Menards Building Flashing Sign

@steelhead76 posted:

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Is there an easy way to alter the board or change one of the connections to achieve this?

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"Easy" means different things to different people!

If no one else with specific knowledge comes forward with a get-out-of-jail card, here's one approach albeit requiring willingness to mess around at the component level and likely requiring some soldering skill.

I saw an online video with a Menards brewery with a 3-stage "neon" sign.  One part of the sign lights up, then two parts, then three parts.  Repeat.  If this is what you have, these signs have a DC-to-AC inverter which takes the incoming 4.5V DC and converts it to a ~100V AC signal.  A digital circuit sequences 3 transistors to apply the high-voltage AC to the 3 sections of the sign.

Above is a photo from this OGR thread discussing the Morton Salt animated sign.  The brewery probably has a circuit board similar to this.  The circled black components are the high-voltage transistors.  The idea is to re=wire the transistors so that all 3 stages are ON all the time.  This may not even require purchasing any parts...just re-routing some signals on the board.  But clearly this is where "easy" is subject to interpretation!

As for the blinking red light.  If the red LED is one that has built-in blinking then you'd have to replace it.  That is, some LEDs blink simply by applying voltage to them.  The only way to get rid of the blinking would be to replace it with a 5-cent non-blinking LED.  LEDs are, say, 5 cents.  But if the stock red LED is a non-blinking type, then the circuit board itself is generating the on-off cycling.  In this case it would be a matter of re-routing a signal so that the LED is directly driven by the 4.5V power rather than from the cycling circuit.  This may not even require purchasing any parts.  So, again, it's a case of whether or not this is "easy".

Separately.  I seem to recall a thread where a building had a push button that you pressed to change between modes - blinking, non-blinking, whatever.  I supposed there is a possibility your building actually has this capability but Menards chose not to supply that push-button?  In which case it would be a matter of finding where that push-button would have gone and wiring it in.  That is what I mean by someone coming forward with specific knowledge about the brewery.

Thanks for the reply. Accessing the board is certainly not easy. I would have to crack the building open, and it looks pretty easy to damage. I’m wondering if it would make sense to clip the wires feeding those lights from the board, and feeding them with an alternate power source. 

For the sign part, you're looking for an "EL inverter" (EL=electro-luminescent) ... EL being the technology of the flat-panel signs.  The inverter converts low-voltage DC to high-voltage AC.  And, yes, you will get zinged if you do not treat the high voltage with respect.

Above shows examples of EL inverters from Miller Engineering, Amazon, and eBay.  It's not easy to know what you need since most manufacturers pair the inverter with the EL device.  In other words they just say supply it with 2 AA batteries (i.e., 3V), or 12V DC, etc.  It gets tedious (not easy) to know for sure what you need if you already have one side (in your case you have the sign side) and need to find a suitable mate.  I think it will be difficult to find an EL inverter specified to run off 4.5V DC which is directly available in a Menards building (Miller actually seems to have one but not clear if you can buy it alone).  There are USB-powered (5V) EL inverters and in all likelihood would work fine if powered by "only" 4.5V DC but again this goes to the definition of easy!  There are additional issues such as the annoying whining sound from some of these EL inverters; there have been OGR discussions about this.  That is, if you find the blinking behavior distracting, how do you balance eliminating the blinking against a continuous audible whine? 

As to the blinking red LED, if all you have access to is the 2-wire cable to the red LED then you'd need to determine if the LED is the self-blinking type.  We can explore this angle if you choose to proceed with the modification to the sign behavior.