Battery LED uplighters

[Mr Steve]

Hi all,

 

I did a search but the topics returned are around 5+ years old. I'm looking to get hold of some battery uplighters for putting bright stripes of colour up 6-8ft walls, for 6-ish hours. What are people using at the budget end of the market for this these days? I don't mind if they charge via DC jack or IEC, not fussed about charging in a flight case.

 

What are you using?

 

Stephen

[Marineboy63]

Hi Stephen,

Not sure how you define 'budget' but I recently bought four of these.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0788TN2MG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Battery lasts up to five hours. Bright and good colour. Chases built in and DMX option.

 

I like them.

 

Paul.

[Mr Steve]

Not sure how you define 'budget' but I recently bought four of these....

As sub £200 inc VAT as possible, really :)

[ninjadingle]

These are pretty good for the money - LEDJ QB1 Uplighters. Lots of nice features such as IEC out for easy linking and the on-board wireless DMX is pretty good too!

[Mr Steve]

These are pretty good for the money - LEDJ QB1 Uplighters. Lots of nice features such as IEC out for easy linking and the on-board wireless DMX is pretty good too!

 

I went for some of these, as well as a handful of used Hex IP versions. Served the purpose nicely!

 

 

 

[ANDYLASER]

More of a flood than a dedicatred uplighter, but hits the low end budget requirement. My trial one has just arroived and it seems pretty good. Havent got round to measuring battery life yet.

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32843614643.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.61f94c4dHmoK8D

[timsabre]

The trouble with those LED flood type fixtures vs "uplighter" type fixtures is the lack of beam control. The beam angle is pretty much 180 degrees so the light just goes all over the place without creating much intensity anywhere. That's my experience anyway. You don't get "stripes of colour" as stated by the OP.

[bruce]

More of a flood than a dedicatred uplighter, but hits the low end budget requirement. My trial one has just arroived and it seems pretty good. Havent got round to measuring battery life yet.

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32843614643.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.61f94c4dHmoK8D

 

Interesting, and dirt cheap. Now, if only they were DMX-controllable.

 

Someone must have been here before - has anyone hacked up an (Arduino-based?) gizmo to convert DMX into whatever RF control these things use?

[ImagineerTom]

The one in the pictures on the ad is IR remote despite what the add copy says. The ir codes are easily hackable and consistent long term (though horrific to implement on the real world) occasionally legit RF units get released but in our experience there’s no consistency from batch to batch as to the frequency or control protocols used which made it impossible to build a bridge interface that had any long term viability.

[sunray]

but in our experience there's no consistency from batch to batch as to the frequency or control protocols used which made it impossible to build a bridge interface that had any long term viability.

Neither are those IR controllers consitant, I have 4 products which came with them and all 4 are different.

[Don Allen]

I have come across Arduino projects that look at the IR codes used with the RGB floods so you can put them into an Arduino that takes in DMX and sends out the IR controls. Now if only I can find it, I will post the link !

[ImagineerTom]

Doing that sort of thing with arduino is really really simple, that's not the difficult part with all this. The difficult part is that different batches of the same light use different protocols or colours internally and, in the case of IR specifically, unless you've got direct line of site from your transmitter to the receptor chip on every single lantern you won't have a reliable control system.

[themadhippy]

I have 4 products which came with them and all 4 are different.

funny that,ive several different products that have Ir remotes and none work with the other,I mean trying to change the tv channel with stereo remote just don't work,what a pain .Or maybe its a pain the other way around when your trying to just change unit 2 and all 4 are changing.

[sleah]

Or maybe its a pain the other way around when your trying to just change unit 2 and all 4 are changing.

You do stand on one leg with your tounge out and head to one side don't you? Then slightly change position for unit two.

We've got a pair of identical 50" digital signage displays on a wall next to each other. I've perfected getting my position just right to control both or just one with minimal movement :D