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What are the best dmx led rgb flood lights on the market


duner10

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I am looking for a way to light up the side of our local courthouse building. It is approx 100' long on each and I want to be able to flood the side with lights and control them where they will chase up and down the building. Any input would help... thanks

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Chase up and down or sideways?

Looks like Jeffrey (in the video) is using RGB theatre lights from suppliers like Elation and such. They are mounted on the ground and about 1/3 of the way up the columns, judging from the shadows that were cast.

If so, these lights are not cheap; about $300 each. Probably 12-14 lights in the video.

I saw a video the other day that had 5 meter RGB LED strips about 2 feet away from the wall and pointed back at the wall. They were hardly noticable in the video and he was able to change the wash color every 4 feet or so. Looked very good. To enhance the look, he also has some of the same RGB strips facing the audience. These were the kind where the entire strip was the same color. But each strip was individually controllable.

This can be done with 5 meter RGB strips for about $42 per strip. Five meters is about 17 feet, but you didn't say how high the building is. These strips can also be cut to shorter lengths.

Being a welder, I would just make up some 3/4 or 1 inch square tubing the height of the outside wall and populate it with some of these $42 strips. Control them with a LOR DC controller and a power supply. Five strips can be controlled with the LOR DC unit.

This season, one of my customers requested an 8 foot high "Fire Stick" using five RGB strips (about 18 inches each). A LOR DC controller and a 20 amp DC power supply in a weatherproof case and PRESTO, a new light fixture to program and play with. The cost: about $160 for each "Fire Stick". Customer said yes and ordered four of them. Off we go....

If this interests you, let me know and I can provide more details and links.

Why not build one and see what it looks like on the side of your building project? Probably around $175-$185 investment.

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Your original question needs a clearer answer: The best DMX LED RGB floodlights are something similar to: http://www.elationlighting.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=1733&Category=LED Lighting&txtSearch=

But at about $800-$1000 each, you might check your budget beforehand.

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Wow Ken, thanks for the great answer. I think the led strips would be a wonderful idea. I am toying with the idea of buying stellagreen light strings from stellascapes and powering them with madrix. I would love to get some more information on your firesticks. Sounds like something fun to play with. Have you had any experience with stellascapes products.

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Search the forums for Stellascapes or Madrix and you will find others with experience in that area. You might get a lot more support if you visited other forums that specialize in that type of lighting, like http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/forum.php

or http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php

The stellascape strings are about $120 each and you would need at least 100 strings for it to start to look good. Madrix software starts at $500 and the controllers would be around $400 each, I think. Starts to get pricey quickly, eh?

What you see is called Martix Lighting or Pixel Lighting, which is much more complex and costly than the LOR approach. There's a longer learning curve also.

Some people are dabbling in this, others are going full throttle. It's up to you to decide what to do.

LOR is starting in that direction soon by supporting some of this pixel mapping stuff with the E1.31 protocol (networked DMX) in their S3 software sometime this year. This would allow thousands of channels for your display.

Drool yourself to death watching this 12,000 DMX channel display: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hNorlgJcQs?version=3

And don't think it's cheap.

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I am getting some descent funding from a local non-profit fund. I think I can afford 100 stands of stellascapes light strings. I have been reviewing madrix software and it doesn't look too scary but neither did programming ccr's and that can be a bear. I don't know if you have seen this display but I would love to put something like this together for my community to enjoy.

http://www.rockyrunchristmas.com/2011video.html

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lharzman wrote:

I am looking for a way to light up the side of our local courthouse building. It is approx 100' long on each and I want to be able to flood the side with lights and control them where they will chase up and down the building. Any input would help... thanks


I would strongly recommend the Rainbow Extreme RGB flood. Kit form they're $100, assembled $150. Constant current controller built in, DMX controlled.

Here's a link to the kit:

http://www.seasonalentertainmentllc.com/store/en/diy-products/76-rainbow-flood-extreme.html
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GaryMartin wrote:

lharzman wrote:
I am looking for a way to light up the side of our local courthouse building. It is approx 100' long on each and I want to be able to flood the side with lights and control them where they will chase up and down the building. Any input would help... thanks


I would strongly recommend the Rainbow Extreme RGB flood. Kit form they're $100, assembled $150. Constant current controller built in, DMX controlled.

Here's a link to the kit:

http://www.seasonalentertainmentllc.com/store/en/diy-products/76-rainbow-flood-extreme.html


Agreed. I spoke to Greg with Seasonal Entertainment, and he was very helpful. I'm considering adding floods to my display in '12 and gave him my dimensions, and he did a lot of the work for me!
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I bought some RGB floods from Greg last year and just never got around to hooking them up. Now I have forgotten how to do it. What do I need from LOR and other things to make them work? I want to use them for sure in my 2012 display.

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CKSedg wrote:

I bought some RGB floods from Greg last year and just never got around to hooking them up. Now I have forgotten how to do it. What do I need from LOR and other things to make them work? I want to use them for sure in my 2012 display.


You will need a 12 volt power supply, a Blender (which you probably already have if you but them last year) and some sort of DMX dongle that LOR supports. That can include any of the Enttec dongles, any of the LOR RS485 dongles and the Lynx dongle.

Attach your power to the Blender, create your DMX network with your dongle and plug your Extreme into the Blender. Than all you have to do is enjoy the brightness :P

You may want to take a look at this document which explains how to get a DMX network into and LOR environment.

http://seasonalentertainmentllc.com/pdf/UnderstandingDMX.pdf
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Thank you very much, Ponddude! It was very nice of you to help. It's amazing how much I forget from year to year. I have started tracking everything on paper, because I can't remember how it was all set up.

I know---old age.

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I bought a chauvet colorsplash flood and a chauvet color pallette today. I will open them tomorrow and put a video together so everyone can see the results and differences between the two... I will have to find a way to protect them from the elements. The lights were each approximately $110. I appreciate the input from everyone and know that now I have to do some testing.

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The problem with those inexpensive DJ lights is that they're not even close to being outdoor units. :P It takes a lot of effort to convert them over to something useable when there are already options for RGB Floods that are packaged up to withstand any weather. In most cases, floods like the Rainbow Extreme are a TON brighter than the Chauvet floods.

lharzman wrote:

I bought a chauvet colorsplash flood and a chauvet color pallette today. I will open them tomorrow and put a video together so everyone can see the results and differences between the two... I will have to find a way to protect them from the elements. The lights were each approximately $110. I appreciate the input from everyone and know that now I have to do some testing.
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The only problem with the extreme floods (which I think would look really awesome) is if you don't have DMX stuff in your setup already, you have to put a lot in to be able to use them :(

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lharzman wrote:

Does anyone know where I can view a product video on the Rainbow Extreme RGB flood light.  Or is there a good video that shows how much light it projects...


This is from their website:

http://seasonalentertainmentllc.com/rainbowfloodlight.htm

It's hard to show how much light it gives unless you have a special camera with a low-light filter gizmo on it. But, maybe this gives you an idea :(
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lharzman wrote:

Does anyone know where I can view a product video on the Rainbow Extreme RGB flood light.  Or is there a good video that shows how much light it projects...


Sure, here you go. This is the demo video of the Rainbow Flood Extreme:

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GaryMartin wrote:

lharzman wrote:
Does anyone know where I can view a product video on the Rainbow Extreme RGB flood light.  Or is there a good video that shows how much light it projects...


Sure, here you go. This is the demo video of the Rainbow Flood Extreme:



Wierd, can't edit my own posts anymore?

Anwyay, I wanted to add that here is a quick demo that Richard Holdman put together showing the difference between the Rainbow Flood (older unit) and the Rainbow Flood Extreme on the top:

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