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Benjamin Davis from dv8 Youth Ministries in Crowley, TX brings us these super lightweight and simple light boxes.
They accomplished this design with air filters, duct tape, and some LED lighting.
Benjamin bought 76 air filters ($1.30 each). Then he bought 12 rolls of duct tape ($3.40 each). Total cost: $140.
First he took four filters and taped them together. Then he cut 6.5″ squares from the cardboard boxes the air filters came in. He cut those in triangles to use at the corners of his boxes to support the shape and block light. Then he taped the triangles to the corners on top and bottom of the boxes.
Finally he taped the boxes together to create a stack. He taped an air filter on the top box to keep light from escaping too much. Then he put an LED light at the bottom of each stack to illuminate it.
I write and speak about the creative process – especially for churches. Call me a resource for the church creative wanting to make their ministry better.
I love this idea. What LED fixtures were used?
We Use ’54w LED PAR Light (EPC-54W-RGBW)’ But I would say any strong LED Par Light should do the job great!
These are fantastic! I would also like to know what fixtures you used. Are the black bottom boxes wood that hold the lights?
Thanks SO MUCH!
I answered the light question in previous. =)
The Boxes are actually cardboard Boxes covered in black duct tape, using the same triangles for the corners to block light.
The Front Two on the stage are Sub-woofers But the Back Two bottom boxes are where the lights are placed into. (A cut out i made that flips open and closes back to avoid light escaping.)
The two lights on the subs are Flat Par Lights so they sit on the speakers without really being seen.
How much we’re the lights and where did you order them? Please post a link if possible. I tried googling and the ones I found didn’t show a price.
This is brilliant!
If this had a like button, I’d Like it!
Where did he find air filters that cheap?
I actually Found them at a local grocery store. “Brookshire’s”
They are super thin filters. They had them for the cheapest i’ve seen! (Of course, I had to have them special ordered for me.)
Neat idea!
I’m curious to know more about the fixtures you used. I noticed its a china import fixture.
1) Would you buy them again?
2) Where did you get them?
3) Price range? The websites I saw said 4 units min and price negotiable.
4) Do they have a good dimming curve? Many cheaper LED fixtures don’t dim well at low intensities. Do these work well at low levels?
I hope you are having a blast coming up with creative ways of using resources to serve God and your ministry!
Sincerely,
Bill
I am curious about the LED’s mentioned and I have all the same questions as Bill.
Rick
Those look great, We plan on making some for our youth church. Do you know what brand of air filters these are and their product number. Thanks again for the great idea.
I just made some of these for our church in Scottsdale this past weekend. They look awesome! I found the filters through a local dealer AZ Partsmaster (although we chose to use smaller 16″x16″ filters instead of 20″x20″). Surprisingly the 20″ were cheaper. Only 85 cents a piece. I picked them up directly from them through will call. http://www.azpartsmaster.com/Products/Disposable-Panel-Air-Filter-20-x-20-x-1-Case-of-12__152020.aspx
I give all the props to Benjamin for this idea! I should warn you though, these took a long time to make. The fastest I could make each box was 20min. Once you add the lids, boxes below, and corners to hide light you should expect 45min-hour for each box. We made 20.
We used some cheap Chauvet LED’s that we bought recently when Musician’s Friend had them on sale for 2 for 1. http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/chauvet-ledsplash-200b?tandt_rdir=1 They lit up four boxes high pretty well but I could see how a brighter led would be better. Especially if you went higher with your towers. Oh, we also put tin foil on the under side of the lid so any excess light might bounce back down and fill up the tower again. That seemed to work well.
Only other piece of advice I would add is these do bleed a little. As you can see in Ben’s pictures the walls behind them do light up a bit. We put one in front of (and below) our center screen and it bled a little. Luckily our projector is bright enough to over power it.
Great idea Ben! We got lots of compliments!!!
Will these come back white or do they have a blue tint?
I just did some checking, and these exact filters are $.59 at Mills Fleet Farm! (yep – I’m pumped!)
I visited their site and they don’t provide info for square filters. (i.e. 16×16 or 20×20) Are you using the rectangular filters or is there a way to find square ones? I see there is a phone number. Will they have to be special ordered to get the squares???? Help please? Thanks!
forgot to get the reply via email….
Troy, those links are pretty old now. Not sure why the pictures shows them blue. They were not blue in the picture or in person when we received them. What we got was slightly different than the picture anyway but was still what we needed. And ours were square. This is just one of many companies that offered them. You can do your own research and find them elsewhere, others have as you can read below. Or simply call that company and ask. As far as disassembly, I would say they don’t come apart once tapped. You could I guess take a blade to the seems and take them apart just to later retape them but that would be a chore, especially if you added corner pieces on tops and bottoms. That does make storing them a challenge. As far as lights, many different lights would work. Just try something and make it your own. We’ve enjoyed ours.
so where did you find filters for $0.59?? Im in Athens ga and I can’t find a good price do to this… Please help…
Here you go David – 57 cents each! http://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/aaf-stratadensity-fiberglass-furnace-filters/0000000046493
Yes mike they are time consuming! But if you have the right help they shouldn’t take to long. Yes 20 mins a box is about right :)
I’m excited to see others using my idea !
Rick and Bill. Let me see where we buy them and let me get back to you. Yes they are china imports that we get and our actually pretty goog lights in my opinion.
Let me check and ill post a new comment.
Light cost? Link please? Thanks!
Troy- would love to discuss more about solutions for your space! Shoot me an email luke@vinno.co
Gonna try this, love the look
I can wait to do these for our women’s ministry. This is brilliant!! Great job!
Thank you! Praise God! Love the sharing of ideas on this site!
I was searching around for a way to make our own version of “atomic pillow walls” because renting them is cost prohibitive.
I believe these will work for that purpose as well. I’m just going to hang them together with “s” hooks, and should be able to reconfigure into many interesting designs and set changes over time!
If anyone has tried it that way, or has feedback before we go for it, please post! My only concern is how reflective they will be when uplit from the outside. I’m hoping close enough to look like a real “atomic pillow wall”.
We will be hanging them in columns of 6 or so over a black draped backdrop. Then uplighting from the stage with color led’s that are DMX controlled so we can change scenes as needed. Actually we have the ability to downlight them too, so I guess we’ll experiment with what works best!
Thanks again!
@Jeremy Schoenberger ! Yes sounds like a great idea! they should do great on a black backdrop and should glow great!
Where did you get these filters? I cannot find anything in that price range. Everything I have found has been anywhere from $5-15 per filter. I love this idea and want to try it. Any advice on where to find something similar to what you have here?
Just ordered them for $10.24 per pack of 12 with only $8 shipping from the link listed above:
http://www.azpartsmaster.com/Products/Disposable-Panel-Air-Filter-20-x-20-x-1-Case-of-12__152020.aspx
Thanks for the awesome idea!!
Could you please help me? I am VERY interested in giving this a shot for our kid’s ministry room. They appear blue in the link you’ve provided. What happens to avoid the blue? Are they white? Do you disassemble pieces? Thanks.
Forgot to click “notify via email”….
http://www.fleetfarm.com $.57/each
http://www.fleetfarm.com, 57 cents each for the 20x20x1 size. I bought 80.
Ben, you never put on here where you got your lights at. Would you care to add that? Of course, I’m scouring the internet for the cheapest ones, so it may not be necessary anyway – just wondering tho! These look great and I’m excited about giving them a try. How creative!
Like this idea! Wondering about fire hazard
Any idea where you get duct tape that cheap? Best I’m finding is a generic name on Amazon for $4.97. Thanks.
Never mind, I think the difference is the one I found was 60 yards, the cheaper ones are only 20 yard, so the one I found on Amazon was cheaper. Thanks!
We have some of the old traditional PAR can lights that we aren’t using. Could these be used instead of the LED PARs?
Thanks!
We just ordered 250 of these filters for a version of this for our easter set. Thanks for the idea!
LOVE this idea– thanks so much for sharing! We’re doing a stage redesign for Easter, and I’ll be making some of these asap! Thanks, everyone, for the insight… good to know it takes some time for assembly. :)
First Off I would like to apologize about the late replies. I’m so blessed that there are so many comments and people using my ideas!
LETS ANSWER THESE:
@LIGHTING QUESTIONS
WHERE:
http://tkslight.manufacturer.globalsources.com/si/6008842693601/pdtl/LED-light/1044524714/LED-Par-Light.htm
COST:
$280ea
You have to contact them for the pricing cost.
FIRE HAZARD QUESTIONS:
The LEDs That we use have a great cooling system and they stay pretty cool.
I would NOT use regular PAR lighting. They tend to get really hot, really fast. (For this situation anyways)
DUCT TAPE QUESTIONS:
WHERE: Walmart
COST: $3.40ea
SEPARATION QUESTIONS:
After Taping them all together they become Big and hard to store.
We have since then, Cut the boxes apart and just use them as separate boxes. Many more ideas have come from this and moving them around to make new designs is a cinch.
I thought the lighting escaping would be and issue, but it hasn’t.
FILTER QUESTIONS:
Let me know if you have any still. There are some good links above already.
Love all you guys! I want to thank all of you for taking the idea God has given me and for using it all over the world.
REMEMBER: “WE ARE ALL CREATED IN HIS IMAGE,
HE IS THE BEST CREATOR.
WE ARE ALL CREATORS TOO.
HAPPY CREATING!” BENJAMIN DAVIS
Ben, As we are taping the filters together we are finding it hard to make each side the same. The tape is a wider strip on two sides due to the way the filters fit together. Yours all look uniform on all sides. How did you tape them together where you don’t have wide strip on some sides? Thanks!
It is an awesome idea and it’s exciting to see how many folks liked it! Guess our congregation will like it as well!
@Nancy at Westside
I taped the two outer filters to the two inner filters. Thus doing this you really don’t get squares. They are actually longer one way than they are the other. (Rectangle) . As long as you place your squares on top of each other properly they look square.
Thanks! That’s what we did, just wondered if it was the right way to do it. =)
Alright,I found the filters and I’m preparing to scour for duct tape. I saw that you use 2 rolls per fixture. What size roll? 60 yards? Thank you in advance!!!
They were actually only 20 yards, so 60 should get you a fixture and a half :)
Does it matter if the filters are blue?
Thanks!
Hey Kelley! I just ordered 80 white ones at 57 cents each from http://www.fleetfarm.com. There is an assortment of sizes but this cost was for the 20x20x1. Good luck!
Thank you so much Troy!
I have not tried blue filters. I wouldn’t think they would glow quite at well. Don’t take my word for it though. I feel the white helps reflect the light. Ben.
I can’t find plain white filters. The filters at the link provided (http://www.azpartsmaster.com/Products/Disposable-Panel-Air-Filter-20-x-20-x-1-Case-of-12__152020.aspx ) show up as blue.
Thanks for this great inspiration!!!
http://www.fleetfarm.com 57 cents each!!!!
Thank you, Troy!!!
You’re welcome, Bonnie!