Programmable LED text boards, sometimes called moving message signs or tickers, are the cheapest way to put changeable information on a shopfront. This page covers what they are genuinely good at, how large the characters need to be, how the text gets into the sign, and what arrives when we deliver one to an address in the capital.
LED scrolling sign in Zagreb — manufacturing, installation, quote
Croatia · 314 km from our plant in Győr
A scrolling sign lives at pedestrian speed, which is why Zagreb suits it so well. The centre is walked rather than driven: people move along Ilica, wait at tram stops, queue at a pharmacy counter, cross Cvjetni trg with a few seconds to spare. In those few seconds a moving line of text delivers something a printed poster cannot, namely today's price, today's opening hours, today's number. Away from the centre, along the avenues and outside the retail parks, the same board has to work at fifty kilometres an hour, and that changes only the character height, not the idea behind it.
Businesses that get the most out of a moving message board
Where changeable text beats print
Pharmacies near Glavni kolodvor posting duty hours, exchange offices on Ilica showing rates, bakeries in Trešnjevka listing what came out of the oven at four, car dealers on Zagrebačka avenue announcing a weekend event, gyms with a class timetable: the common factor is information with a short shelf life. If the message stays the same all year, print is cheaper and looks better. The board pays for itself when somebody in the shop would otherwise be taping a fresh sheet of paper to the window every second morning.
Character height and reading distance
A simple ratio for sizing the board
As a working rule, each centimetre of character height buys roughly three to four metres of comfortable reading distance. A board read from across a narrow lane behind Cvjetni trg needs letters around 6 centimetres tall; one meant to be caught from the far side of a wide avenue, or from the access road at Jankomir, needs 15 to 20. Since our modules are 16 centimetres high, board heights step in 16 centimetre increments and lengths in 32, which in practice means deciding between a one-line and a two-line layout early in the design.
Getting the text into the sign
Wi-Fi, network or a USB stick
Most owners send content from a phone or a laptop over Wi-Fi, which is the reason a board on the first floor of a courtyard building needs no cable run from the office. Where wireless coverage is absent, the controller reads a prepared file from a USB stick, and larger installations are managed across the local network. Messages can be queued with start and end dates, so a week of changing offers is loaded once on Monday and then left alone.
Single-colour and full-colour boards
Choosing between them honestly
A single-colour board, usually red, amber or white, is bright, inexpensive and perfectly legible, and for a pharmacy cross or an exchange rate it is the right answer. A full-colour unit costs more and earns the difference only if you will actually use images, logos or colour-coded information. We would rather supply a larger single-colour sign than a small full-colour one, because size and contrast decide whether the text is read at all.
Window units and facade units
Two mounting positions, two constructions
Behind glass the board stays indoors, needs no weather sealing and can run at moderate output, although a south-facing window still calls for a higher setting because the glass only partly cuts reflections. Mounted on the wall outside, the enclosure is sealed to IP65 and the working brightness rises into the 4,500 to 5,500 nit band used for outdoor screens, together with a proper cable gland and a drip edge. Window units go in quicker; facade units are seen from further away.
Delivery, mounting and handover in the capital
What the installation day looks like
Small boards travel with our regular runs to the Zagreb area, from the Lower Town to the retail parks in Novi Zagreb, so delivery rarely needs a dedicated trip. Mounting a window unit takes an hour or two; a facade unit takes half a day once the power supply is in place. Before we leave, somebody from your team writes and publishes a message while we watch, because a board nobody knows how to update becomes a static sign within a month. Warranty is one or two years and reserve modules come with the delivery.
