ScottyMo Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 Thought I would share a different approach to singing facesInstead of making my singing faces out of rope light, I decided to do something a little different. I wanted to go with fully lit up faces as opposed to outlines.I built them using 12v RGB modules which allows me to make each singer any color.My main singing pumpkin is 4 feet wide X 5.5 feet high. The back-up singers are 3.5 feet wide X 4 feet high.Here is a small snippet of video that shows the main singer and one of the back-up singers.https://vimeo.com/48996187The video and audio are not very good quality. However, the faces look better in real life.ScottyMo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ Hvasta Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 How did you do that? What spreads the color across the faces? Are you using coro? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0chte Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 I was just thinking how long until someone improves on the ropelight design.. That is pretty awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Long Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 Wow, i like that Would also be interested in how you did it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Boyd Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 How did you do that? What spreads the color across the faces? Are you using coro?Wow, i like that Would also be interested in how you did itInquiring minds want to know. If I knew how to do that, I would do some singing faces too.Very nice job, but we need a how-to please!Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottyMo Posted September 7, 2012 Author Share Posted September 7, 2012 How did you do that? What spreads the color across the faces? Are you using coro?Hey TJ. No, I’m not using coro. White coro does work, however, you can see small white lines throughout. Since the sidewalk is only about 20 feet from the front of my house, I didn’t want the lines to be visible. For houses set back further from the road, white coro would be fine.Instead, I contacted a local plastic supplier and purchased “sign white” plexi. The same material used for backlit signs.I’ll put together a summary of how I did it and include some pictures.ScottyMo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottyMo Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 As promised, below is a description of how I created these faces…The face frame is made with a plywood back and 1x6 pine sides. The main singer has 1x4 sides, but I switched to 1x6 for the backup singers. (1x6 works better). The front of the boxes is white plexi. Same stuff used in backlit commercial signs (they call it “sign white”)Here is a pic from the front with the covers on...I used a roll of 6” wide aluminum flashing from Home Depot to create\form the face sections. I simply fold\crease them into an "L" shape and screwed them to the plywood with zip screws.I cut the top 2” off a 5gal pail and attached the aluminum to it to form the “o” shape in the center of the mouth…I then attached RGB modules to the back plywood, and wired them to a 27 channel DMX board from Ray Wu (Kevin’s store as them now too), which is powered by a 16.5a power supply…The main singer uses 7 channels…1 for the face1 for the stem1 left eye1 right eye3 for the mouth positionsThe backup singers share the same controller to keep costs down. So they use only 4 channels each.1 for the face3 for the mouth positionsI didn’t want to drill any holes in the plexi to mount it to the frame. So instead, I found some 8 foot lengths of black aluminum ¾” “L” channel. It holds the plexi in place very well and provides a nice looking edge. (not shown in the pictures)Here are a couple more pics...Feel free to fire over any questions,ScottyMo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Nicely done.For reference, what size are those, and do you know how many LED modules are in them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logandc99 Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Very clever! I love the inventiveness of people on this site and the willingness to share their clever ideas. Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tofer26 Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Those are very impressive! What an awesome idea. I know I'm afraid to ask, but approximately how much would one of those cost to DIY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougP Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Very nice job, very impressive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottyMo Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 Nicely done.For reference, what size are those, and do you know how many LED modules are in them?The main singer is 4'x5.5'The backup singers are 3.5'x4'About 170 modules for the main singer and around 90 for the backup singers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottyMo Posted September 8, 2012 Author Share Posted September 8, 2012 Those are very impressive! What an awesome idea. I know I'm afraid to ask, but approximately how much would one of those cost to DIY.Ouch. I'm now wishing you didn't ask that question. I really hadn't added it all up until now.For the main singer...Lumber : 35Plexi: 90Controller: 50Power Supply: 30Leds: 110Trim: 20Aluminum: 30So about $365 not including wire, screws, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Ouch. I'm now wishing you didn't ask that question. I really hadn't added it all up until now.For the main singer...Lumber : 35Plexi: 90Controller: 50Power Supply: 30Leds: 110Trim: 20Aluminum: 30So about $365 not including wire, screws, etc.But you did get a discount on the back-up singer, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Fischer Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Very nice and unique way to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petek157 Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Darn you beat me to it. I just did some testing and design to do nearly the exact same thing. Nice.... Great minds think alike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottyMo Posted September 9, 2012 Author Share Posted September 9, 2012 But you did get a discount on the back-up singer, right? Yes the back-up singers cost me less. Because they are smaller, but mainly because the 2 backup singers share the same controller and power supply to keep costs down. The only real down side is that there are not enough channels for the back-up singers to blink or wink. Only the main singer can do those functionsScottyMo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torqumada286 Posted September 9, 2012 Share Posted September 9, 2012 This is pretty cool. Great job.Torqumada Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Czerwinski Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Thanks for posting this idea and actually doing it!!!! WELL DONE!I was thinking of the same idea - but more from a model airplane perspective. A light frame can be made and they have MonoKote thin plastic you can iron on to the edges, and then use a heat gun to tighten up the surface - kinda like a drum. Instead of LEDs, I would just use a couple of little xmas light bulbs, like C9s, and maybe even add a couple of different ones per a cell for color -- maybe even test RGB.The design would be a little lower in cost, but the main benefit would be a lighter display that I could hang up high on the wall of my home. I suppose the problem might then turn in to it being too light (like an airplane wing) and might flop around in the wind if not really well mounted!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tofer26 Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Ouch. I'm now wishing you didn't ask that question. I really hadn't added it all up until now.For the main singer...Lumber : 35Plexi: 90Controller: 50Power Supply: 30Leds: 110Trim: 20Aluminum: 30So about $365 not including wire, screws, etc. Ouch! Sure does look awesome though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts