DIY Lighting Fixtures

[Cordie]

Hi Guys

 

So this is mainly for my interest, but I guess could be something that other people have thought of.

 

How feasible could it be to build your own DMX LED fixtures (like PARcans and light bars) and could it ever be done for less than fixtures you can purchase?

 

Obviously DIY versions of standard equipment can be made at home (Bluecom being a prime example) but would it be worth the time and potential money?

[timsabre]

You can make floods/battens fairly easily and economically using a load of rgb tape stuck to a panel. But anything involving higher powered leds is difficult to make cheaper than you can buy a manufactured fixture from China.

[adam2]

In general, it is only worth DIY if you require something non standard that is not available cheaply from fleabay or aliexpress.

 

As an example I made some outdoor footlights for productions that use primarily daylight. 24 volt supply to LED lamps. Not dimmable but 5 colours available each with 3 lighting levels via selective switching.

 

Supply from truck battery. maximum load about 20 amps with all lamps lit.

 

 

 

[gyro_gearloose]

If your intention is to build a fixture for less than what you can buy them for, then as others have said, its going to be cheaper to buy the fixtures. However you could go down the path that I have, and treat the process of building your fixtures as a learning exercise. I've built my own DMX controlled RGB LED fixtures around a home-built Arduino clone, learning a lot about electronics as I did so. I've also dabbled with optics and high power LEDs by retro-fitting some to some Clay Paky Miniscans. That I managed to sell my Miniscans was a bonus, as its not worth doing it to make money.

[timsabre]

I've made some RGB battens to fit in the window recesses of my church building, they are just 5 runs of RGB tape stuck to to 2" trunking lid with a DMX driver PCB. There was nothing available that would fit in the space - it had to be very low profile so it was hidden on the windowsill, and the right width to fill the window - so it was a good solution for this. RGB tape is very cheap on ebay too, I think I used about 1.5 rolls per window so it cost about £35 per window including the driver and 12V PSU.

 

I had to retrofit plastic sleeving over them, as even though the tape was "waterproof" it got wet due to leaking roof which caused the tape to short out on the reverse side, where it is clearly not waterproof.

As Gyro says it is quite educational as well. But not often economically worth it, and definitely not if you include your time as a cost. If you are doing it for fun then maybe.

 

[Jivemaster]

DIY is perfect for thing that you cannot buy, effectively specials built into sets and props, but the Chinese have such low labour costs that trying to make "ordinary" lanterns is not usually viable.

[skinda0]

I built a pair of '100W' RGB LED PAR 64 cans mainly to see how feasable it would be. As I got into it, it probably would have been cheaper to buy an off the shelf item, but I did learn quite a bit about the DMX protocol.

[Stuart91]

DIY is perfect for thing that you cannot buy, effectively specials built into sets and props, but the Chinese have such low labour costs that trying to make "ordinary" lanterns is not usually viable.

 

Similarly, when building a "special" it's often easier to repurpose the guts of an existing product that produce something from scratch.