Heidelberg United has enlisted the help of NF Communications to complete a new scoreboard for Olympic Park, an electronic engineering company specialising in manufacturing and designing telecommunication products.
The company has also done manufacturing for the department of defence, as well as Oakleigh Cannons for their home ground of Jack Edwards Reserve.
Nick Frencken of NF Comms talked about the features the scoreboard has, of which is the largest free-standing electronic scoreboard in the southern hemisphere with a purpose-built aluminium security shutter.
“The main feature is a security shutter, when it’s brought down. It is a very flat surface you could put advertising on if need be, and it is much better than a basic garage door, given it is purpose built with nice aluminium flats,” he said.
“Another addition is audio outputs so we can put speakers on the scoreboard, and overall the screen includes the latest technology in LEDs, providing brightness up to 9000 candela per square metre, which is a unit of luminosity. Streaming services such as Netflix and Kayo are also supported.”
Frencken explained the qualities that people will be surprised about when they see it first-hand, which involves brightness and clarity among them.
“The first impressions of people are they say that it is bright and clear. There’s the ability to show high quality movies because we transmit the signal that goes to the scoreboard,” he said.
Frencken touched on the process of building the scoreboard, with the dimensions of the LED screen being 7.04m wide x 4m high, and is 3m above the ground. As for the scoreboard including the frame, it’s 7.84m wide and 7.6m high.
“Since it is a stand-alone scoreboard, we had to arrange for structural engineering design of the frame, a lot goes behind the structure of the design, both above and below ground,” he said.
“We had to build a reinforcing cage that goes into the hole in the ground after its dug and once the cage is put in, the bolts that hold the bottom of the scoreboard go in, then we put concrete in and let that settle,” he said.
“At the factory we assemble parts of the frame for transport, we also have to design the security shutter to fit in nicely, then we need to cable it all up inside, and the power is controlled by a remote control. The circuit board with all of its components is soldered in and then the communications antenna is installed.”
For more on NF Communications and their other projects, you can view it here.
