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LED bars for floats


paulears

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I've a dozen LED bars - 24 clusters of 9 (3x3) LEDs, RGB. I've been using them vertically at the back of the stage looking towards the audience and doing solid colours or a bit of pixel mapping for moving patterns - just pretty to look at, really. Today we have a dance show in for the week, and they asked for some floor cans to make shadows on the white cyc. I then decided to try a row of these across the stage edge - of the extension covering the unused pit. I was really pleased. The cyc has a row of a dozen RGB PARs, which do colour washing but aren't the brightest - but from the front the led bars wash the white cyc really well - and for the first time, we can have a proper blue stage with decent brightness. I didn't buy these to actually light the stage, just for effect, but I'll use these again. For dance, the multiple shadows also gives a strange effect on moving dancers - which looks rather good. It may also stop the little ones falling off the edge!
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Nice!!! I guess the shadows have quite a strange perspective with the bars being on the floor? I'm surprised they are bright enough to wash a cyc from that far away!!! Viv la LED revolution!!! Are they mounted where the UV's were for chuckle brothers?
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Didn't think about it really - yes, you're right, they could damage the equipment when they fall over the edge - and I wouldn't like that! Easy to find another kid if you break one, but at least a couple of days to replace the broken unit!
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I've seen it done on a production of Sweeney Todd - a lot of the time, when the chorus was singing the various versions of the "Ballad of Sweeney Todd" they were blocked right downstage, so the LED bars pointing up at about 45 degrees gave some very, very creepy face shadows. The set didn't allow for the LEDs to hit the cyc, but I don't think they would have - not as well as yours anyway! I've always loved footlights and the effects you get from them - nice to see a new version of an old idea!
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The angle of dangle is pretty important - but from probably 10m to the cyc it is really good. However - as tab warmers they fail miserably - a line about a foot tall (and not a particularly level line either thanks to some poor focusing - but the tabs made repairing the focus very simple.

 

More than the splodgy line, the other strange thing was that 106 red is what we usually wash the tabs with at this venue and it looks nice. The red in the LED bars didn't look so good, yet there is some UV in the blue because one girl's T-shirt lit up! Another 'feature' I wasn't aware of.

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I've done similar with the Showtec CYC2000 (aka Chauvet COLORado Batten 72 Tour, aka something else no doubt...) with a good result. They also worked surprisingly well on a gauze from quite a shallow angle... They didn't really suit pixelmapping though, I'd rather have RGB in a single LED for that.
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Done this once or twice with pixellines, nice effect but only suitable for certain things I think! Few pics from an xmas party I did using them as blinders uplighters on the band and also dancefloor fill.

 

http://www.imgplace.com/img823/1613/97dsc00437.th.jpg

http://www.imgplace.com/img11/7982/85dsc00443.th.jpg

http://www.imgplace.com/img853/1766/41dsc00449.th.jpg

http://www.imgplace.com/img52/2555/17dsc00467.th.jpg

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there is some UV in the blue because one girl's T-shirt lit up! Another 'feature' I wasn't aware of.

 

Visible light fluorescence , blue LED is around 465nm , UV starts around 400nm, where`s Frank ;-)

 

Blue LED output does go down into the UV if you look at the wavelength output graphs. White LEDs are just blue LEDs with a fluorescent phosphor material on top.

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Blue LED output does go down into the UV if you look at the wavelength output graphs. White LEDs are just blue LEDs with a fluorescent phosphor material on top.

 

Depends on LED, 400nm LEDs are an item in themseleves, below that the price rockets.

 

Courtesy Craig Johnson`s LED Museum, www.ledmuseum.org

 

http://www.ledmuseum.candlepower.us/led/ledblu2.htm

 

Look at the RS blue with a peak around 465 and then output of a bit of green acrylic illuminated with the LED.

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