Building an LED Tape Light DMX Controller

[gafftaper]

I just completed building a DMX Tape Light controller board and I decided to post a full report. I purchased one of these for the controller and four of these for the power supplies.
I mounted it all on a 3/4" plywood board. Wiring was easy. Programing the DMX when it was done took seconds. I do a lot of DMX over Cat5 as the cables are much cheaper and easy to make. This controller is only 3 pin "dmx", So I took advantage of the optional terminal connections and installed a pair of these to make RJ45 DMX In and Out ports. Total price was about $200 for parts (probably more like $250 if you don't have a lot of cable laying around). The power supplies don't come with power cables. I had some spare heavy duty IEC cables that I cut the ends off of in order to make the power cords for the power supplies. In the future, it's $15 for a string of RGB led light tape and I can throw lights on anything with separate dmx control over 8 strings! You just set the DMX address of the first device. it takes up 32 channels of DMX (4 per line of tape) so you can run RGB or RGBA or RGBW on this controller. I am planning to only use RGB which means every fourth DMX address gets skipped. If you want to use A or W you should probably get a 20 watt DC power supply instead of the 15 watt units I linked to, but this is perfect for RGB. This is the RGB tape that I purchased for testing. It was a fun and easy project. It runs great in testing and the color is pretty vibrant on that tape. I'm planning to put a bunch of LED tape in my upcoming Chicago set and I'll post pictures of the results. Here are some pictures of the controller board.

 

[cbrandt]

First off, very neat board! I'll bet you get a lot of use out of it.

How big are the power supplies. My mile high internet view makes me feel like that's a lot of power supply for the amount of outputs.

 

[RonHebbard]

I just completed building a DMX Tape Light controller board and I decided to post a full report. I purchased one of these for the controller and four of these for the power supplies.
I mounted it all on a 3/4" plywood board. Wiring was easy. Programing the DMX when it was done took seconds. I do a lot of DMX over Cat5 as the cables are much cheaper and easy to make. This controller is only 3 pin "dmx", So I took advantage of the optional terminal connections and installed a pair of these to make RJ45 DMX In and Out ports. Total price was about $200 for parts (probably more like $250 if you don't have a lot of cable laying around). The power supplies don't come with power cables. I had some spare heavy duty IEC cables that I cut the ends off of in order to make the power cords for the power supplies. In the future, it's $15 for a string of RGB led light tape and I can throw lights on anything with separate dmx control over 8 strings! You just set the DMX address of the first device. it takes up 32 channels of DMX (4 per line of tape) so you can run RGB or RGBA or RGBW on this controller. I am planning to only use RGB which means every fourth DMX address gets skipped. If you want to use A or W you should probably get a 20 watt DC power supply instead of the 15 watt units I linked to, but this is perfect for RGB. This is the RGB tape that I purchased for testing. It was a fun and easy project. It runs great in testing and the color is pretty vibrant on that tape. I'm planning to put a bunch of LED tape in my upcoming Chicago set and I'll post pictures of the results. Here are some pictures of the controller board.
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@gafftaper Congratulations, real pretty. You may want to look into Panduit's TMS2-6 or -8 mounts which fasten securely with a wood screw, bolt, or rivet rather than relying on the adhesive backed mounts. The TMS2's are available in black or natural and from small packs to boxes of 100 or 1,000.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[Van]

Noice!

 

[gafftaper]

How big are the power supplies. My mile high internet view makes me feel like that's a lot of power supply for the amount of outputs.

The power supplies I used have a DC output of 12 Volts/15 AMPs each. The 16' RGB LED tape lights I bought draw 5 amps each. Some of them run as high as 2 amps per color so I would be under powered for some RGBA/RGBW strings. I keep debating if I screwed up by not going with 12 Volt/20 Amp power supplies. A couple years down the road I'll probably change them out.

 

[Crisp image]

I have just one suggestion to make this project safer. The terminal strips on the power supply need to be covered to prevent some little fingers getting in and touching the AC input. it is all to easy to drop something across there.
Other than that a nice neat solution.
Regards

 

[almorton]

Looks to me as if they already have a transparent cover in place.

 

[Harrison Hohnholt]

I really like those RJ45 boards! Quite convenient.

On the 8-Bit/16-Bit dimming can you see a difference? I have a hard time seeing a difference but designers always seem to say the difference is huge.

I would recommend checking if the power-ins on the dimmer are bussed together. If one of those power supplies fails and they are bussed the others will try to compensate and could cause some problems.

 

[StradivariusBone]

That's super clean looking! We did a variation on that theme this year for some revolves that needed wireless data and battery power for LED strips.

Power is supplied by an emergency light AGM battery and then two variable voltage regulators I got from eBay for like $5 provide 12 and 5 vdc for the decoder and the wireless dongle. Those little decoder boxes are fantastic too. We ended up getting some 12v A19 lamps and putting them in actual fixtures and powering it all off this rig.

 

[gafftaper]

I have just one suggestion to make this project safer. The terminal strips on the power supply need to be covered to prevent some little fingers getting in and touching the AC input. it is all to easy to drop something across there.
Other than that a nice neat solution.
Regards

Good idea. It doesn't show well in the pictures but there is a flip down plastic shield over the terminals, but it would be good to go over that area with some Electrical Tape to secure the shield and prevent anything from sneaking in the side.

 

[Crisp image]

Good idea. It doesn't show well in the pictures but there is a flip down plastic shield over the terminals, but it would be good to go over that area with some Electrical Tape to secure the shield and prevent anything from sneaking in the side.

I see now your cover however as you recognise it is like a pair of short shorts that only just cover the bits. an accidental touch could be possible without much effort so a larger cover would be good. It is a great solution. I have done something similar but used 12v battery power and wireless DMX because most of the time my sets move on and off or around the stage so no cables to connect or trip over is my goal.

 

[almorton]

We've done similar using 12V alarm batteries for power with RC4 wireless DMXdim or, when we need more dimmer channels than we have RC4 channels, added on generic LED dimmers like these taking DMX from the RC4 unit.

Also done similar using shrink wrapped battery packs and RC4 dimmers when we wanted an effect in a costume. We had a set of angel wings for "Flint Street Nativity" into which were fixed LED tape which was radio controlled to make the wings flash, and fitted in things Iike storm lamps and oil lamps where we want to be able to carry the lamp around and control its brightness from the main lighting desk.

 

[DNT]

I just completed building a DMX Tape Light controller board and I decided to post a full report. I purchased one of these for the controller and four of these for the power supplies.
I mounted it all on a 3/4" plywood board. Wiring was easy. Programing the DMX when it was done took seconds. I do a lot of DMX over Cat5 as the cables are much cheaper and easy to make. This controller is only 3 pin "dmx", So I took advantage of the optional terminal connections and installed a pair of these to make RJ45 DMX In and Out ports. Total price was about $200 for parts (probably more like $250 if you don't have a lot of cable laying around). The power supplies don't come with power cables. I had some spare heavy duty IEC cables that I cut the ends off of in order to make the power cords for the power supplies. In the future, it's $15 for a string of RGB led light tape and I can throw lights on anything with separate dmx control over 8 strings! You just set the DMX address of the first device. it takes up 32 channels of DMX (4 per line of tape) so you can run RGB or RGBA or RGBW on this controller. I am planning to only use RGB which means every fourth DMX address gets skipped. If you want to use A or W you should probably get a 20 watt DC power supply instead of the 15 watt units I linked to, but this is perfect for RGB. This is the RGB tape that I purchased for testing. It was a fun and easy project. It runs great in testing and the color is pretty vibrant on that tape. I'm planning to put a bunch of LED tape in my upcoming Chicago set and I'll post pictures of the results. Here are some pictures of the controller board.
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I did something similar but I’m afraid the layout wasn’t as neat. Definitely the way to go for that kind of thing.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

This thread seems like a good place for a followup question:

Has anyone done any, even informal, testing on the light quality of various types of tape?

My new house is thinking of doing some RGBW tape footlights, and I'm wondering what has the best spectrum and CRI, even at a premium price. It's about 45-50 feet, I think.

 

[Harrison Hohnholt]

This thread seems like a good place for a followup question:

Has anyone done any, even informal, testing on the light quality of various types of tape?

My new house is thinking of doing some RGBW tape footlights, and I'm wondering what has the best spectrum and CRI, even at a premium price. It's about 45-50 feet, I think.

For higher CRI you want to look on the film side of things; Lite Gear, Moss LED. They are going to be in the 95+ range.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

For higher CRI you want to look on the film side of things; Lite Gear, Moss LED. They are going to be in the 95+ range.

Gee, I wonder where I could buy some of... [looks at .sig] Oh.

 

[Harrison Hohnholt]

We have High CRI but only single whites and a tunable white, no High CRI RGBW yet.

Honestly, the only time I have found CRI to affect the look is on camera or in a museum setting. "Regular" tape is around 80+ so it isn't terrible just not good enough for on camera work.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Well, we have one Vaddio RoboShot in there now, and we may add a couple three more within the year. Obviously this one strip won't be the controlling issue for that, but...

 

[gafftaper]

Update: We got to show time and when I went from just testing a single string to trying to use multiple strings fading up and to precisely programmed color mixes, I started having all kinds of problems. It would flicker, randomly strobe, and one string wouldn't work without the others turned on or would only work when others were turned off. After a lot of trouble shooting I determined it was a problem with the controller (although it acted a lot like a termination problem). I switched out the controller in my original post above for the one linked below and everything now works perfectly. So if you are thinking about building one of these yourself I now recommend the controller below and two larger power supplies instead of the things in my original post above.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q1N1NVK/?tag=controlbooth-20

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Did you in fact get any set pix, Gaff?