I avoid tall buildings like the plague. Very thankful even my local .gov buildings are all 1 story. DMV/ Tax office is in a strip mall. The new courthouse appears to be 2 stories but it’s brand new construction, I hope to never see the inside.

Honestly it’s been at least 3 years since I’ve been a 3+ story building.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Coul that be used on doors, door frames as well ,
In basements or rooms w/o windows.

Or would that be cost prohibitive?

It's pretty much $100 a square foot. Yes, you could cover whatever you want with it. I have plates of it up on my walls for emergency lighting as an experiment.

I have photo luminescent tape, but it would be a wear item requiring maintenance. It's not required for stairwells, but would help if applied in non traffic portions of the stairs.

Now I did not develop the material, I developed the processes for our manufacturing facility to produce the ADA approved signage with it.

There absolutely are special handling and procedures for making the wayfinding products to ensure they won't fail under normal conditions set by ADA specifications. I used specialized printing press flexography printing plate precessors to manufacture these.

There's an initial exposure with a negative, developing, drying, secondary hardening exposure, then a mandatory curing period before they can have ink/paint applied.

Marzy, when I was aboard ships in the 90s we had photo luminecent patches or tape on the bottom of the hatches/water tight doors upside down so a sailor could read the door number if the ship rolled over and there was no lighting. We also had waterproof battery operated (battle lanterns) aimed at every hatch that were automatic.

Hand hold railing was installed and we were taught that even if you couldn’t see because of flooding or fire you could find the rails and pull yourself to a hatch or door.

These were hard learned lessons from years of shipboard accidents going back before WWII. I never thought at the time about how that safety worked in the civilian world.

I’m glad you made it out.

The list of things most of don't know is super long. I appreciate you sharing that tale.

Thanks!

quote:

Art School graduate

You're calling the company "Escape Artist" ... right?

Great post.

ADA is largely ignored where I live, and it's one of the things I push hard when we're involved with a commercial project/transaction.

I appreciated you, before I knew it was you I'm appreciating. lol.

One of the largest loss of life mass casualty events in the Yoop took place on Christmas Eve of 1913 in Calumet. About 400 people had gathered on the second floor of the Italian Hall for a holiday party.
Someone shouted fire and the crowd panicked and ran for the only known exit, a single stairway. 73 people were crushed to death in the stampede, including 59 kids. The event took place during a mine strike and most of the attendees were striking miners and their families. Some witnesses claimed a man wearing an anti-union button on his coat was the one who shouted fire. A coroner's inquest was held but it was poorly conducted, and nothing was accomplished. A second investigation took place some time later, but no one was ever prosecuted for any crime. There is controversy to this day as to whether or not this was murder or a tragic accident. There were fire escapes from the second story of the building but in order to access them, the occupants would have had to open the buildings windows to get to the ladders on the building exterior. The existence of the fire escapes was not known to the party goers. The Hall was later torn down and the only remaining portion of it is the brick archway that contained the doors to the second floor. It is now a memorial to the victims and the National Park Service maintains it.
I have visited the arch and of all the historic sites I have visited in the Yoop, this one is the one that gives me the worst experience.

OK, I made a short video on making the glowy sign. This is Mr. Thon in silkscreen where the equipment is located. He can produce 20 an hour by himself.

After they are made, they must be sent to the laser for cutting, then they come back for the lettering to be silk screened.

Am considering the purchase of some of this for the Apt. Building that I've lived in for 17 years now.

It would be used in the basement and garage.

Not for the whole door or even the whole door frame.
Maybe a 5" x 5 " square by the door knobs.

4 pcs total.thanks for posting this

I can send you some cut sheets for you to cut out and stick on to the areas you wish to illuminate.

These are just one of many, many types of ADA compliant wayfinding I am responsible for.

Wow. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Have you seen or heard of any product evaluations that offer information about what light sources might be good ,poor, better or best ?

Does the paper work equally good with all light or is sunlight better than incandescent, or fluorescent, ?
What a about L.E.D. light?

Marzy, I own three single-family rental homes.
Where would there be a really useful place for photopolymer signage?
Just the exit doors?
Anything else?

Is there a use for your technology in the aviation industry? Specifically on aircraft?

Thanks for sharing your history! [like button]

Charging the photopolymer can be done by any direct light source. Even indirect lighting in the room will cascade enough electrons for it to be easily seen in the total absence of light.

Direct exposure is best, but that's not always available. Sunlight is always best as it's very high energy, but indoor lighting carries plenty enough to start the reaction for absorption of photons to re-emission.

This is Class - D material. It has the highest possible concentration Strontium Aluminumate Oxide.

I'm surprised aircraft aren't required to have photoluminescent exit signs.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:

I'm surprised aircraft aren't required to have photoluminescent exit signs.

I may be out of date at this point, but the last couple of airliners I flew did have the photo-luminescent floor lighting strips and exit signs. There is a charging requirement that cabin lighting be on bright for a certain amount of time (15 minutes, 30 minutes?) before boarding passengers so that the stuff is charged. Idk if this is a requirement now for certifying new types, but it is a better choice for a lot of reasons so all new types probably will be photo-luminescent.

Earlier airliners I flew had electrical lighting on a dedicated emergency battery circuit. If the main electrical system shut off the emergency lighting would come on (if the switch was armed). It could also be manually activated by selecting the switch to ON, which was part of several emergency checklists such as emergency evacuation.

The electrical systems have a lot of down sides. Such as burned out light bulbs or a broken connector, which would have to be fixed before the next flight. Or the overnight cleaning crews would learn through the grapevine that they could flip a particular switch and get some lights to come on, which depletes the emergency battery and can cause the first flight the next morning to be severely delayed or even cancelled. Some batteries required being replaced if they were fully depleted, others take quite a long time to recharge. And of course the safety issue of the crew not knowing they didn't have the full charge if the lights come on during test but the battery is just about depleted.

Changing out the systems in the older aircraft which were certified with the electrical emergency lighting system would be a nightmare of getting FAA approval and then doing the work.

^^^^^^
You know...after I read Mars' response, I remembered the Embraer-145 having photoluminescent exit lighting, in addition to traditional exit lighting via battery bus. I should know what's on the 737, but can't remember off the top of my head. I speculate there would be something similar...

And Mars is spot on...if it was the first flight of the day (on the Embraer), as part of the Flight Attendant's pre-flight checks, the cabin lighting had to be placed on "HIGH" for a minimum number of minutes before/during passenger boarding (I think 10 or 15) in order to "charge" the photoluminescent exit lighting.

Good times...good times.

interesting, the way life works. Interesting story - keep up the good work

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Marzy, I own three single-family rental homes.
Where would there be a really useful place for photopolymer signage?
Just the exit doors?
Anything else?

I have some onthe top step and bottom step of stair wells, came in handy, also light switches.

Point of reference helps a ton during an outage.

Even if it is dark for four hours prior, your flashlight will recharge it.

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