Stage Designs

Blinder Towers

Josh Ferris from Praise Church in Beaumont, TX brings us these small towers of blinder lamps. (Originally posted February 2014)

They wanted the feel of incandescent without the cost associated with commercially available products. The most complex issue was designing a system that would allow a certain degree of mapping without requiring a ridiculous amount of dimming. Due to cost, conventional rack dimmers were ruled out fairly quickly. So they started researching low amperage products leading them to the Doug Fleenor DMX24DIM.

Further calculations indicated that by using 45w lamps, they could stack (2) lamps on each dimmer circuit, although barely. Assuming a purchase of (2) DMX24DIM units, they landed on a final count of (48) dimmer channels with (2) lamps per dimmer circuit distributed across (16) vertical towers.

Having seen a few other churches successfully use clamp lights for this type of application, they knew that was the direction to go. However, having overbuilt their fair share of stage props, they were dedicated to engineering a lightweight and sturdy framework. The idea of using 1/2″ EMT (conduit) came quickly, but building an appropriate base took some trial and error. In the end, the towers were very lightweight, quite stable, and sturdy enough to handle an occasional collision from band members.

Material List:

(2) Doug Fleenor DMX24DIM
(96) Clamp Lights
(96) 45w flood lamps
(96) 2 prong AC plugs (Edison)
(2000) ft 18/2 zip cord
(32) 10′ 1/2″ EMT
(1) case flat black spray paint
(20) ft 10/3 SOOW cable (dimmer supply)
(24) ft 2×8 (bases)
(32) ft 1×4 (bases)
(6) people on project
(120) total man hours

Towers1

Towers2

Towers3

Towers5

Towers6.JPG

Towers4.JPG

Coro Bricks The Radiant Harvest

23 responses to “Blinder Towers”

  1. Alfred says:

    did u program the lights?can u send me the plan of the the whole lighting setup as i would love to do a similar project…thanks email: alfredwiafe102@hotmail.com

  2. Joey says:

    Can u send me the plan of the the whole lighting setup as well; I would really like to do this stage design. Thanks.

  3. Danny Sena says:

    Id also like to be included in the Setup email, if possible.
    Definitely looking to do this for our youth conference.
    Looks really great.
    Danny.senaa@gmail.com

  4. Barry Carter says:

    I would like the plans as well if possible… This looks great!

  5. Josh Ferris says:

    Guys, I don’t have anything to send you, but if you’ve got specific questions send me something on email or twitter and I’ll hit you back. Thanks for the compliments!
    @josh_ferris
    joshferris@praisebeaumont.com

  6. Cesar Alfaro says:

    Hi!
    You could show a picture of how you connected all the dimmer?
    I would like to see the dimmer you used and how you connected each tower to have a clear idea of how are you distributing electricity.
    Thanks from now!

    • Josh Ferris says:

      Cesar – our dimmers are buried under our stage, but here’s a picture of the exact dimmer we used, it’s a Doug Fleenor Design DMX24.

      http://www.dfd.com/images/DMX24DIM_rear-with-plug-640.jpg

      In this picture you can see where each of the 24 circuits terminate with a simple 2-prong Edison plug. We cut the plugs off the clamp lights, wired pairs of them in parallel, and ran zip cord directly back to the dimmers. Dimmers are hardwired to dedicated 20A circuits.

      Hope that helps. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any other questions:

      joshferris@praisechurch.tv

  7. John Byrd says:

    Was wondering if you were able to control with a dmx controller? How was that wired

    • Josh Ferris says:

      John, the dimmers have native DMX in/out, so we simply placed them in our existing DMX circuit. Dip switches are used to set the address; once that’s done it drops into your DMX console/controller like any other multi-channel fixture. Hope that helps!

  8. Robert says:

    Would you mind sending me more information about this set up.. rhmarshalljr@gmail.com

  9. Robert says:

    Can I call anyone for help concerning this layout?

  10. Jordan Shaft says:

    could you tell me what those LED strips you’re using are called?

    • Josh Ferris says:

      Hey Jordan – those are American DJ Mega Tri Bars. They’re fairly inexpensive and have worked well for us.

  11. Tony says:

    What specific bulbs did you get? I.e indoor? Outdoor?

  12. Rene Mora says:

    What are those green beams next to the blue tri bars. What are the beams called

  13. Angel says:

    Hey Josh- Do you remember how many watts those long neck floods were?? Thanks

  14. NS says:

    What type/size clamp light did you use? Thanks

  15. Josh Ferris says:

    NS – Power Zone PZ-300 8 1/2 Inch Clamp Light

  16. Trey Junious says:

    Do you happen to still have the full plan for this project with materials?? I would love to use this!!

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