Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Do I have to register to buy from SolidApollo.com?
2. Is your site safe to buy from?
3. Do you offer Warranty on your products?
4. How do I buy from your store?
5. How much is the cost for shipping?
6. What happens after I place my order?
7. Can I cancel my order?
8. What should I do if the goods received are damaged?
9. Are delivery dates guaranteed?
10. Can I specify a future delivery date?
11. Where will you ship your products?
12. How long would it take to receive my items after placing order?
13. When will my order be shipped?
14. What payments methods do you accept?
15. What will happen if I give an incorrect shipping address?
16. I haven't received any information about my order status.
17. How do I exchange items?
About LED Lighting
1. What is an LED?
2. What color of light can LED emit?
3. What are the advantages of LEDs compared with conventional incandescent lights?
4. Could you give more detailed explanations about these LED advantages?
5. We have seen so many advantages LEDs have over incandescent light and florescent bulbs, are there any disadvantages LEDs exhibit compared with incandescent or florescent bulbs?
6. Why are some colors of leds more expensive than LEDs of other colors?
7. Why add Amber to RGB
8. How Does the LED Refresh Rate Affect how LEDs Look in Video
9. About DMX Addresses and Device Channel Assignments
Answers:
1. Do I have to register to buy from SolidApollo.com?
Answer: No, you can directly go to check out with out having to register.
2. Is your site safe to buy from?
Answer: Absolutely YES! We have 128 Bit encryption, which will encrypt all the information between you and our site or our payment gateway system. You can see information about our payment system here.
3. Do you offer Warranty on your products?
Answer: We fully support the products we manufacture or distribute. In many of the products, you have a 3 year warranty. Please see conditions here:
4. How do I buy from your store?
Answer: Its simple, you have a "Category" menu on the left part of our webpage that will let you select the products you wish to buy. Once you found the product you want to buy, you can select the Orange button that says "Add to Cart". Once you place an item in your Cart you can choose to Check Out or continue Shopping. Once you check out, you just have to fill in your contact details and shipping and payment methods an you are done. If you need us to help you walkthrough the buying process, please feel free to give us a call.
5. How much is the cost for shipping?
Answer: USPS is $5.80 for 2 pounds. You may choose other shipment methods, with speedier delivery/or prices. All prices are calculated real time with shippers.
Worldwide Express(UPS/FedEx): Starting at $17.50. Please provide your phone number, as international Shipments require this.
6. What happens after I place my order?
Answer: Our ordering system immediately emails you a copy of your latest order once you're placed an order through our online order form. You will also receive another email from us in about 1-3 business days to inform you of the status of your order. If you choose to pay by wire or money order, you wont receive an update until we receive your payment. Please ensure that you are using your correct email account to view your email copy (i.e. the same email address you specified when filling out our online order form).
7. Can I cancel my order?
Answer: Customer satisfaction is important to us. If your order has not yet been shipped, we can cancel it for you. However, we shall not be able to process a cancellation once your order has been shipped.
8. What should I do if the goods received are damaged?
Answer: All products are carefully wrapped with utmost care to ensure a safe delivery to its destination. In case of damage during shipment, please file your damage claims to the delivering carrier immediately, and notify us within 72 hours of receipt of damaged merchandise by you. We can not accept responsibility for damaged goods that have been communicated to us after 72h.
9. Are delivery dates guaranteed?
Answer: We cannot guarantee delivery dates for circumstances beyond our control (e.g. unsuccessful delivery attempts, carrier weather delays, incorrect addresses, etc.)
10. Can I specify a future delivery date?
Answer: yes, you can specify a future delivery date. Please include a comment in your order confirmation.
11. Where will you ship your products?
Answer: Right now, we will ship to all over the world.
12. How long would it take to receive my items after placing order?
Answer: The total time required would be order processing time plus shipping time. A rough estimate for delivering to any major city in the USA and Canada would be as below:
- Stock Orders with Air Parcel Shipment (USPS): ~ 5 to 7 working days
- Stock Orders with Express Shipment: ~1 to 5 working days
- Alteration or Custom-made Orders with Air Parcel Shipment (USPS): ~ 14 to 19 working days
- Alteration or Custom-made Orders with Express Shipment: ~ 8 to 13 working days
13. When will my order be shipped?
Answer: All stock merchandise will be dispatched for shipment within 1-2 working days of receipt of order. Please allow an additional 1-5 working days for custom-made or alteration service. You will be notified via email of any back orders, or other delays in shipping your order. We also offer Worldwide Express service which takes up to 3-6 working days for you to receive your goods.
14. What payments methods do you accept?
Answer: Our website accepts most forms of payments.
We accept all major credit cards (Secure Check Out is done with Authorize.net), Money Orders, and Wire Transfers
15. What will happen if I give an incorrect shipping address?
Answer: PLEASE be certain of your address before ordering! Unfortunately, your product will probably not get to its destination in time for the important occasion if you supply an incorrect address when ordering. Make sure that you include apartment or suite numbers if applicable. and most important is give us your phone number.
If a package is returned to us because of an address problem, we will reship the package to you or a corrected recipient address. You will be charged for the additional shipping fees.
16. I haven't received any information about my order status.
Answer: You should have received an acknowledgment approximating the status of your order in about 1-5 business days after you had placed your order. This message will inform you whether your package has been dispatched or of available options in the rare event that your order cannot be processed. Please ensure that you are using the correct email account to view our acknowledgment email directed to you (i.e. the same email address you specified when filling out our online order form).
17. How do I exchange items?
Answer: The best way to arrange for an exchange is to contact our staff who will give you correct instructions pertaining to your particular order. Every exchange scenario can be different and there may be times when we can help you avoid unnecessary costs of sending your items back to us.
Frequently Asked Questions about LED Lights:
1. What is an LED?
Answer: a light emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits visible light when electrical current passes through it, it is a special kind of diode.
2. What color of light can LED emit?
Answer: most LEDs are monochromatic. Light color is associated with the light wavelength. LEDs made with different semiconductor materials emit lights in different wavelengths. LED light wavelengths range from 400 nanometers (blue) to 800 nanometers (red). The most demanded colors are white, warm white, red, orange, yellow, green and blue.
3. What are the advantages of LEDs compared with conventional incandescent lights?
Answer: there are several obvious advantages LEDs have over traditional incandescent light bulbs, they are as follows:
- Low power consumption
- Energy saving
- Long lasting
- Cold lighting
- Small size and weight
- Fast Switch times
- Simple to use
4. Could you give more detailed explanations about these LED advantages?
Currently available LEDs are more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, but less than florescent bulbs with the same light output. The power consumption of popular LEDs ranges from 30mW to 2000 mW.
People can save money & energy by using LEDs instead of equivalent incandescent decorative bulbs.
The rated average working life of LED is 50,000 - 100,000 hours compared with 1,000 hours of incandescent bulbs.
LEDs emit a very small amount of heat, so LEDs are much safer than equivalent incandescent light bulbs in terms of danger of fire. LEDs don’t have filaments to heat up in order to emit lights just like the case of incandescent bulbs. Lights are emitted from LEDs as a result of energy exchange occurring in the different semiconductor materials a LED is made of.
LEDs are usually shielded with solid transparent plastic materials so they are more rugged than incandescent and florescent bulbs that are usually sealed with glass.
LEDs can be powered by either AC voltage or DC voltage. The circuit that is required to appropriately drive LEDs is much simpler than that for florescent bulbs.
5. We have seen so many advantages LEDs have over incandescent light and florescent bulbs, are there any disadvantages LEDs exhibit compared with incandescent or florescent bulbs?
Yes, the most significant disadvantage is the light output limitation of LED. Currently available LEDs emit limited amount of lights at a relatively small angle range, while incandescent and florescent light bulbs illuminate in all directions.
The second significant disadvantage is the high prices of LEDs. The currently available LEDs in the market are 3 ~ 10 times more expensive than equivalent incandescent light bulbs. This is why some customers still hesitate to buy LED products even though LEDs have so many obvious advantages over incandescent bulbs and people actually can save money by using LED products in the long run.
6. Why are some colors of leds more expensive than LEDs of other colors?
Answer: The reason is that different semiconductor materials are used for different color LEDs, and some semiconductor materials are more expensive than others; another reason is that manufacturing costs are different. White LEDs are the most expensive because red, green and blue LEDs are combined together to make a white LED.
7. Why add Amber to RGB?
Light contains different color spaces. Combining color within these spaces produces mixed colors. RGB simply means a mix of Red, Green and Blue. Amber is, in fact, a precise mix of color in and of itself – the RGB equivalent being R255, G191, B0. By adding Amber to the RGB color spectrum, you are, in essence, able to control the Red and Green spectrum more accurately. And so, by simply reducing the Red in the RGB color space for example, while adding Amber, you can produce a finer mix of colors. It is also possible to subtract Amber from the RGB space, so as to create an exact space for the Amber LED allowing for even more precise control over color mixing.
Also see LED Motion software - view screen shot
This is a simplified explanation for RGBA as there are complex formulas for producing exact colors, but for the average user, beautiful results are easily attainable by simply experimenting with a Solid Apollo RGB+ controller.
See ProAV RGB+ Amber LED Strips Light
8. How does the LED refresh rate affect how LEDs look in video.
Powering LEDs with driver refresh rates below 240Hz can interfere with a video signal, causing phase distortion or flickering when the light source is in the cameras field of view. The ProAV-8 can accept refresh rates up to 800Hz and the Waterproof 4 Channel DMX to RGBW Controller accepts rates up to 1500Hz, each with no image flickering what so ever, making them the perfect choice for studio accent lighting or stage lighting; any environment where video is to be broadcasted or recorded.
A low refresh rate can also cause a shutter effect when an LED is physically in motion.
See ProAV-8 DMX to RGBW 800Hz Controller/Decoder
See Waterproof 4 Channel DMX to RGBW Controller
9. About DMX Addresses and Device Channel Assignments
DMX addresses must be unique unless devices are to be linked, but an individual device also has assigned control channels. The number of control channels depends on what the capabilities are for that device. Never the less, the device control channels are always allocated after the device address has been assigned.
For example, if the first device (a DMX to RGBA controller in this case) is in 4-Channel Mode (RGBW), then it might use the first four available channels - 1 thru 4, and its DMX address would then be 001; and if the second controller is in 3 Channel Mode (RGB), then its DMX address would be 005 (the next available channel address) and its channel assignments would then be 5, 6 and 7 (three channels for RGB) - and so on. This way, the DMX software or DMX hardware-based signal controller knows exactly what number is assigned to a particular channel on a given fixture(s).
