Stage Designs

Lined Trusses

Drew Middlebrooks from ThreeLife Church in LaGrange, GA brings us these trusses lined with LED tape. (originally posted October 2015)

The main LED strip structures you see were constructed of twelve 5′ mini truss pieces by American DJ. 2 per column. They were fairly inexpensive and they found them to be a fantastic multipurpose piece to have around. Each column had 2 RGB LED strips on it, wired together so they functioned identically. The strips as a whole were controlled by only 3 decoder units.

A bit of advice Drew would give for anyone getting into RGB strips for the first time is really make sure you get a quality power supply. He got a $25 30-amp 12v power supply on Amazon and it really helped a lot compared to cheap smaller ones he has used in the past—much better output and consistent color.

The “blinder” portion of the rig consisted of eighteen 300watt par can 64 fixture run into an nsi 8000 dimmer. They were patched per column, so 6-channels of control.

Other stage elements consisted of 10 chauvet intimidator 150 spots – 6 flown and 4 on the ground. And 4 flown chauvet intimidator beam 350 fixtures. As well as 14 slim par 38 led fixtures.

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Wood Works Solid City

15 responses to “Lined Trusses”

  1. Barney Borovoski says:

    Nice Setup, Witch Decoder are you using would you give like DMX control as well?

    Thanks

  2. I have used aluminum truss displays before with stage productions but I get to do my first concert in the next couple of months. I love the idea of using LED strips to add a great look to the trusses. Thank you for including the pictures! It’s good to see how they can turn out if you do them right.

  3. Nicole says:

    I’m curious about what fixture profile you used for the LED tape on the Vista. Were you able to get one that accessed the built-in effects or, that could use the Lee color picker?

  4. Jesse Coonen says:

    Did you experience any flicker on camera with these LED’s/decoders?

  5. Kael Drake says:

    This stage looks great! I love the trusses, and the lights that you put on them. I think that it does a good job of drawing the crowd’s attention towards the middle of the stage, because of how they’re set at an angle. I imagine that they could also be programmed to pulse in time with the music that is being played, which would add a lot to the room’s atmosphere. What setup did you use to connect the lights to your computer?

  6. Brian Theis says:

    Hey guys! love the look… we are using the same LED tape, but a generic RGB profile isn’t working on them. did you guys have any suggestions? any other profiles you used?

    • Drew MIddlebrooks says:

      that is what im using – verify your patching is correct on the dip switches on the decoders, as well as the polarity is correct on your DMX input. you should be able to even set it as 3 seperate single channel dimming fixtures and get operation.

  7. Mark says:

    I had an idea, use plywood , 1/2 or better draw a truss shape, jigsaw the template. The copies can be hinged, or hung at angles , use flex tape rgbw, rgb, or ic controlled flex tape. You could also use plexiglass, strips , or cover the entire back and make a light box and silihouete the truss copy. You could use uv clear paints, and light from the front floor or above using a uv source. If you paint it white, then a rgb par can lite it as well. These could store easy, Flat, hinged into dimensional shapes.This can be self supporting. This would allow a hard focus, a soft focus and a front image focus. all at the same time or seperatly. Imagine the different stage color pallets….I have been inspired..

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