DIY Flood / upwash lights

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J_Dunavin
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DIY Flood / upwash lights

#1 Post by J_Dunavin »

I have really been needing to add some sort of wash or ambient lighting that i could control, during the dances I DJ.
I built up some ply wood boxes and mounted some angle braces inside in an attempt to create a sudo lens, to help beam the light a bit more.
I'm very happy with the results!
I use a total of eight, 1 meter LED strips, 2 white, 2 blue, 2 green, and 2 red.
This is the module that i am using to control them as well.
http://www.nledshop.com/fourchan/
In all, I have about $30 in each light.

With freestyler DMX running on an old laptop and with a MIDI controller I am able to change the color and brightness on the fly and even assigned a button to strobe the white lights.
Right now i have just built two of them, and i have enough parts for five. I figure one shinning on the dance floor and two on either side of the room should have a nice effect.

The last picture is in a gym that i did last weekend.
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Last edited by J_Dunavin on Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

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DJPhatman
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#2 Post by DJPhatman »

Your pics are no-show with Photobucket.
I know money often seals the deal, but seriously, quality is an investment, not an expense... Grant Bunter
Accept the fact that airtight and well-braced are more important than pretty on the inside. Bill Fitzmaurice

Grant Bunter
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#3 Post by Grant Bunter »

DJPhatman wrote:Your pics are no-show with Photobucket.
True be that, unless you're prepared to fork over about $300US/year to use photobucket as an image host. This is a major change in photobucket, and I won't use it any more. I don't need an image bank for my own purposes.
I'm going to put up a thread about it.

Other than that, I've started using DMX frestyler as well (buying and learning how to run a DMX rig has been a bit of a learning curve for a guy that has only ever used incandescents and/or old school dimmers), and it's going well so far...
Built:
DR 250: x 2 melded array, 2x CD horn, March 2012 plans.
T39's: 4 x 20" KL3010LF , 2 x 28" 3012LF.
WH8: x 6 with melded array wired series/parallel.
Bunter's Audio and Lighting "like"s would be most appreciated...

Think
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#4 Post by Think »

Don't you have a space for a basic homepage/website at your internet provider? Then you can use a FTP tool to put them on there and link to them.

Grant Bunter
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#5 Post by Grant Bunter »

Think wrote:Don't you have a space for a basic homepage/website at your internet provider? Then you can use a FTP tool to put them on there and link to them.
No. I don't get that with my provider. That's why I use image hosting...
Built:
DR 250: x 2 melded array, 2x CD horn, March 2012 plans.
T39's: 4 x 20" KL3010LF , 2 x 28" 3012LF.
WH8: x 6 with melded array wired series/parallel.
Bunter's Audio and Lighting "like"s would be most appreciated...

Think
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Joined: Tue May 09, 2017 5:37 pm
Location: The Neterlands / Holland
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#6 Post by Think »

To bad, where I live those are standard included with almost every adsl/vdsl account but hardly anyone seems to use those....
Maybe you can use one of these http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-image ... -services/ but from what I have seen, I would skip imageshack.

tinypic.com test: 2x T48 36"wide, not mine.
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J_Dunavin
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#7 Post by J_Dunavin »

Rats!
Any web hosting sites you guys recommend? I want to show you my floods.
Did a barn dance gig last night and they worked out great.
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

Grant Bunter
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Location: Ilfracombe Queensland Australia
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#8 Post by Grant Bunter »

J_Dunavin wrote:Rats!
Any web hosting sites you guys recommend? I want to show you my floods.
Did a barn dance gig last night and they worked out great.
Resize the pic in paintshop or a photo editor programme and load it direct as an attachment.

I wanna see what you've done!
Built:
DR 250: x 2 melded array, 2x CD horn, March 2012 plans.
T39's: 4 x 20" KL3010LF , 2 x 28" 3012LF.
WH8: x 6 with melded array wired series/parallel.
Bunter's Audio and Lighting "like"s would be most appreciated...

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J_Dunavin
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Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2006 3:13 pm
Location: Appleton WI
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#9 Post by J_Dunavin »

I Edited the original post to show some pictures of the lights in action.
I should of snapped a picture of looking into the barn door. The one lights was shining up, and highlighting some of the entry way and the 2nd light was on the far wall, it looked really good, and was bright enough to overcome the work lights and Christmas lights that were also hung.
You can also see two of my ADJ pocket scans shining their pattern on the floor. They are also part of the DMX chain and can be controlled via Freestyler. I have made a few sequences, which include just a solid colors and a slow sweep for slow songs, and multi color patterns with movement all over for faster songs.
Here i have attached the connection plate, which a buddy from work cut out on his DIY 2axis cnc machine. (The Dsub connector is for a remote box that i can plug into and set the address and load preset colors for stand alone functionality.
Attachments
7.jpg
6.jpg
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

Grant Bunter
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Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 11:12 am
Location: Ilfracombe Queensland Australia
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#10 Post by Grant Bunter »

Sweeeet.

Great job!
Built:
DR 250: x 2 melded array, 2x CD horn, March 2012 plans.
T39's: 4 x 20" KL3010LF , 2 x 28" 3012LF.
WH8: x 6 with melded array wired series/parallel.
Bunter's Audio and Lighting "like"s would be most appreciated...

Rich4349
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Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2008 10:18 am
Location: Kankakee, IL

Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#11 Post by Rich4349 »

What are the dimensions of these? Did you use any specific website as a reference for wiring them up?
2 DR250s, 2 27" Lab15 T-60s, 2 30" Neo Titan 39s, 1 Autotuba...and looking for more!

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J_Dunavin
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#12 Post by J_Dunavin »

These are 42 inches long, and the side profile is 5 in wide by 4 in tall.
I didn't follow any plans except for the wiring instructions from that DMX module I bought. The rest was a little trial and error. I did some prelim tests and found that just one strip of RGB+W wasn't going to be as bright as I had hoped, so I doubled up and used two strips of each color. Northern lights also offers a module to control addressable RGB led's like the WS2812s, but those don't have the lumans that the 5630, 12v single color strips do, though the color mixing would probably look smoother.
There are 70 deg angled sides on the inside with mirror tape and I extended the outer sides up a bit to act as a blinder a little. Otherwise the light just floods to much.
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

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J_Dunavin
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#13 Post by J_Dunavin »

Here's a link to the led strips I bought.
5630 LEDs red, green, blue, white, non waterproof
Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/181435517609

I'm also using the listed 12vdc 5A power supply, that you can buy in that posting. Works fine unless you run all colors at full bright :lol: BUT that would be a sudo white, which is why i am running white on it's own channel.
Last edited by J_Dunavin on Thu Sep 27, 2018 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

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James Champer
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#14 Post by James Champer »

Nice work!

I've been using freestyler for more than a few years now. As the drummer, singer, sound, and light guy for most of my bands I found it difficult to get any type of rhythm out of my light scenes since all five of my appendages were already spoken for (don't get any ideas, I'm taking about my vocal cords as #5, they're not THAT kind of bands)

At any rate, I was able to set up sound to light to a simple Blue Snowball (USB mic) that sat near my kick drum batter head. I set Freestyler up to change scenes every four beats. Wasn't perfect, but at least the lights changed on beat in time, not at epileptic random like the sound setting on soo many lights.

That was enough for me as I didn't have to 'man' it other than changing groups of scenes for types of songs during gigs. Something tells me bass cabs or subs would do the same thing.
Retired Authorized Loudspeaker Builder - Indianapolis, IN

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J_Dunavin
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Re: DIY Flood / upwash lights

#15 Post by J_Dunavin »

I'm glad it's working for you!
I programed some scenes to move with the beat and some just on their own. ( I have a slow song scene, that's just white dots that move back n forth.)
There is a line in option, so I take the Booth out of the mixing board into the line in on the laptop, seems to work ok.
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

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