Design Need Wiring LED Help

[Graham Zellers]

Hello all,

My theatre has decided to put up a show in which there is a ton of individual LEDs and LED tape needed within our scenery and needs to be DMX-controllable. I am not exactly sure where to begin though I know we will have a 15' by 30' wall that breaks into 5 sections (for wall moving purposes) that will need to have individual LED lights randomly placed throughout. The entire outer frame of the wall will have LED tape/strips running throughout that needs to be able to come apart and controlled by DMX. I know we have at least two dmx decoders though I do not have complete specifics on channels on those at this point.

I believe that we will need to run DMX and power to the decoders and run individual runs of LEDs out from there. After that, I'm not entirely sure about how the process will need to work, especially since the wall needs to be able to come apart because of our space housing other events during our show's off days.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to accomplish this or have links to products that may be helpful for this?

Thanks!

 

[np18358]

I recently did a show with a ton of LED tape.

We looked into City Theatrical, but it would have been too expensive.

Used a few different drivers.

This one is multi channel


This one is single channel

You need to provide your own 12VDC. We connected them to wireless DMX controllers (with 12v to 5v step down transformers) and used 12v UPS power supplies (like car batteries but smaller), to make the whole setup wireless.

It wasn't actually that difficult once we got the hang of doing it. If you have issues with the LED Tape staying on the set pieces, try low temperature hot glue, applied right to the tape's adhesive. We also wanted the tape to be black but the black tape was more expensive, so we spray painted the tape black, then used pencil erasers to erase the black paint over the actual LED elements. That was the most labor intensive part.

 

[egilson1]

An alternative to the City theatrical ones.

http://www.enttec.com/?main_menu=Products&pn=73520

 

[rsmentele]

We've had very good feedback on these from Elation
http://www.fullcompass.com/search.p...Order=&txtLowRange=&txtHighRange=&brand[]=ELA

 

[cbrandt]

Wow, that 24 channel driver is cheap as all get out. I've done installs with the Elation 24 channel drivers, and the Blizzard 24 channel drivers. I like the Elations a little better. Better dimmer curve, quieter, and have a built in power supply so that you're only dealing with one unit. The blizzard unit was great on price point, and better if you need a separate power supply or already have existing 12 volt infrastructure. Both boxes are pretty large, if you're trying to hide them inside a set.

 

[WayfarerAM]

A while back I did some LED tube things for a church. We used a 24 channel decoder with a 12v power supply and DMX line plugged into it. Each LED tube had a 18/4 cable run and soldered to it so each tube unit could be controlled individually and we could hide the box better. Something like that might work for you with one box per set piece. If I member correctly we used something off of Amazon. Just look for something with constant voltage/ PWM dimming, especially if you plan on taking any video.

 

[Kelite]

We also wanted the tape to be black but the black tape was more expensive, so we spray painted the tape black, then used pencil erasers to erase the black paint over the actual LED elements. That was the most labor intensive part.

Genius!

 

[Scenemaster60]

The ME at the Guthrie in Minneapolis pretty much uses LED products from superbrightleds.com exclusively.
Here is the DMX Decoder/Driver he uses:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...4-channel-led-dmx-controllerdecoder/824/2039/
Each channel on this box will power up to two 5-meter lengths of 5050 RGBW tape, but he recommends do a home-run for each 5-meter run to prevent voltage drop.

If you want to reuse the tape (and you likely will), DO NOT use the adhesive on the back. If you are mounting on wood or rigid foam, a really easy hack is to buy a bag of plastic romex wire staples and substitute small screws for the nails.

Their current production of "South Pacific" has dozens of these decoders driving what I would bet is nearly a 1/2 mile of LED tape that is literally EVERYWHERE on the set.

 

[Josh Rawls]

I second superbrightleds.com. They are local to me and I use them for all kinds of LEDs. Home, car, DJ, special project. It's all good stuff.