LED Panels and Control

[Robert F Jarvis]

I have to build several 2' x 2' and 2' x '4 faux 'windows for "The Adams Family" and thought of using some of these fluorescent ceiling light replacement LED panels as backlights. I.E. Panel masked by window pane etc. They have to be dimmable. Some of them talk of 0-10v dimmers. I was wondering if our DMX 16 channel 12volt PWM controller could be used. Other ideas on controlling LED panels welcomed. I've only used LED tape in the past.
Or, if you had to backlight a window (it has to be very thin to hang the proscenium wall). Its more like an illuminated picture I guess. We'd use a gel in front to tone it rather than got to the cost of RGB panels.

 

[FMEng]

There are DMX 0-10V converters made for the purpose of controlling architectural lighting. My understanding is they are a different animal than a converter to drive analog dimmer inputs. Dimmer inputs are truely voltage driven, and architectual inputs are current sinks. Architectural lighting may only dim down to 10%, so turning it off requires the power to be cut off.

 

[Robert F Jarvis]

And that reminded me of a hall we gigged at that has an architectural control system and LED house lights. We could only dim the light so far and then kaput! Thanks for the other notes.

 

[macsound]

I haven't used these types of lights before for window backlighting, but as with other fixtures I've used, they're way way brighter than you actually need.
What I've done is a combination of stretched fabric over the window and ND gel in the light source to make the actual 50% output of the light usable, which might help with the bottom 10% of poor dimming.

Sorry, this doesn't seem to make alot of sense.

What I did was make block enough of the light coming through the window that a 1K fresnel looks like a 50w inkie, so then you have the ability to fade up and down and make your super bright light source usable. Otherwise bright is 12% and dim is 10% which doesn't give you much leeway for artsy fades.

 

[Robert F Jarvis]

I get the idea. And useful to remember later. These 'Windows" are mounted on the proscenium walls and will be about 2" thick, so Fresnels not possible -that would make life too easy. I'm falling back on a 2" deep box backed by that lightweight silver coated AC ducting panel. Run LED tape around the inners perimeter and then cover top with fabric and then the window frame. Did some big walls for "I love you , your beautiful . . . . " when we need hollow walls on a turntable. Worked surprisingly well,