Neon tube lights
A true allrounder!
Coloured neon tubes are an absolute eye-catcher! Sygns produces individual and personalised neon signs, whether as custom lettering or logo, and we show you how the gas gets into the glass.
A look inside the neon tube!
As the name suggests, the noble gas neon plays a key role here. The neon inside the round neon tube is colourless, odourless, and inert at room temperature. This means that the coloured fluorescent tubes are not dangerous. As soon as you isolate it in a higher density (this is where the glass tube comes in) and apply electrical voltage to it, it becomes reactive and glows.
So neon tubes consist of sealed glass tubes that contain a small amount of neon gas. At the end of each neon tube is an electrode that allows the neon tube to be connected to an electrical power source to form a circuit.
As soon as an electrical voltage is applied to the neon atoms, the energy removes an electron from the outer shell of the atom. Having lost an electron at this point, the neon atoms are positively charged and are attracted to the negative pole, while the single electrons are attracted to the positive pole.
Coloured neon tubes
A dash of colour!
Neon technology is related to the atoms and electrons inside the neon tube. It is their movement that produces the light. The electrodes of each noble gas emit a specific and characteristic wavelength of photons that determines the colour in which the gas will glow. The colour of neon is strictly orange-red, in its pure form and in a transparent glass tube it makes the colour classically red. Every noble gas glows in its own colour under high voltage:
- Helium turns orange/yellow
- Krypton glows white to bluish
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Xenon glows blue
-
Argon in lavender or light blue (in combination with mercury - more on this below)
Radon reacts to electricity with a red glow, but because it is radioactive, it is the only noble gas that is never used in neon tubes.
For more information on neon gas and how neon tubes work, see our other magazine articles.
The wide colour spectrum of neon tubes is achieved by using different coatings on the glass used for the tubes: this is why neon tubes are usually white or sometimes tinted when switched off. While the classic red neon tube is made of transparent glass plus neon and argon gas, all other colours are achieved by manipulating the glass, either with fluorescent powders (as in pink or warm white neon tubes), or by actually colouring the glass.
Accordingly, our neon colour spectrum is divided into three categories, depending on how the colour is produced:
Classic
These are the natural colours of the neon or argon gas, the glass tubes are thus untreated and therefore transparent (colourless).
Colours:
- Classic Red
- Classic Blue
Powdered
To produce these colours, the glass tubes are coated inside with a fluorescent powder. The tubes are white when switched off, the respective specific colour can only be recognised when switched on.
Colours:
- all shades of white (Cold White with a colour temperature of 6500 Kelvin, Warm White 4500K, Warmtone White 2800K)
- all "Super" colours (Super Pink, Super Blue, Super Green, Super Purple)
- Orchid
- Turquoise
Coloured
For these colours, the glass tubes are coated in the light colour to be produced, therefore they are coloured even when switched off; for our "Ruby Red", for example, the neon tube is red, for "Cobalt Blue" the neon tube is blue.
Colours:
- Yellow (Novial Gold and Lemon Yellow)
- Orange
- Ruby Red
- Cobalt Blue
- Emerald Green
The measurable brightness of the neon colours ranges between 73 and 798 lumens per metre, whereby the "coloured" colours shine somewhat less brightly than the other two categories due to the coloured glass coating. Neon is therefore less suitable as a light source for illuminating a room on its own.
As a (very) general rule, a neon tube lasts about 10 years, after which it only needs to be refilled with gas. You can find out more about the lifespan of neon tubes and the factors that influence it in our blog article on this topic.
More facts about neon tubes
Neon tubes are straight glass tubes in their "original state" and have a maximum length of 120 to 140 cm, depending on the diameter of the glass. We usually use tubes with diameters between 8 and 15 mm for our neon products, but thicker neon tubes are also available. The larger the diameter, the smaller the possible bending radius of the glass tube, which is why thicker neon tubes can only be used for large designs.
The glass tubes can be bent into any shape, taking these conditions into account. For example, imagine a red neon tube in a U-shape: a glass tube with a diameter of 15 mm has a reduced bending radius due to its relative thickness, the "U" must therefore be quite large. A thin neon tube of 8 mm, on the other hand, can be bent very narrowly and form a much smaller "U".
Like fluorescent tubes and energy-saving lamps, "classic" glass neon contains a minimal and therefore non-toxic amount of mercury, which evaporates under the influence of electricity and increases the conductivity of the gas mixture inside the tube.
Neon tube light production in six steps
The profession of the neon glassblower belongs to a traditional craft. Due to the individual motifs, neon production cannot be replaced by machines to this day and still requires the craftsmanship of the glassblower.
- The neon tube design – In order for a neon glassblower to start, they first need a finished design. The planned neon tube design is then printed to scale on paper so that it can be matched to the neon tube during neon production.
- Bent neon tubes – Now it's time to get started! Fire comes into play so that the neon glass can be bent individually. Handling the extremely hot flame is a careful science. The neon glass blower now blows into a tube to modulate the temperature while shaping the tubes into words and images with their bare hands.
- How the gas gets into the glass – Once the neon tubes are in the right shape, they are filled with gas through a glass straw and then sealed with electrodes.
- Blackout – Since neon glass blowers form words from a continuous glass rod, there is an additional neon tube between the letters that makes it look like a long spaghetti chain. To ensure that the individual letters are legible, the superfluous parts are blacked out with a layer of opaque acrylic paint.
- Accessorising the neon – The neon tubes can now be attached individually. The individual elements (systems) of the lettering are connected to each other by high-voltage cables and the entire neon sign is then equipped with the appropriate power supply unit or the required number of power supply units.
- Let there be (neon) light! – Now it's "plug & play", because our neon signs for indoor use are equipped with plugs as standard, and your neon sign lamp will start to glow!
Any questions? Contact us!
Neon – simply electric!
Since noble gases are not or hardly reactive in their normal state, a relatively strong energy boost is needed to make the molecules glow in the fascinating colours. Therefore, neon tubes are operated with high voltage in the range of 2 to 12kV (kilovolts).
The power consumption of neon tubes is measured in watts (W) or kilowatt hours (kWh). In the case of neon tubes, the energy consumption depends on several factors, such as the transformer model, the tube diameter, the overall size of the neon sign and the number of individual glass elements that make it up (systems). Therefore, no blanket answer can be found on the power consumption of neon.
You can find more on this topic, including sample calculations, in our article on the power consumption of neon and LED neon.
If the light shines a little too brightly, no problem: neon can be dimmed. The simplest and most cost-effective solution is manual dimming. For this, you need a dimmable neon transformer with a corresponding rotary switch.
The dimmable power supply model for indoor use is also equipped with a plug, so that here, too, the light is simply "plug & play"!
Neon for indoors & outdoors
Whether interior design element or illuminated company sign: glass neon is ideally suited for both indoor and outdoor use. The main difference between indoor or outdoor neon signs lies in the electrical accessories – an outdoor transformer must be water and dirt resistant to a certain degree, otherwise it is not suitable.
Buy a neon tube light and design it yourself!
You want to see how your drawing, your name or another individual motif looks like as a neon sign? With our Online Neon Configurator, you can easily create your neon tube design yourself and order it online!