional tube simulations 12 and 14 which may be of the same or different colors. The lines 21-23 indicate the tube wall portions along opposite edges of the simulated tube. Along the longitudinal center line, the red is of the least intensity, it may actually be zero red along a pinstripe line 25 extending along the longitudinal center line of the tube. There the light would be maximum and of a white color. Because the white line is very thin, the viewer will not see an outline of the fluorescent tube 8 through that colorless clear line. If desired, that line may be made of greater width in which event small amounts white opaquing substances are introduced to produce a slight milkiness to obscure seeing the subjacent light 8. The red printing hides the view of the tube 8. Where it is not sufficiently intense, a slight amount of translucency may be imparted thereto by adding slight amounts of white pigment. There are preferred types of pigments that combine the capacity to transmit the right kind of light and at the same time cause the transmitted light to be sufficiently diffused or diffracted so that a viewer looking at the simulated neon printing will not get a specular image of the tube 8 that is in fact producing the light that appears to have been produced by the simulated neon tubing. Those pigments include:

207--AZO Yellow

227--Diazo Yellow

304--Copper Phthalocyanine Green

455--Phthaocyanine Red Shade Blue

456--Copper Phthalocyanine Green Shade Blue

498--Carbozol Violet

503--Monoazo Red

538--Anthraquinonoid Red

568--Mondazo Red Perylene Red and TI 02

576--Perylene Red

578--Perylene Red and TI 02

586--Quinacridone Reds

There has thus here been combined the ability to disperse the light by solid so called imperfections in the pigments and at the same time retain practically all of the light transmissibility of the clear colorless plastic sheet. This gives a high degree of visibility of the printed matter while avoiding a specular image of the light source.

If desired, a very thin clear colorless line 27, of the thickness of a fine pin, is left on the perimeter of the inside of the simulated neon tubing. Here the very bright white light of the source 8 appears, helping to create the illusion of a glass wall of the "imagined" neon tubing. Because of the thinness this line, (as well as the line 25) does not reveal, to the mind of the observer, the existence of the separate light source 8.

The area of the portion of the panel 6 surrounding the message area is printed in black by printing 30, represented by crosshatching in FIG. 1. In FIG. 5, the message printing is indicated diagrammatically by the line 29. This is then overlaid by an opaque printing represented by the broken line 30-30, preferrably black that is interrupted as indicated as 32 to expose the areas where the transparent message was printed, so that the message appears to have been printed on an opaque sheet that is preferrably black. The black is then covered with a reflecting covering 34 which has the same spaces 32 corresponding to and aligned with the spaces 32 where the message was printed. The reflecting covering 34 preferrably comprises opaque shiny metal foil which reflects the incident light from the source 8 back to the reflector 10 where it is then reflected to the back of the panel 6.

The balancing of a covering of reflection material with "transparent" pigments wherein the resulting translucency is just enough to occlude seeing the tube 8 and no further, may be of greater importance. Another factor to the same effect, which may be sufficient to accomplish the desired result is the fact that the parabolic reflector reflects light coming to it from two sources. One, the main source of light is that coming from the back side of the light source 8. That reflection produces substantially parallel rays of light. The other source of the incident light for the parabolic reflector is the reflection from the shiny reflector 34 on the back of panel 6. This reflected light to the parabolic reflector is from a source not at the focus of the parabola and will therefore be reflected from the parabola at various angles and will tend to occlude a specular viewing of the source 8 through the panel.

The term "neon light" is herein used in the conventional manner to cover small diameter tubing that is bent to the desired shade, evacuated and filled to a low pressure with a gas that produces a desired color of light emission in response to an electric discharge therethrough. Neon gas produces a characteristic red light. Other gasses produce light of different characteristic colors.

What is considered new and sought to be secured by Letters Patent is: