US1770391A - Illuminated sign - Google Patents

Description

July 15, 1930.

ILLUMINATED IGN Gets-S l y 1930. R. M. cRAl-s 1,770,391

ILLUMINATED SIGN Filed Aug. 6, 1929 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 5 wucntop 1?. M Cra 20 desirable, in fact, necessary,

Patented July 1-5, 1930 UNITED I sTATas RICHARD M. CRAIG, OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS ILLUMINATED SIGN Application filed August 6, 1929. Serial No. 883,907.

Owing to the delicate nature and frangibil-' ity of neon and other luminescenttubes used in the manufacture and installation of signs for display purposes, considerable difficulty 5 has been experienced in shipping or transporting the tubes from the factory to the point of installation. Furthermore, these tubes in the course of manufacture are generally bent, molded or twisted to form the letters of the word or sign to be displayed and, if, after the tubes are secured in position on the sign, a fracture or breakage occurs in one of the letters of the sign, it necessitates bodily removal of the sign, reshipment to the factory for repairs or replacement and a new installation of the repaired letters. As a result of the difliculty in shipping the delicate tubes from distant points to the place of installation, it has been found to equip a factory in the town or city where numerous signs are displayed. This necessarily entails considerable expense and, furthermore, requires a force of workmen constantly in attendance 5 to remove and replace the tubes when they become broken, fractured or otherwise impaired.

The object of'tbe present invention is toform neon or other luminescent tubes at the so factory in standardized units, each Unit mm sisting of a plurality of superposed folds o1" coils disposed in parallel relation and in intimate proximity to each other, each bank of folded or coiled tubes constituting a unit as serving to display a word or a plurality of letters constitutlng one or more words. This result is accomplished by making a stencil and placing it over the luminescent tube unitsin such a manner that one or more of the words 40' to be advertised or displayed will appear through the stencil at each unit. In other words, only portions of the tubes of each unit will be visible through the stencil forming the letters or words to be-displayed, the

remaining portion of the tubes of each unit being obscured by the opaque imperforate body of the stencil. In this manner, any desired wording or advertising may be made to appear on the sign by merely changing the nature or character of the stencil'and with out the expenseof blowing, bending or otherwise forming the tubes into the desired letters or characters as heretofore has been the practice. The sign may be changed vevery day by merely putting on a new stencil Without the necessityof removing or in any wise disturbing the banks of tubes. Furthermore, inasmuch as the several banks of luminescent units are firmly secured tothe background of the sign, liability of breakage or displacec0 ment of the uni-ts is reduced to a minimum, but should such breakage occur in any one of said units, it may be readily removed at a moments notice by an unskilled workman and said damaged unit or units replacedo'a without the necessity of shipping the sign to the factor" for replacement of parts.

One em odiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings and will be hereinafter fully described, the novel features being particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

In the drawings:

Figure 1 is a erspective view, with parts broken away, 0 a sign embodying the pres- 75 ent invention,

Fig. 2 is a front elevation with the stencil plate removed,

'Fig.- 3 is ahorizontal section on theline 3-3 of Fig. 2,

Fig. 4 is a detail perspective showing one of the illuminating units removed, and

Fig.5 is a detail illustrating one effect producedwhen the sign is in use.

In carrying out the present invention, there. is shown a base 1 upon which is mounted a motor 2 and a housing 3 within which is arranged gearing for rotating the si n, and

break electrical conductors and make an devices for controlling the illumination. The

-mechanism includes a shaft 4 which is rotatably mounted in the upper portion of the housing and frame, indicated as an entirety by the numeral 3, and upon the front end of this'shaft is secured a rotating head or support 5, said support being shown as a circular disk having. a rim 6 around its margin andhaving partitions 7 extending across its outer surface, as indicated in Figs. 1 and 2, the disk and said partitions being of some opaque lite gas being shown in non-conducting material. The disk or head is secured to the shaft through the medium of a junction box or hub 8 and the shaft is hollow to permit the wires carrying current to the illuminating tubes to pass through the shaft and to rotate With the shaft, brushes and collector rings being employed in a well known manner to establish the electric connection between the movable conductors and the stationary conductors. Removably secured upon the outer edge of the marginal rim 6 is a cap plate of stencil 9 having openings 10 formed therethrough, which openings are so arranged as to produce letters, words or other characters, the words Flash the accompanying drawings by way of example.

Secured upon the disk 5 between the partitions 7 and between the partitions and the rim are luminescent tubes 11 which, in the present instance, are in the form of coils, each coil including a plurality of straight sections arranged closely together in parallelism and connected alternately at their opposite ends by bent elbow portions, as clearly shown. These tubes have their terminal electrodes 12 disposed entirely in alinement with the respective portions from which they extend and parallel with the adjacent section of the coil so that the entire tube may occupy a plane parallel with the face of the disk and no portion of the tube will have to pass through the disk in order to secure the tube in place. Neon tubes, as

. now made according to general practice, are

shaped to form letters or words or other characters, and in order to mount them upon a support, the terminal electrodes or end portions are turned at a right angle to the plane of the support and pass through the support and-are mounted upon springs or similar cushioning devices, this arrangement being deemed necessary in order to avoid fracture of the tubes which are very thin and are easily broken. It is also now generally considered that the tubes must be mounted in spring supports as slight vibration will cause the tubes to fracture, and it has been generally considered, in a practical sense, that neon tubes must be mounted in a fixed position and cannot be employed in revolving apparatus as they are very apt to shatter under centrifugal force. According to the present invention, the tubes are seated in blocks 13 of wood or other analogous material, which blocks are secured to the face of the disk, or to panels removably mounted thereon, and firmly held in place by being coated with a cement having a cellulose base and having the same coeflicient of expansion as the luminescent tubes. This cement is applied over the seat of the several blocks so that the tubes will be seated in the cement and actual use has demonstrated that tubes thus supported will be very firmly held and the disk upon which the tubes are mounted may be rotated with the tubes at a high speed without causing any breakage or dislocation of the tubes. Each tube unit is preferably mounted upon a panel 14 which is of a size and form to fit nearly within a division of the supporting head defined by the margin 6 and a partition 7 and removably held therein by screws or similar fastening devices 15 inserted through openings provided therefor at the corners of the panel to engage in the disk 5, as will be understood.

In the particular example of the invention shown in the drawings, the stencil or cap plate 9 has three words out therein and the tube-supporting head is divided into three sections or compartments by the partitions 7 the parts being so arranged that each word in the stencil plate will be coordinated with one tube unit in the head. The units are illuminated electrically in the usual manner and are filled with a gas which will impart to the tube a distinctive color when lighted. The shaft 4 is rotated at a relatively high speed and the current to the several tube units is controlled by make and break de vices operating at a lower speed and which may be of any approved arrangement and construction. An example of such mechanism may be seen in my copending application for patent Serial No. 383,908, filed simultaneously herewith. In my co-pending application as well as in the present application, the head carrying the lighted or illuminated tubes is rotated continuously thereby causing the letters of the words Flash lite gas to apparently intermingle and form an artistic geometrical figure or design and when the tubes are of different colors the artistic effect of the dis layed design will be materially enhanced. t a certain period in the revolution of the head, the current is intermittently cut off and on and always at the same point of revolution of said head so that instead of the letters of the words forming a geometrical design, said words will be legibly displayed in a readable horizontal position. The luminescent tubes are free of afterglow so that they light and are extinguished instantly as the current is cut in or out and they operate only on alternating current so that, while the effect upon the eye is of a continuous light, actually the light is being rapidly turned on and off. If as previously stated, the make and break de vices be in such position that the illumination of the tubes will occur only once during each revolution of the shaft and head and always occurs at the same point in the revolution, the 'persisten'cy of vislon 1n the eye causes the eye to retain the impression of the flash of illumination of the tubes until the ensuing flash occurs so that the eye will obtain the effect of a stationary sign having its words illuminated in reading position.

" ings which form If, however, the makeiand break devices are .the persistency ofvision in the eye causes the eye to retain the impression of the illumination in one position overlapping the illumlnation in a preceding and also in a succeeding position so that the effect upon the eye is of a plurality of lines disposed in various angular relations to the radii of the disk and overlapping each other so that a kaleidoscopic efl'ect is obtained. The de sign is produced by theapparent overlapping. of the light passing through the openthecharacters in the stencil plate. and, consequently, the designs produced by no two machines will be the same unless the characters in the stencil plates of the two machines are identical. A wide variety of effects can be obtained by introducing into the tubes difl'erent gases and also by forming the tubes of glass of different colors, the gases ordinarily employed in'neon or luminescent tubes having the faculty of assuming color when the electric current is passed throughthem and the color of the gas may be modified by varying the color ot the glass from which the tube is formed.

It is also possibleto vary the color produced by mixing the gases in a tube and by introducing mercury or other elements. The stencil openings in my device are uncovered or clear openings and a peculiar effect of the apparatus is an apparent creeping or rocking of the tubes which is an optical illusi on due to the inability of the eye to follow rapid motion. This apparent rocking of the several tubes causes the lines of light issuing from the tubes to cross each other,

as indicated at 16 in Fig. 5, the result being that the letters or other characters are apparently covered with a net of coarse mesh and consisting ofinterse'cting lines of light.

It is to be particularly noted that the pres-.

ent construction provides units which are standardized and may, therefore, be pro duced in' any quantity without waiting for a special demand and these standardized units may be employed in any sign. If a tube should be broken, it is not necessary to take the sign out of commission, as a reserve supply of the standardized units may be kept on hand and in order to replace a broken unit it is necessary merely to remove the screws 15 retaining the panel'carrying that unit in place so that the panel and the'unit may lFWithdrawn' from the supporting head, a new unit quickly placed in position on the panel and the panel then reinserted and se- It is also to be noted that the sign mission for any protracted period of time and also without requiring a complete dismantling and rebuilding of the sign. To'

change the sign, all that is necessary is to remove the stencil or cap plate 9 and sub- 'stitute therefor another cap plate having different characters formed therethrough.

B using a stencilin connection with the luminescent tubesfnot only may the wording on the display sign be changed at will but the width of the letters or characters maybe varied at will so as to permit the display of characters much wider than the diameter of the luminescent tubes. Moreover, when the letters of the Word being displayed are made relatively wide, it will be impossible to distinguish the luminescent tubes through the openings in the stencil as all the observer will see is the delineation of the letters or characters in a brilliant light'efi'ect.

. Having thus described the invention, 1 claim:

1. A changeable display device comprising a head rotatable about its own center as an axle, a luminescent tube secured upon said head, and a cap platerotatable with the head fitted over the tube and having characterforming openings cut therethrough.

2. A changeable display device comprising a rotatable head, a luminescent tube removably mounted upon the head and consisting of a plurality of closely arranged substantially parallel sections connected at their opposite ends alternately, the electrode terminals of the tube being disposed entirely within the plane of said parallel sections of the tube, and a stencil plate secured upon the head over the tube.

a head rotatable about its own center as an' axis, a panel removably secured upon the head, a luminescent tube carried by said panel, and a stencil plate secured upon the head over thepanel.

4. A changeable display device comprising a head rotatable about its own center as an axis and having a marginal rim, and a plurality of partitions whereb the partitions and the rim will define a p urality of compartments, a luminescent tube mounted in each of said compartments, and'a'stencil plate secured upon the rim and extending over the partitions and having character-forming openings cut therethrough coordinated with the respective compartments. 7

5. A changeable display device comprising a rotatable head having ail-outstanding marginal flange, a plurality of panels detachably secured to the display face of the, head, a luminescent tube secured to each panel and disposed entirely within the lines of the flange, and a stencil plate detachably secured to the flange and covering the tubes.

6. A changeable display device comprising a head rotatable about its own center as an axis, panels detachably secured to the display luminous tube mounted on the head between face of the head, a luminescent tube secured said head and stencil plate and rotatable to each panel and bodily removable with the therewith.

panel from the head, and an opaque cap plate removably secured to the head over the tubes and having character-forming openings cut therethrough.

7. A changeable display device comprising a head rotatable about its own center as an axis, a plurality of banks of luminescent tubes detachably securedto the head, and an opaque cap plate detachably secured to the head and having character-forming openings cut therethrough to permit the unob structed light rays from each bank of tubes to be directly visible through the openings.

8. A changeable display device comprising ahead rotatable about its own center as an axis, a plurality of panels'detachably secured to the display face of the head, supports carried by the panels, luminescent tubes seated in said supports and bodily removable from the head with the panels, and an opaque stencil plate detachably secured to the head and covering the tubes.

9. A changeable display device comprising a rotatable head having an outstanding marginal flange, partitions extending across the display face of the head and connected with and of substantially the same Width as the flange, removable panels detachably secured to the head between the partitions, a plurality of banks of luminescent tubes, one bank being permanently secured to each panel, and a cap plate detachably secured to the marginal flange of the head and covering the several banks of tubes, said capplate having clear character-forming openings out therethrough.

' 10. A changeable display device comprising a rotatable head, panels detachably se-' cured to the display face of the head, a coiled luminescent tube secured to and carried by each panel with the terminals of each coil disposed parallel with the adjacent surface of the panel, and a cap plate detachably secured to the head and extending over the several tubes, said cap plate having character-forming openings cut therethrough opposite each coil.

11. A changeable sign comprising a head rotatable about its own center as an axis, a panel detachably secured to the front face of the head, a stencil plate disposed in front of and spaced from the panel, and a display unit comprising a luminescent tube bent into a coil parallel with the adjacent surface of the panel and permanently secured thereto at predetermined points to equalize the strain of centrifugal force when the head is rotated.

12. A changeable sign comprising a head and a stencil plate rotatable together about a common center in parallel planes, and a

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