LED parcan system

[Jamtastic3]

Hi BR.

Looking for a LED system similar to Pulsar's Chromazone and RGB birdie set up. I like how the controller has various chases and the birdies are pretty discreet. But the cost for this set up is pretty expensive!

Is there anything similar out there or would it be easier for me just to have daisy chained LED RGB birdies doing a simple one colour wall wash (Ideally I don't want to control them - that's where the Chromazone is handy). I'm looking at LED birdies because they're small and the effect produced would be bands of colour rather than a wash as such.

 

Any help would be great.

 

Cheers!

[timsabre]

I've just been working on a system for Abstract which might do what you want - it has 100mm square tiles which are daisychained from a control box. The tiles are very bright and can act as floods, but you can also control individual pixels in the tiles to give "eye candy" effects. The control box has various macro patterns built in. I think they are selling it for £50 a tile plus the control box is a bit more.

 

see pdf about it and

 

Bias alert - I helped design this, but I'm not making any money out of them selling it. It's an intriguing system with various possibilities though.

[mac500]

Chauvet do the colourdash accent which is 1w LEDs in a small neat package or they do a quad led one too. No separate psu needed its all built in.

[ImagineerTom]

What level of control /chases do you actually need. You can get self contained RGB bulbs that will fit in to a variety of birdies and non theatrical light fittings, controlled via IR or by radio. They'll give you washes, dimming, mood lighting and basic chases for a fraction of the price of a "theatrical" system but you'll be locked in to a proprietary control system so,if you need them to synchronise with an existing desk/system they wouldn't be suitable.

 

[Jamtastic3]

Timsabre: Thanks for the help but those fixtures look slightly overkill. Also I'm looking for something like a birdie as the fixture. Nice vids though - LED overload!

 

ImagineerTom: Yeah I see what your saying, but it would be nice to get ripple effects/odd and even/colour waves etc from the cans. This is where the Chromazone exceeds in all areas. IR remote is a nice idea but there's a big chance of the remote going missing. Desk control is not an option unless I find a desk small enough to just pop in a cupboard nearby and never touch again and it instantly comes on and starts the chases when power is applied.

May have to look at finding some good old Pulsar Masterpieces on ebay.....!

[rossmck]

On a budget I'd use something like the Chauvet Colordash Accent / Showtec Spectral 260 or the Orion Sunspot DMX - they're all about birdie-sized and quite nice little fixtures.

 

Even with a small standalone DMX controller that can handle colour changes and sequences like the SceneStation is still likely to be cheaper than the Chromazone route I'd expect?

 

(Full disclosure : I am associated with a company that sells and installs these products from time to time)

[ladyjayne]

How big is the wall that needs to be lit? What's the Budget? As far as Pulsar ChromaZone is concerned have you considered 2ND Hand?

 

From personal experience I can thoroughly recommend either the CHAUVET COLOURDASH ACCENT or the ADJ Mega QA Par38 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-771GaTsyHA

 

Both have fantastic Master/Slave configurations and plenty of built in Macro's.

[Jamtastic3]

Thanks for the links Ladyjayne.

Yeah the wall is around 10 metres long by 3 metres high.

The effect the ADJ par 38's do is exactly what I'm looking for (stripes of colour up and down the wall), but those fixtures look quite beefy - diamater wise. Is there anything a little smaller in the market?

 

Ross, those fixtures also look look good for output but still look pretty chunky looking. Is there maybe something with a little less body on them out there?

 

Ok so I've found something that's leading me to what I'm looking for....

 

http://www.surelight.com/cressida_RGB_LED_spotlights.htm

 

Something very like the fixture above would work well with me. I'm guessing I could hook it up to this....

 

http://www.surelight.com/DMX350mA36_LED_driver.htm

 

or this....

 

http://www.surelight.com/tranquil_CV_5A_per_channel_RGB_LED_controller.htm

 

As I'm not familiar with LED set ups, how to I run say 8 of the Cressida RGB fixtures on a controller like these?

[musht]

 

Ok so I've found something that's leading me to what I'm looking for....

 

http://www.surelight.com/cressida_RGB_LED_spotlights.htm

 

Something very like the fixture above would work well with me.

 

RGB LED MR16 is specifically what your looking for?

 

Slightly onfusingly, could be better explained on the page, the two drivers you`ve linked to are different.

 

First one is constant current and is what you would use with the linked lamps, wired in series to driver, all lamps do same thing.

But it is just a DMX driver will need some form of DMX control to program anything.

 

Second one is a constant voltage driver , more suitable for LED tape and strips, but it does have built in programs.

 

Commercial disclaimer: involved in design and sales of LED systems not specifically ones linked.

[Jamtastic3]

Musht, Ideally small fixtures are what I'm looking at - I think there's more of a visual effect with wall beams than having a wall washed in tape. It doesn't have to be a birdie but something of similar size like it or like the Cressida's is what I'm looking for.

Output isn't a big problem as well - the wall is roughly around 3 metres high but will be used as background mood lighting.

 

Excuse my lack of LED knowledge - I've wired up tape before to a DMX driver but never individual fixtres. I'm guessing I'd need a driver with X amount of outputs for X amount of LED fixtures (with tape it can just be one output for one long piece of tape).

[musht]

>more of a visual effect with wall beams than having a wall washed in tape

 

Narrow beam preferable.

 

>birdie but something of similar size like it or like the Cressida's is what I'm looking for.

 

MR16, 50mm across the face , is a popular size for all sorts of retrofit LED lamps

 

>Output isn't a big problem

 

Cressida units will be reasonably bright but at a cost.

 

Something with little LEDs be a lot cheaper, http://www.bigclive.com/happy.htm and a DMX driver.

 

>driver with X amount of outputs for X amount of LED fixtures

 

LED Current Driver will drive up to a certain number of LEDs, usually minimum is 1, LEDs are wired in a series chain out from the driver.

 

Remember that need to alternate channels as they go along wall if want it to do anything but change colour as a whole.

 

Cheap DMX controller that will start in last programmed state from power up, preferable to drivers with in built macros, leaves opportunity to control all lighting centrally , rather tham just on/off of things like wall washers...

[Jamtastic3]

Yup, that sounds all about right...! Big Clive's LED DIY sounds good but it's a route I'd rather not go down as I'd like to just buy fixtures for the client and install it.

It sounds like you are possibly suggesting one driver for 'even' LED's, another driver for 'odd' LED's? You'll need to explain how the DMX controller would work in this situation (unless I've understood this all wrong)

[Paul TC]

Have you looked at a colour changing LED lamp in each fixture, no controller required, (an example of a 240 V lamp is in CPC catalogue part no LP02865 Link, if wired to same switch, they will sync. This will give a basic sequence, however with no control other than on/off and a fixed rate of change.

 

Have a couple of similar lamps fitted into birdies, but cannot comment on life, or suitablity for your application, as they have only been used a few hours in one use, (back light xmas tree).

[musht]

>suggesting one driver for 'even' LED's, another driver for 'odd' LED's?

 

That`s the one, move up to 3 drivers , 9 channels (3 X RGB), and can look directional.

 

Thing about DMX controller or recorder, more versatile than built in patterns in drivers, tend to be speed variations on a 7 colour theme,then allows enviromental lightiong to be tied in to main controls when not on auto.

 

CPC lamps look quite handy if they stay synced for total plug and walk away solution.

[Jamtastic3]

Ok Cheers for that suggestion musht and Paul TC.

 

Having RGB changing lamps might be the cheapest option so I'll look into it (obviously there's no control). I like the 3 driver system though as it's more manipulative.

 

I'll need to do a bit of price hunting now.....!