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Choosing An Electronic Marquee
Important Considerations
Overall Cabinet Dimensions:
The height of the characters and the number of characters displayed are more important than the overall dimensions of the cabinet. Some companies may build a relatively small message display into a large cabinet. If you only look at the overall dimensions, you can be fooled into thinking you are getting a comparable display. Once your sign is installed you may realize that the messages are too small to be read by passing motorists.
Character Height:
The height of the characters is one of the most important considerations when choosing an electronic marquee. Larger characters allow motorists to read the display from further distances, thus increasing the amount of time they have to read the message before passing by the sign.
Most schools signs require character heights of between 8” and 12”.
It is important to note that signs using 4” to 6” characters may work well if placed in a bus drive or parent pick-up area. Your target audience is moving slowly thru the pick-up area or walking up to the school. However, this sign will not be effective out on the street. The characters are just too small to be read by passing motorists.
Even signs that promote two or three lines of small characters and one line of large characters will not be effective. When you program your messenger to appear in the large characters size, it will require that your message constantly rotate. Again, passing motorists will have passed by, before they have read your intended message.
Spectrum offers its’ Horizon Marquee in character sizes character size raging from 4” to 18”. Our most popular models use 10.5” characters. This has proven to be the right size character, for most school applications.
Number of Characters Displayed:
The number of characters you are able to display across the width of the sign, on one line, is an important consideration. The wider the display area, the more characters you can display without having to rotate or scroll your message. It is important to compare the “character count”, “display area”, or “pixel matrix”, rather than just overall cabinet dimensions. Cabinet dimensions are not a reliable indication of character width.
Number of Lines:
Generally the more lines you can afford, the more effective your sign will be at communicating your message. More lines allow you to post complete messages, or phrases without having to rotate.
Remember when comparing the number of lines, that the size of the characters is also very important. A display offering four lines 4” characters will not be as effective as a display offering three lines of 10.5” characters, in most school applications.
Pixel Matrix:
Pixel matrix is an important method to compare one display to another. Generally the pixel matrix of 16 X 64 means that the display is 16 pixels tall and 64 pixels wide. It also indicates that the display has a total of 1024 pixels (16 tall X 64 wide =1024 total number of pixels). The more pixels, the more information you can display at once.
It takes a minimum of 7 pixels in height, to properly form a character. A display that is 7 pixels tall, will display one line of characters. A display that is 16 characters tall, will display two lines of characters (7 pixels for the first line, 7 pixels for the second line, and 2 pixels for space between the lines).
It takes a minimum of 5 pixels in width, to properly form a character, plus one pixel between each character. A display that is 64 pixels wide, will display 10 characters across the display. A display that is 80 pixels wide, will display 13 characters across the screen.