Stage Designs

Diamonds and Squares

Bob Vandervliet from Grace Church Powell in Powell, Ohio brings us this huge LED tape design.

Wooden grid frame panels lined with LED tape and controlled via DMX LED tape decoders. Total cost $1,600… Wood, paint, LED tape and supplies, power supplies, and DMX encoders.

Triangle Backing String Width

7 responses to “Diamonds and Squares”

  1. mark manley says:

    _SO_ beautiful- nice work!!!

  2. Bob says:

    For those who are interested… This design went up in two stages. The flown panels went up first, and it we were still learning at that point. There is a significant voltage drop-off on some of the tape in the those panels. We know how to fix it, and will be correcting the issue in the summer (the next time we rent a lift). The panels at the stage level are working perfectly, and each square has it own address and can be adjust individually. That is not the case currently on the hanging panels, but that will change this summer.

    • Jonathan says:

      love the look of this, is it just white board that is behind the squares, or is there material in front of the led tape? thanks, Jonathan

      • Bob says:

        The white board is cut to size Coroplast… and it is attached to the rear of the frame. The frame itself is made with 1″ x 1″ wood beams cut into a grid and simply joined with small cut shim pieces and a heavy duty stapel/nail gun. On the front, we used a 4″ wide, 1/4″ plywood finish strip that maskes the actual LED strip which is mounted to the inside of the square grid sections facing to the center of the square. The whole structure was then painted black. On the hanging panels, there are “dead” squares that are filled in with black Coroplast squares. We mounted the black squares to the Finish pieces so they sit closer to the front and create texture. A detail that was just to make them look like something when it’s not powered and the room is a gym.

        The grid is in 2′ x 2′ squares… I think that’s as large as anyone would wanna go. LED strip lighting is sold in 16.4 foot reels, I got 2 complete squares with one reel and a little left over. Going any bigger would have complicated the build and cause the need for a lot more tedious soldering of connected strips. (FYI contact clamp jumpers are NOT recommended as they don’t pass power equally on each channel and very finicky!) I recommend solder connections whenever possible.

  3. Matt says:

    Great design! What is the make and model of the LED tape and the DMX decoders?

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