Neon Sign in Toronto

LED neon is a flexible tube lit along its whole length, bent to shape and mounted on a clear or painted acrylic backing. It gives the look of glass neon without the fragility or the high voltage: glass neon needs a transformer pushing three to eighteen thousand volts, while LED neon runs on 12 or 24 volts. It also uses roughly a tenth of the power and is rated for about 100,000 hours against glass neon’s 10,000.

What you get

• Low voltage, cool to the touch, safe to hang within reach indoors
• Rated around 100,000 hours — roughly ten times the life of glass neon
• Uses 80 to 90 per cent less electricity for the same brightness
• Any colour, dimmable, and shapes glass could not physically hold
• Mounted on clear acrylic cut to the outline so the backing disappears