This book will help electric sign companies compete for extra income by servicing parking lot and security lighting for existing customers and new ones. The book includes merchandising planning, servicing ...
<I>ST</I> has covered many neon-lighting developments in its 100 years, but neon predates even the magazine.
| Tweet |
Over its 100 years of continuous publication, ST has reported on many new signmaking technologies and their development, including neon.
Some might say ST predates neon signs, but this applies only to neon's widespread public use. In 1857, German glassblower Heinrich Geissler bent glass tubing filled with gas and illuminated the letters (used in shop windows) by applying high-voltage electricity (see ST, December 2001, page 20). However, in this centennial tribute, I won't discuss "who's first," but I'll present a short, incomplete kaleidoscope of developments in more than 100 years of luminous-tube signage.
In the second half of the 19th Century, partially evacuated glass vessels fitted with electrical connections were used only in scientific research, but this spawned the discovery of atomic structure and, eventually, quantum mechanics (the basis of our semiconductor industry).
Early 20th-Century breakthroughs in glass and electrical technologies led to the electron tube, radio and television. This ultimately laid the foundation for information technology, the third industrial revolution.
In the early 20th Century, D. McFarlan Moore's large-diameter (approximately 2-in.) tubes were rarely incorporated into advertising signs due to problematic manufacturing and installation. Also, impure gases that chemically reacted during operation shortened their operating life. Even a reservoir and automatic refill valves couldn't prevent the fill gas from being quickly consumed.
The breakthrough occurred in 1910, when Frenchman Georges Claude patented the use of neon gas in glass tubing and a minimum, electrode-surface size for a given electrical current. More businessman than inventor, Claude realized the advertising potential of an intense red light and successfully promoted bent neon tubes as signs.
Vacuum technology
During Geissler's and Moore's days, vacuum technology was quite complicated. In the 19th Century, manually operated piston pumps (Fig. 1) couldn't achieve an adequately low pressure, so Geissler improved Sprengel's mercury droplet pump, in which a row of droplets was propelled by the weight of the mercury column against the barometric pressure. The pump, operated by periodically lifting the mercury into the reservoir, produced a high vacuum, but the process required significant time. Also, mercury vapor remained in the vessel.
Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
