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Author Topic: LEDs for permanent install  (Read 8264 times)

Stephen Swaffer

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LEDs for permanent install
« on: October 27, 2013, 04:13:13 PM »

Our church does an annual live animal Christmas play with full theatrical lighting during the rest of the year our services are traditional and rally only have spot lights on speaker.  It as an old (mid 1800's) auditorium with a high peaked ceiling running parallel to the stage.  Main stage is about 40 feet wide and 13 feet tall and is choir area most of the year-we use 2 auxillary stages on either side for variety and to facillitate scene changes.  Lighting has been done from about 15' out and about 15' high with roughly 14 PAR 64's and some other downlighting/elliptacles and follow spots for emphasis.

We were given $5000 to install permanent lights vs renting every year.  The main stage wash lights would double as platform/choir wash rest of the year.  For appearance sakes, we would like to move lights back and up  against far ceiling-putting them roughly 30-40' from platform. 

From my research I am thinking maybe a mix of led/incandescent-perhaps LED for main stage wash to use all year and incadescent for lower cost to provide greater flexibility on side stages other areas.  Can LEDs handle this throw distance?  Any thoughts on angle-the farther back we go the lower the angle-how high is too high?  How many fixtures will it take to cover this stage? My day job is an electrician-and though I like LED I have not always felt they were as bright as the salesman said-and some (probably cheap) LEDs we rented for an event last spring were a fail, so our pastor is skeptical.  I know LED technology is changing quickly-so finding someone local with experience is almost impossible.

Thank you!
Steve Swaffer
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Steve Swaffer

Ron Hebbard

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2013, 02:18:02 AM »

I know LED technology is changing quickly-so finding someone local with experience is almost impossible.

Thank you!
Steve Swaffer

Steve;
Give a hint of your location, you never know who's out here with what equipment and experience.

Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
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Stephen Swaffer

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2013, 11:19:36 AM »

Steve;
Give a hint of your location, you never know who's out here with what equipment and experience.

Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Central Iowa
Steve
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Steve Swaffer

TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2013, 12:29:42 PM »

Our church does an annual live animal Christmas play with full theatrical lighting during the rest of the year our services are traditional and rally only have spot lights on speaker.  It as an old (mid 1800's) auditorium with a high peaked ceiling running parallel to the stage.  Main stage is about 40 feet wide and 13 feet tall and is choir area most of the year-we use 2 auxillary stages on either side for variety and to facillitate scene changes.  Lighting has been done from about 15' out and about 15' high with roughly 14 PAR 64's and some other downlighting/elliptacles and follow spots for emphasis.

We were given $5000 to install permanent lights vs renting every year.  The main stage wash lights would double as platform/choir wash rest of the year.  For appearance sakes, we would like to move lights back and up  against far ceiling-putting them roughly 30-40' from platform. 

From my research I am thinking maybe a mix of led/incandescent-perhaps LED for main stage wash to use all year and incadescent for lower cost to provide greater flexibility on side stages other areas.  Can LEDs handle this throw distance?  Any thoughts on angle-the farther back we go the lower the angle-how high is too high?  How many fixtures will it take to cover this stage? My day job is an electrician-and though I like LED I have not always felt they were as bright as the salesman said-and some (probably cheap) LEDs we rented for an event last spring were a fail, so our pastor is skeptical.  I know LED technology is changing quickly-so finding someone local with experience is almost impossible.

Thank you!
Steve Swaffer
LED throw distance is determined the same way as conventional throw distance - beam angle.  If you buy LED fixtures with a narrow beam angle, they will behave accordingly.

Inexpensive LEDs - $500/fixture or less - are good at saturated colors, and any of the fixtures that have 36 watts of LED emitters or more will keep up with 500w pars for most gel colors - the darker the gel, the more the LED will outrun the par, closer to open white the par may win.  For white light and a reasonable budget, I would stick to tungsten.

The other advantage of LEDs is the ability for one fixture to make multiple colors, potentially replacing more than one conventional fixture with a single LED.

I own 16 Chauvet SlimPar Pro RGBA fixtures, and there is a 15° lens kit available for them.  I find they keep up nicely with 575w Source-4 type lights in the applications I use them.  My usual stage size is 24'x24' to 32'x24', and I tend to put 8 fixtures on front wash and 8 for lighting the backdrop with good results, depending on what you're trying to do.

For lighting angle - 45° up from head height is about ideal.  A 40' throw will be a challenge unless you've got 25' of trim height or so.
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Cailen Waddell

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2013, 12:30:57 PM »

Steve

My original background is lighting, and I am pretty current on what is out there, as I just finished a theater renovation in one of our spaces a couple years ago and I am about 2 months from completion on another.  The technology changes very fast. I think you will not be happy with the LED fixtures you can get for the money you have.

Since you are an electrician, I assume a large part of installation costs will be pro bono, still, led fixtures will need some control, and that could possible eat up most of the budget if you don't have some already.

Regardless, you didn't post here so I could beat you up on how much money you have to spend.

For a low-budget option, I would look at the chauvet fixtures.

This one won't get you great whites but good
Colors. http://www.chauvetlighting.com/colorado1-tri-tour.html

There are some others that use rgbw LEDs that will give better but no good whites

For gold standard fixtures at support, look at the electronic theater controls desire range for wash lights and the led source 4 for ellipsoidals. Your budget won't last long but the lustr units do great white and colors.

For reference, the fixtures and cable alone we just bought for a 200 seat black box theater, was about 100k. This doesn't include any control or infrastructure.
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Kyle Leonard

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2013, 12:54:43 PM »

Steve,

I think you may want to hire a consultant. Or you can make a 3D drawing and submit it to Lightronics explaining what you'd like to do. That at least would give you a good idea of the type of fixtures you may need.

I don't think you'll be able to replace everything with LED with a $5000 budget, especially with a 30-40 foot throw. The price points just haven't come down that much for lights that can do that.

You also need to know what kind of power you have available. If you use incandescents, you need dimmer packs. Don't forget, you'll need to get a DMX signal to everything. So figure the cost of an optosplitter (~$400) and cabling, too. You also need to determine how you can SAFELY hang any lights and dimmers.


Take a good look at Mega Systems http://megasystemsinc.com/ for some good inexpensive lights. Blizzard has some good ones, too.


For more professional lights, look at lightronics.com or etcconnect.com

A good resource is Lighting Design for Modern Houses of Worship by Richard Cadena.
http://www.amazon.com/Lighting-Design-Modern-Houses-Worship/dp/097981071X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1383065338&sr=8-3&keywords=richard+cadena

Kyle
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duane massey

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2013, 09:31:29 PM »

These are very cost-effective ($330 online):
http://www.americandj.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=2128&MainId=2&Category=L.E.D.

I have used these in a theater @ 40' and the client was very pleased ($200 online):
http://www.americandj.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=2126&MainId=2&Category=L.E.D.

Same fixtures available w/ white instead of amber, and the bigger guys are also available in white+warm white.

I assume you have a controller? If not, your budget may not get you where you need to be.
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Duane Massey
Technician, musician, stubborn old guy
Houston, Texas

Stephen Swaffer

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2013, 10:11:34 PM »

Tom, not to ask stupid questions, but what do you mean by trim height?

I know the budget may not be enough-it was given as a designated gift, so we need to spend it on lighting-but right now don't have a lot to go with it.  If we were in this to make $$$ we would sell tickets and base their price on the budget, still we want to do the best we can with what we have.  We can rent a controller for a reasonable cost for 2 weeks-rest of the year we should be able to get by with a basic controller.  Not the best scenario-but may be necessary.

I can get whatever power I need where we need it-but that obviously is a big part of my headache and LED vs incandescent makes a big difference.  Even if we have to do this in steps to make the money work it would be nice to know where we are going from that standpoint.

Any reason not to mix LEDs with incadescent?  The locations we might put incandescent are different than what I am thinking for the main stage wash-so infrastructure wise it makes sense to me to make that split. Given timing we may rent/buy what we have used in the past-and wait until spring to do LEDs. 

Thanks for many helpful comments!

Steve Swaffer
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Steve Swaffer

Cailen Waddell

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2013, 10:57:07 PM »

Trim height is the height of the pipe you would
clamp the fixture to.  But I'm guessing you probably don't have a pipe to hang the lights from?  In that case you are looking at bringing in a structural engineer (maybe there is one in the congregation) to design a pipe grid or just a pipe.  Schedule 40 1.5" ID pipe suspended in a way to accommodate 30 pounds per linear foot is a great place to start. If you anticipate moving lights in your future you may want to go a bit higher.

I think that putting blizzard/American Dj/lightronics in an install is a poor choice. The long term performance of the product is at best untested, and the brand reliability is not stellar. 

I think $5000 a year is a reasonable rental budget to rent the lights you need for 2 weeks and a production company to install them competently.
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Cailen Waddell

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Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2013, 11:00:54 PM »

Steve,

Perhaps a better approach here is to better define what you want.  What are the dimensions of the spaces you want to light?  How many foot candles of light do you require?  How would you like it controlled. Who is the end user on non theatrical days?  How will they need to control the lights. 

I think a consultant that would help you answer these questions and them develop a long term phasing plan to get the lighting you need might be a better use of the $5000 you have.

Again - good lighting can be as expensive or more expensive than good sound.
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: LEDs for permanent install
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2013, 11:00:54 PM »


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