Stage Designs

Disco Wall

Kyle Lee from Southpointe Church in Oklahoma City, OK brings us this awesome disco-floor wall.

From Kyle: This design came to my mind as I was making some loops on my Novation Circuit.

There are 76 individually DMX controllable 18”x18” squares. It’s 4 squares high by 19 across. We run the wall with Jands Vista and I’m really pleased with the versatility of it.

We started by covering our plywood with foil using spray adhesive. Then we took the 1x1s and made our squares (18”x18”). After than we drilled a 1/2” hole into the corner of each square for wiring the lights.

Next we lined each square with Supernight 50/50 Waterproof Led Strips. (Sidenote: The adhesive on the back of the strips does not stay very well on the wood. We ended up having to use heavy duty clear packing tape. I’m sure there is a better way lol)

Once the squares were lined with lights we used a ton of RGB extension cable and wired them to 24 Channel DMX decoders. The decoders were powered by 12v 30a power supplies.

Finally we used Savage photo backdrop paper to cover the whole wall with one solid sheet. We used heavy duty black gorilla tape to secure the top and bottom and ends but didn’t stretch the paper as tight as possible because we wanted a little bit of space to cause better light diffusion.

And that’s it! All this came in around $1700.

Some things I would do differently:
1. I wish we would have made it at least 5 square high. I would suggest to anyone that wants to make something like this to always build a center row both horizontally and vertically.
2. I don’t think the foil does much, I think if I did it again i would paint the wood white.
3. Since we bought everything pretty cheap off of Amazon there is a crazy amount of variation in some of the colors from square to square. Not sure if it’s the lights or the decoders. If I were to do it again I’d want to fix that.

Processed with VSCO with c7 preset

Throwback: The Junkyard The Elements

18 responses to “Disco Wall”

  1. Ryan hodges says:

    Are you controlling each square individually? Looks awesome.

    • Kyle says:

      Thanks, Ryan! Yes, we have control of each square individually. Glad you like it!

    • Matt says:

      I am having a hard time wiring the led tape to the decoder for a project I am doing based off your design. We got the Superlight LED tape but it is 8mm tape and all I can find are 10mm connectors to connect tape to extension cable. What was your process? Thanks!

  2. ScottMo says:

    It looks amazing!

  3. Dan says:

    Looks phenomenal, do you have pictures of the connections behind the squares, I can’t tell if you solder each corner or the LED tape goes all around the entire square. Also is the Savage Paper you used a solid color? thank you!!

    • Kyle says:

      Hey Dan!
      I don’t have any great pictures of the back at the moment, but basically each square is individually lined with 6ft of led tape and then each 6ft strip is individually connected in to a 24ch DMX decoder. No soldering on the entire wall.
      The photo paper is just solid white

      Hope that helps!

      • David Ceasar says:

        Why would you need 24 channel decoders on LED tape? Could the same thing be done with one 4 channel decoder per square?

        • Kyle says:

          David, you could buy individual decoders if you want, just way more expensive and a ton more things to set up.

          Our lights were only 3channel so by using 24ch decoder we were able to connect 8 lights to each decoder. Then you only need a power supply for every 8 lights instead of each light. Also a lot easier to program. One dip switch per 8 lights but all 8 still have individual control.

          The decoders we bought were $50 a piece and we bought 10. The 3channel ones we use for some of our other stuff are $20 a piece and we would have needed 76.
          So we paid $500 where individual 3ch ones would have been $1520. The 24ch ones work exactly as 8 individual 3ch ones, just cheaper and easier.
          Hope that clears it up.

          • Christian says:

            Hey Kyle, I love the setup! Where can I find the 24 channel decoders for a reasonable price?

          • Kyle says:

            Christian, sorry I’m just replying, the notification was buried in my emails.
            You can just search 24ch dmx decoder on Amazon and that should do it. Our were around $50/decoder. Hope that helps!

  4. Gordon says:

    Thanks for sharing this great design Kyle! So the white Savage Photo paper you just laid straight across the front? And it’s translucent enough that the LED colours can shine through it?

  5. David Lee says:

    Kyle, This design is awesome, and we are looking to do something pretty identical for our stage design. I actually have a lot of questions, is there any chance we could exchange contacts and talk about the process? Have you had any issues with the tape failing since installing?

  6. Julia Nachtigal says:

    Very cool! Is the paper just solid white or did you have to find something a bit more translucent?

  7. Andrew Gansel says:

    This is an awesome design I would love to recreate. Ive done some similar led work in the past using more user friendly controllers. Can I ask what software you are using and or how you are controlling the LED Strips.

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