New LED lights to life into the skyscraper

The statistics on the screen are incredible: 16 miles of cable; a structural steel of about 6 miles long; the 500 thousand screws and nuts. Its height is 340 feet, the New York City Times Square, the first floor of the package are wrapped up, is the size of the ordinary billboard of 60 times the size of the package is about three times.

Moreover, it uses 12 million light-emitting diodes (LED). LED is a small light that is usually used on TV screens and christmas. But here, they light up 16000 square feet of electronic advertising screens.

In addition, they helped to change the face of the high-rise buildings, to the huge, lifeless skyscrapers into life. The design concept comes from the Gilmore design team in New York (http://designnews.com.cn/0903-701.aspx), which finds the source of energy for the first time square building.

"They imagined a building that could live with a dancing, connected animation. D3LED company founding partner MericAdriansen pointed out. D3LED is a digital display engineering design company, their design for the Walgreen company will become a scientific concept of reality. "When all the surfaces of the building work at the same time, the whole building will be full of color. "

When the Walgreen billboard was unveiled for the first time in the fall, only the design engineers knew the amazing secret of the 30 story LED billboard: Incredible complexity. Three lights on the same side of the skyscraper with 12 million LED lights, and play a coherent animation, the truth is not just a simple switch. In order to succeed, engineers have to choose the correct LED lamp, ensure the cost and energy consumption can be controlled in the range, and developed in the Gigabit Ethernet network to the 10000 electronic module with 20 computer "talking" system. "We met incredible difficulties in the design of Walgreen on the billboard. Adrainsen said. "You have to remember: This is not a still photo. All controllers must be connected to the electronic module, which is equivalent to 30 pictures per second. "

Balanced budget

Fortunately for D3LED, they designed a large LED billboard, even though none of them was bigger than the Walgreen model. A year ago, they designed a 3200 square foot "Super Screen" for http://designnews.com.cn/0903-703.aspx (ABC), which is also located in Times Square in New York. It uses 2 million LED lights, and into a complex curve.

"In general, when you make such a huge billboard, you will be proud of your accomplishments for at least three to four years. Adrainsen said. "But after we finished 1 months, we got orders from Walgreen. All of a sudden we need to overcome the technical complexity of the original design for the ABC billboard. As a matter of fact, the new billboard is four times bigger than the previous one. "

In the Walgreen company's billboards have been far more than ABC, when the ABC billboard provides us with a lot of experience can learn from. The most important thing is that it tells D3LED designers, the signal game changes quickly. Because of the rapid decline in the cost of LED, the company found that can not be used a few years ago to promote the development of technology. Engineers can be the distance (the distance between LED) reduced five times without increasing the cost price. The result is that they will be 25 times the number of LED amplification (horizontal and vertical are the original 5 times), which means that the resolution of the display will be greatly improved.

In the production of Walgreen billboards, they quickly put experience into practice. The billboard has a smaller main screen on the sides of the two large, oblique screens on both sides of the building. Billboards need completely different design concepts. With the NichiaAmerica company (http://designnews.com.cn/0903-704.aspx) cooperation team, D3LED engineers to develop the plan is to take a different position and brightness in different parts of the billboard. As in the top of the screen, more than 300 feet above the ground, they used Nichia super oval 546LED lights brighter (http://designnews.com.cn/0903-705.aspx), from 24mm. In the middle, they used the super oval 346LED lights (http://designnews.com.cn/0903-706.aspx), the distance is 12mm, and at the bottom, around the building is used by the Nichia026LED lamp, from 6 to 10mm. In essence, the higher the level, the lower the resolution of the higher brightness.

Nichia's engineers say that the brightness of the LED is very heavy for the design, especially with time. These displays can be used for 5 years, 7 years, or even for 10 years. "