Programmable text displays are the least complicated product we make, and also the easiest to specify badly. The order of the decisions matters: how much text, read from how far, mounted where, updated how. Follow it in that sequence and the board will run for years without attention. This page takes it step by step, with notes on delivery and service at 338 kilometres from Győr.
LED scrolling sign in Celje — manufacturing, installation, quote
A running-text board earns its keep where information changes faster than anyone wants to reprint it. In Celje that means hall and programme notices during a fair week at Celjski sejem, service-desk information inside Citycenter Celje, training and fixture times at the sports facilities on Golovec, and duty hours in pharmacy windows along Stanetova ulica. All of these are read from close range by someone who has stopped walking, which is exactly the case a text strip is built for.
Count the characters you actually need
Length before everything
Count the tiles: each adds 32 centimetres of length and keeps the 16 centimetre height, so a five-tile strip is 160 centimetres long in a single row and 32 centimetres tall in two. Write out the longest message you will ever display and count its characters; that number, together with the letter height, fixes the length. Buying a longer board than the text requires is money spent on empty space. Buying a shorter one means scrolling faster than people can read.
Choose the pitch for a single text line
Letters need pixels
For a window or a counter read from two to three metres, specify P1.5 to P2.5. A board over a doorway in a hall, taken in from ten metres, is comfortable at P2.5 to P4. Anything meant for drivers requires P4 to P8 and a character height to match, which usually means more rows. Unlike video, text has no forgiving middle ground: either the letterforms hold together at the reading distance or they do not.
Pick a mounting point people pass slowly
Position beats size
Put the board where the reader is already stationary or moving slowly - beside a door, above a service desk, at a queue - rather than where there happens to be a free wall. A strip nobody stands still in front of will never be read, whatever its length. Then match the build to the position: indoors 700 to 800 nits behind glass or on an interior wall, outdoors the IP65 version at 4500 to 5500 nits. Confirm a power point within reach before the fixing is chosen.
Write the message list and time it
Order, speed, validity
Draft the items in a document first, then enter them with their order, their speed and, where useful, their start and end dates. A fair week of notices or a season of fixture times can be loaded in advance and appear on the correct day without anyone returning to the machine. Transfer the list over the network, over Wi-Fi or on a USB stick. No data cable has to be run to the board, which is usually what decides where it can go.
Schedule the fitting into one trip
338 kilometres, planned
Combine the installation with other work at the address wherever possible. Celje lies 338 road kilometres from our workshop, far enough that a dedicated journey for one small board is hard to justify; a preconfigured unit sent out with mounting instructions is often the sensible answer. When we do travel to a Slovenian address, the journey and the daily allowance are listed as separate entries in the offer instead of being built into the product price.
Keep a spare module in the drawer
Warranty and honest limits
Store the reserve tiles delivered with the board somewhere findable, and note the warranty term agreed at ordering - one year or two. With a spare to hand, an isolated failure is corrected before most people notice it. Be clear about what the board is for. It carries text, figures and simple symbols reliably; it is not a display for photographs. If pictures are wanted, ask us about a small wall instead and we will price that.
