Stage Designs

Throwback: Radiant Squares

Scott Chamberlain from First Baptist Church Harvester in St. Charles, MO brings us this wall of radiating squares. (Originally posted June 2013)

They wanted to do a major stage redesign to debut on Easter. They had a beige stage back wall and ceiling and had it painted black a few weeks prior. With a blank slate and after getting a bit of inspiration from CSDI and seeing what others had done with Coroplast, they decided to do individually LED backlit Coroplast 3’x3′ panels in a semi-random grid on the back wall combined with staggered bottom LED light truss.

Their budget was $8500 which included purchasing a few sticks of additional trussing and a few more Colorblast 6 light fixtures.

For the LED panels, they used clear Coroplast for the front and white as to refract light in the back, and made a 3’x3′ square out of one-inch wide J-channel to affix the Coroplast. After the front clear Coroplast panel was mounted to the J-channel, RGB LED strip-lights were installed in the valley of the channel around all four sides. Each LED panel had a home run back to one of the six 24 channel 12 volt DMX controllers operating the entire back wall. In total there were 47 panels and 141 DMX channels used for the LED panel wall. Then they used the staggered 10 ft truss to add a bit of dimension to the design.

Each panel took about 20 minutes to construct – including the installation of the LED strips – and 30 hours to hang wire and test the entire wall. Their biggest challenge was wiring and box placement. Each box could be no further than 16 ft from its controller and having a more traditional style auditorium made pulling wire a challenge.

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Sumac Seasons Advent in Boxes

15 responses to “Throwback: Radiant Squares”

  1. Steven Hall says:

    Scott,

    This is awesome! Great job! What type of leds did you use inside of your squares?

    ,Steven

  2. Steve Martin says:

    So do you have some construction pictures or close ups of the LED boxes? I’d love to see some. Also, what brand of led strips did you use?

    I love the way the color fades in from the sides. Is the brighter edge in a different color a recording artifact or did it look that way in real life?

    Great set!

  3. Josh W says:

    Did you use PVC j channel, like a ceiling wall bracket for a drop in ceiling?

    • Yes, that is correct. It can be purchased at most Lowes locations. The j-channel worked out perfectly as a framework for the panels and a great place to conceal the LED strips some.

      Thanks,
      Scott

  4. Danny says:

    What power supply and controller did yall use on this? would like to be able to add it into a DMX control system

    • The power supplies were separate from the DMX controllers that were used. We used two SE-600-12 power supplies and six DMX-24CH-LV DMX controllers. Each controller operates 8 panels and were mounted behind the wall close to the panel group it controlled.

  5. Jonathan Studstill says:

    can you give a photo of the hookup to the DMX unit. So where the led lights connect to the decoder?

  6. This design is super cool. I love the way the color fades in from the edges. Well done guys!

  7. Dusty says:

    Did you put the higher side of the J-Channel to the back or how did you deal with that?

  8. Dusty says:

    Also, how did you deal with where the J-Channel comes together at the corners? Did you cut 45’s to complete the square or just measure two ends shorter and put extra screws through the coroplast?

  9. Nice vibrant setup. It reminds me of what was done at SALT 2013.

  10. Dave says:

    Cool design! Wanted to watch the video but it says the video is private. :-(

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