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[Taylor Hall]

We did a small dry hire of some fixtures to a group that does what can best be described as mini trade shows (think breakout rooms instead of exhibition halls) and wanted some up lighting to add color to some of the rooms for the larger vendors. We gave them a dozen or so static wash fixtures to go around the periphery of each room (roughly 30ft x 60ft with 8-10ft ceilings) to make things roughly even and they were quite happy with the results.

Anyhow, they had one request afterwards to see if it was possible to basically paint an entire wall with solid color. We gave them an open ended 'we'll look into it' response while also disclosing it would probably add to the rental cost. So, short of just throwing a buttload of fixtures on each wall, is there a solution that fits within the following criteria:
1) Must be floor-standing aiming upwards while sitting flush against the wall (ellipsoidals and other overhead options are out since people standing behind tables would just be blinded and block the light)
2) Must be RGB3) Must attain full coverage as close to table height (around 3ft) as possible, or lower
4) Must be a turn-key set-and-forget finished product, no kludgy homebrew with random kinks or quirks that a tech-illiterate person can't understand or work around
We've been experimenting with various fixtures at the shop and diffusion material, but haven't really been able to get the coverage pattern we want at that height limit, even with 3ft LED bar fixtures. Any other products we could look at or techniques to utilize that would work better?

[Brian Jojade]

So the effect you are looking for could be achieved with a buttload of fixtures?

I would think that a load of LED strip washes would create a more even light than round cans, but it would still be a buttload of them.

Being strips though, they would be more compact than cans. Using parallel bars, you could aim one lower and the next higher to get more even wall coverage at the heights you want, adjusting the brightness of each to get the most even level.

[Paul G. OBrien]

is there a solution that fits within the following criteria:
1) Must be floor-standing aiming upwards while sitting flush against the wall (ellipsoidals and other overhead options are out since people standing behind tables would just be blinded and block the light)
2) Must be RGB3) Must attain full coverage as close to table height (around 3ft) as possible, or lower
4) Must be a turn-key set-and-forget finished product, no kludgy homebrew with random kinks or quirks that a tech-illiterate person can't understand or work around
We've been experimenting with various fixtures at the shop and diffusion material, but haven't really been able to get the coverage pattern we want at that height limit, even with 3ft LED bar fixtures.

Exactly what led bar fixture? The old school 1/4w -1w single color diode fixtures are the worst for color mixing in my experience, the tri color diode version does a much better job.

So the two option I see are better quality 1m bars or COB par fixtures with barn doors, the cob par has a much wider output pattern.. 60-90deg so it would do the job with the minimum number of fixtures, and the COB diode cluster also does a far better job with color mixing. I guess another option are zoom pars, that gives you the option to customize the output pattern to fit the job.

[Scott Hofmann]

You might experiment with some Rosco Opti-Sculpt plastic lens material for LED fixtures:  https://us.rosco.com/en/product/opti-sculpt
Not cheap but works very well in my experience. They have a 10ºx60º version that would stretch the native beam spread.

[Dave Garoutte]

Sounds like a Cyc light, but you'd still need a lot of them.
Also, you're still dealing with the inverse square law, so getting even distribution bottom to top is problematic.

[Taylor Hall]

So the effect you are looking for could be achieved with a buttload of fixtures?

I would think that a load of LED strip washes would create a more even light than round cans, but it would still be a buttload of them.

Being strips though, they would be more compact than cans. Using parallel bars, you could aim one lower and the next higher to get more even wall coverage at the heights you want, adjusting the brightness of each to get the most even level.

Yes, we were using a combo of short 1ft bars and 3ft bars, we tested with the pars we had but obviously they had worse dispersion.

Exactly what led bar fixture? The old school 1/4w -1w single color diode fixtures are the worst for color mixing in my experience, the tri color diode version does a much better job.

So the two option I see are better quality 1m bars or COB par fixtures with barn doors, the cob par has a much wider output pattern.. 60-90deg so it would do the job with the minimum number of fixtures, and the COB diode cluster also does a far better job with color mixing. I guess another option are zoom pars, that gives you the option to customize the output pattern to fit the job.

They were a mix of 1ft and 3ft bars using the smaller LED diodes in a large array, not the focused COB style that usually have a handful of emitters. I think I know a guy who has some of the pars you're talking about, I'll see if I can swipe one for a day or two and test out.

You might experiment with some Rosco Opti-Sculpt plastic lens material for LED fixtures:  https://us.rosco.com/en/product/opti-sculpt
Not cheap but works very well in my experience. They have a 10ºx60º version that would stretch the native beam spread.

Very cool, never seen that stuff before, sorta like a fresnel+ type material I wager?

Sounds like a Cyc light, but you'd still need a lot of them.
Also, you're still dealing with the inverse square law, so getting even distribution bottom to top is problematic.

I just discovered those before replying back here, and came to the same conclusion as you. The proximity to the wall and short ceiling height would basically be a wash (har) between any other fixture we had on hand already.


I think I've got enough info to try some new things and hopefully get a good enough proposal to the client, thanks for the inspiration!

[Don T. Williams]

What Dave recommended.  Cyc light are available from many manufacturers and should be easy to rent.  They are typically used on taller theatrical cycs, so I'm not certain what works best on 8' to 10' walls.  A theatrical rental should be able to demo one in an office, and like most of the lighting industry the new models are LED so current draw and color probably won't be an issue.

[Jonathan Kok]

Agreed on the Cyc lights / Batten fixtures. I would say the industry standard fixture by which all others are judged is the Colorforce II series from ChromaQ (at least, that's the one I've seen the most). It's designed specifically for what you're looking for, and will likely provide the most even lighting for your wall. You can certainly get cheaper fixtures from other manufacturers, of course, but the coverage won't be as even.

Pricey, to say the least.

https://chroma-q.com/products/color-force-ii-72

[Jonathan Goodall]

We did a small dry hire of some fixtures to a group that does what can best be described as mini trade shows (think breakout rooms instead of exhibition halls) and wanted some up lighting to add color to some of the rooms for the larger vendors. We gave them a dozen or so static wash fixtures to go around the periphery of each room (roughly 30ft x 60ft with 8-10ft ceilings) to make things roughly even and they were quite happy with the results.

Anyhow, they had one request afterwards to see if it was possible to basically paint an entire wall with solid color. We gave them an open ended 'we'll look into it' response while also disclosing it would probably add to the rental cost. So, short of just throwing a buttload of fixtures on each wall, is there a solution that fits within the following criteria:
1) Must be floor-standing aiming upwards while sitting flush against the wall (ellipsoidals and other overhead options are out since people standing behind tables would just be blinded and block the light)
2) Must be RGB3) Must attain full coverage as close to table height (around 3ft) as possible, or lower
4) Must be a turn-key set-and-forget finished product, no kludgy homebrew with random kinks or quirks that a tech-illiterate person can't understand or work around
We've been experimenting with various fixtures at the shop and diffusion material, but haven't really been able to get the coverage pattern we want at that height limit, even with 3ft LED bar fixtures. Any other products we could look at or techniques to utilize that would work better?

https://www.chauvetprofessional.com/products/ovation-cyc-1-fc/
How about something like this (The video shows them quite well).

[ProSoundWeb Community]