Wireless Dimming LED's inside prop

tdtastic

Active Member
Working on a new futuristic play that calls for several props and one costume piece to have LED indicator lights that turn on and off at scripted times throughout the play. I could get away with a simpler actor-controlled setup for one of the props. But ultimately I'd love wireless DMX control so that I can write these into cues.

I have no idea where to start with this one. We've never done any remote dimming on practicals here before, but I use wireless DMX points on our rig.

If I have to forgo DMX control of each prop, is there a cheap remote LED kit or option I should look into? If I have to have a stage manager in the wings with multiple controllers I could go that route

Any help/advice greatly appreciated!
 
Well probaly frowned upon ny many professional gaffers here, but we have used Wireless DMX tranmsitters and receivers for many years. I should add we are in a fairly isolated place in the countryside so no interfrence or problems at any time. We have some recharchabel 12vdc batteries and quite often use these to run LEDs and wireless DMX recievers on props running out on and off stage floor. No wires! Sorry: We did have a problem once when the Stage Manger forgot to charge the battery packs between shows!
 
Well probaly frowned upon ny many professional gaffers here, but we have used Wireless DMX tranmsitters and receivers for many years. I should add we are in a fairly isolated place in the countryside so no interfrence or problems at any time. We have some recharchabel 12vdc batteries and quite often use these to run LEDs and wireless DMX recievers on props running out on and off stage floor. No wires! Sorry: We did have a problem once when the Stage Manger forgot to charge the battery packs between shows!
are you using RC4 products or have you found something less expensive?
 
I'm hoping I'm on the right track here. But the wireless DMX transmitters and receivers we use are dirt cheap:
Donner 8pcs Black Metal DMX512 DMX Dfi DJ 2.4G Wireless 7 Receiver & 1 Transmitter Lighting Control

We have a DMX opto isolated 6 port distribution box, downstage plugged into the main DMX (From console) outlet. One port is occupied by a Donner wireless TX dongle. I'm ashamed to say that rather then run a DMX cable over several bars, to a bar way upstage (we have 30) I'll often just put a Wireless RX on the bar(s). end and cable out for there.

A word of caution: We have two theatres and in early days I set up some DMX TX and RX in our 'Pavilion' but like a turkey had the dongles on the same (green) frequency. Yep. You guessed. Operating lights in one theatre messed the lights in the other. Solution simple: Make sure they are on different frequencies. IE these things work over a larger area then one would think! We have a DMX opto isolated 6 port distribution box downstage plugged into the main DMX (From console) outlet. One port is occupied by a Donner wireless TX dongle. I'm ashamed to say that rather then run a DMX cable over several bars, to a bar way upstage (we have 30) I'll often just put a Wireless RX on the bar(s). end and cable out for there.

A word of caution: We have two theatres and in early days I set up some DMX TX and RX in our 'Pavilion' but like a turkey had the dongles on the same (green) frequency. Yep. You guessed. Operating lights in one theatre messed the lights in the other. Solution simple: Make sure they are on different frequencies. IE these things work over a larger area then one would think!
 
I'm hoping I'm on the right track here. But the wireless DMX transmitters and receivers we use are dirt cheap:
Donner 8pcs Black Metal DMX512 DMX Dfi DJ 2.4G Wireless 7 Receiver & 1 Transmitter Lighting Control

We have a DMX opto isolated 6 port distribution box, downstage plugged into the main DMX (From console) outlet. One port is occupied by a Donner wireless TX dongle. I'm ashamed to say that rather then run a DMX cable over several bars, to a bar way upstage (we have 30) I'll often just put a Wireless RX on the bar(s). end and cable out for there.

A word of caution: We have two theatres and in early days I set up some DMX TX and RX in our 'Pavilion' but like a turkey had the dongles on the same (green) frequency. Yep. You guessed. Operating lights in one theatre messed the lights in the other. Solution simple: Make sure they are on different frequencies. IE these things work over a larger area then one would think! We have a DMX opto isolated 6 port distribution box downstage plugged into the main DMX (From console) outlet. One port is occupied by a Donner wireless TX dongle. I'm ashamed to say that rather then run a DMX cable over several bars, to a bar way upstage (we have 30) I'll often just put a Wireless RX on the bar(s). end and cable out for there.

A word of caution: We have two theatres and in early days I set up some DMX TX and RX in our 'Pavilion' but like a turkey had the dongles on the same (green) frequency. Yep. You guessed. Operating lights in one theatre messed the lights in the other. Solution simple: Make sure they are on different frequencies. IE these things work over a larger area then one would think!
I use something similar to these. Not professional theatre not show critical. Great on a small budget. Remember that anything wireless needs a power source so consider this with these DMX items. There are some that have a battery inbuilt but I am not sure how long it will last.
And last note is that anything you put in a prop needs to hide the battery. This is a big consideration for me when using these items.
Regards
Geoff
 
We've used shrink wrapped packs of AA size cells to get a 12V rechargeable pack that fits in a pocket (or mic pack) for when the dimmer is on costume. For set pieces we use 12V rechargeables or even 9V dry cells.

Even out in the sticks, if you have an audience with a mobile phone on every person, you have interference. Some of the low cost options don't play well with an auditorium full of mobiles, some do.
 
The last time I did this was in a black box and I bought a half-dozen arduino clones from Adafruit with 868 mHz radio module breakouts already on the board. I think they called it a Feather or something. Ran neopixel clusters (also from Adafruit) directly from the boards.

Theatre is an off-spec application for most radio. All those cool bluetooth and gigahertz connections and so forth assume you are shooting across a living room; not a hundred feet from booth to stage (and through a bunch of meat filters that are really good at blocking gigahertz signal.) I'd gotten XBee to work at an ampitheatre (at Lake Merit) but that was only with the rather more expensive high-power modules, and those seem to have been deprecated since. The mHz 434 and 868 stuff can sometimes make the shot, especially if you add proper whisker antenna to them.

The advantage to me on the last show is the units were mostly doing lamp effects. So the on-board micro was running a lamp flicker program, and the remote controller only had to tell it to go on and off. I could have put DMX on it but I had a really limited light board on that show, too, and it was safer just to slave them all to one channel and add a keypad to the transmitter.

I know, sounds like a lot of tech, but since there's libraries for all of this stuff it really was just soldering a handful of connectors and a couple hours programming. I had it running the same day the parts got delivered.

(Another issue I've struggled with is that all that hobby and cosplay and whatnot is usually based around the 15ma LED standard. Sure, you can stack up a bunch of them...the higher-density LED strips provide a ton of light...but getting enough light into a crystal ball or similar sized prop so it pushes back against stage lighting is a real pain. I was taking a clue from the hobby lightsaber people, and the flashlight tinkerers, to make controllers for 3W and up LEDs. Note that a good fighting saber was going for 15W of lighting power! -- now they tend towards strips so they can do more sophisticated animations. Got to the point where I had a nice little board that could pop into a prop but feeping creaturitus finally killed the project.)

----

Forgot to add the cheap option. Keyfob transmitters. It can take a bit of searching to find them since there is such a push now for "control everything from your smart phone!" but when you can find them, you can get a matched pair of 315 mHz, four-channel, receiver and keyfob transmitter for under $8 a set. Simplicity itself to use; the receiver has four leads that operate on NO and will drive LEDs, relay boxes, whatever. The security code is set with solder blobs so you can have multiple units respond to the same fob. Range is wing-to-stage with decent reliability; I used one in an RC "Robot" prop on Wonka to control the LEDs in the eyes. On another show, I ran it to a sample playback at the sound board; the actor with a gun on stage pressed the keyfob in his pocket each time he fired!

Adafruit has them. Only reason to go eBay is sometimes they'll sell a bunch of them bulk.
 
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Well probaly frowned upon ny many professional gaffers here, but we have used Wireless DMX tranmsitters and receivers for many years.
Maybe in the past it has been frowned upon, but in my experience these days everyone uses wireless. I have used RC4 in my theatre for years. As well as the city theatrical Show DMX. I have also day played on a film that was strictly Wireless. I think you would be hard pressed to find a set that doesn’t have wireless in it somewhere!

A lot of fixtures out there are coming standard with wireless built in. Just look at Astera products, also the new ETC Series 3 lustrs.

While the donner stuff is cheap, I have found it to be quite reliable, and very easy to configure and get working.

For your application I would recommend the RC4 stuff. Very compact. And it will support a range of voltages. I used it on a dragon head that an actor had to wear and dance with so it had to be light, and compact. RC4 for the win.
 

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