Dicolor is celebrating 14 years in operation as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of LED Display technology. They develop several types of LED Displays, depending on the needs of their customers. Indoor as well as outdoor rated products of many different pixel pitches have been designed and manufactured by them over the years. They have been used for everything from advertising to sporting events, concerts and trade show floors, showing up just about anywhere from airports to populated street corners. In the last couple of years, Dicolor has taken on two projects that are impossible not to notice — the humongous sign located in Moscow’s largest airport directing patrons to their flights, and one of the world’s largest advertising screens, located in Manila, capital of the Philippines.
Appealing to All Types of Traffic in Manila
The Urban Deca Tower EDSA is in Mandaluyong, an upscale urban center just east of Manila. The 45-story building began construction in 2016 and houses condominiums, many of which are available as Airbnb rentals in this area. The building is centrally located and easily seen from passing trains, automobiles on the highway and by pedestrians walking down a key thoroughfare in the area, Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a.k.a. EDSA street. The building is designed with two straight walls at the end of hallways that have no apartment windows on them. This modern architectural design allowed for the ultimate advertisement space.
Mac Graphics Carranz, an international advertising and marketing company that specializes in digital LED displays, LED billboards, outdoor advertising, lamp post banners and transit ads, has an office in Antipolo, another city east of Manila. They sell advertising space, and it was obvious from the beginning of construction that the Deca Tower offered prime real estate for their line of work.
Mac Graphics Carranz was in search of a lightweight yet sturdy product that was high definition and could handle the outdoor elements of residing on an island surrounded by saltwater and salty air, something known to take a toll on electronic gear. Mac Graphics Carranz would be overseeing both the installation of the permanent LED display and its ongoing maintenance, so the success of the project hinged on both the performance and dependability of the LED product.
Each of the two parallel video displays were designed to be 10 meters wide by 61 meters tall, taking up a total 1,220 square meters of space. This was the first time this team turned to Dicolor, having had products supplied by another company on previous jobs. For this project, they chose the Dicolor M-310D model, as it provided a higher brightness, higher refresh rate and better transparency. The installation started in February 2018 and took only two months from start to finish.
The M-310D panels come in one-meter squares and each weigh just 18 kilograms, an important consideration for a project of this scale. The hollow body design of the tiles trims weight and wind loads, allowing wind to pass through them easily and not stress the physical tile or the structure attaching them to the building. The wall can tolerate a 14-degree typhoon, meaning it is designed to handle wind speeds of up to 150 m.p.h. The panels have a 10mm pixel pitch resolution, providing a crystal clear image to viewers who are just 40 feet away.
These tiles were chosen from the M Series that Dicolor designed specifically for outdoor installations because they are light, slim and efficient. Compared with standard tiles, the aluminum cabinet design of the M Series offers a 50 percent reduction in weight, which also lowers costs and difficulty of transport and installation cost. For signal processing for these giant displays, Dicolor turned to their trusted strategic partners RGBLink and NovaStar.
The giant walls were lifted into place by hoists hung from the roof. Once lifted, they were permanently attached to a steel frame structure previously attached to the side of the building. The 310D tiles are all front-serviceable, another reason they were perfect for this installation, though all reports say the system has been working flawlessly ever since it was installed.
Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, Russia
Far from the Philippines, Dicolor has completed other large-scale LED display installations, one of which is in Moscow’s busiest airport. This project, measuring 175 square meters in size, updates the look of the informational displays directing travelers through the air and railway transportation systems in Europe.
An estimated 45,000 people per day walk through this intersection at the Sheremetyevo Airport looking up for information. The airport decided they wanted a clear, bright and concise image the patrons can easily peruse to find their information. The airport also wanted the ability to display advertisements on either side of the mammoth LED wall.
In 2017, after the airport decided an upgrade was needed, airport staff met with Naprosvet, a noted Russian LED display distributor, which represents Dicolor products in the region. They worked closely with airport officials to choose the right product for this installation.
Noting the availability of less expensive, higher resolution products, Naprosvet encouraged airport personnel to consider Dicolor’s N-391 LED display. The N Series is an indoor/outdoor product often spec’d for installation because of its low power dissipation and convenience of installation. The tiles can be ordered in 500mm squares or 500mm x 1000mm-sized tiles, both of which can be quickly assembled.
The N-391 panels, held in place with positioning pins, are designed to allow for precise concave and convex step positioning, making them well suited to the demands of this project, where the LED display, measuring 50 meters wide by 3.5 meters high, would need to curve at almost a 90° angle over its length. The sturdy frames offer extra physical protection along the corners and edges, enabling them to be hung or stacked on end with little concern over accidental damage upon installation.
Because the viewing public is often close to the video display, a high definition pixel pitch was required, but it did not need to be very small, just large enough for the beautiful 4K imagery to appear crisp and bright. The N-391 model chosen for this application offers a 3.9 mm pitch. As with the Urban Deca Tower EDSA project in Manila, the Sheremetyevo Airport LED display is a permanent installation, making front-serviceable tile design a key consideration for long-term maintenance needs in the future.
Once the product was ordered, Naprosvet technicians and airport staff started the process of installing a permanent grid to the wall in the airport. This helped expedite the installation — once the tiles arrived on site, it took only four days to complete the project. A custom decorative frame surrounds the whole LED wall with ventilation holes in all the sides to help dissipate heat and provide a long life for the tiles.
Another factor giving Naprosvet and Dicolor a competitive edge was their ability to customize their product by utilizing their D series modules to load with the N-391 tiles. The D series module holds multiple LED tiles, allowing for a much faster installation while minimizing tile gaps, and achieving those ends without a large increase in the budget. Along with their ability to meet any customer requirements for size and shape, the N series displays combine superior heat dissipation with low power consumption, making them an overall energy saving solution.
Two MTCRL 600 processors from NovaStar linked to regular PCs are used for media playback. Fiber optic lines were used to transfer the signal from two separate control rooms to the displays. One unit controls the flight information while the other looks after the advertising side of things. After two years of nonstop use the team at Dicolor recently received a note from their friends at Naprosvet: “We are happy to report that we have done almost zero maintenance on this LED since installation. Thanks a lot for designing such a quality product.”
For more details on the wide line of products Dicolor offers, visit them at www.dicolor.cn.
