Stage Designs

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David Long and Will Compton from First Baptist Church Woodstock in Woodstock, GA brings us this great LED pixel tape design. (originally posted June 2016)

From David: Our summer camp set concept was designed by Will Compton, one of our Audio Engineers on staff. The design came about after he began to create a pixel based Christmas Tree at his house this past Christmas. Once the idea and initial concept was settled on the project was turned over to Lighting Designer, David Long to build and create the pixel based set.

Supplies used:
20- 12V 2811 LED Pixel Tape (black PCB)
2- 350W DC Power Supplies
1- Advatek Lights PixLite 16 Control board
200′ of Low Voltage Cable
1- Waterproof Inclosure (travel purposes only)
28- 1″ 3/4″ plywood strips
24- S hooks (attach chain around truss)
40- Hooks (attach plywood to chain)
2 spools of small chain
4- metal corner braces
8- metal mending plates

For the set construction LED Pixel tape was cut to length and had connections soldered on, making each LED tapes identical. Then once the LED tape was cut to the desired lengths, 3/4″ Plywood was run down to 1″ strips and painted black. Two hooks were attached to each strip of plywood and black chain was used to suspend the wood from the truss. The LED tape was Zip Tied to the 3/4″ ply allowing each tape to be a DIY LED strip. Once the hanging angels were determined, each row was measured out and placed on the truss. For the triangle pieces, metal corner braces and mending plates were used to hold the frame to the desired shape.

Following the DIY Christmas mindset we used a pixel controller that accepted ArtNet but was designed for that market. Combining with two 350W DC converters we had access to up to 16 outputs of ArtNet to control the set. Cabling was accomplished through a loom of low voltage cable custom made to the needed lengths. Power injection was needed for the triangles and was accomplished by wiring in fuses into the lights to protect the LED tape from any voltage spikes and wiring these directly to the power supplies.

The entire set was pre-built at the church and then labeled and disassembled for transport to camp. The initial build, including making the wiring connectors and soldering LED tape took about 50 hours for one person to accomplish. One site load in took 3 people 15 minutes. The LED tape was controlled through a Jands Vista S1 Matrix via ArtNet and took slightly over 4 universes of DMX. Extra LED tape was installed, on site, to the face of the drum and keyboard risers via velcro to help complete the look.

Total Price- $841

Additional lighting for the camp was 10 Martin Mac Auras on the rear truss and 8 Chauvet Intimidator 350 Wash Zoom fixtures on vertical drop pipes. Front truss had 8 Martin Mac 350 Entours and 6 Mac Auras for front lighting.

IMG_7247 IMG_7249 IMG_7251 IMG_7253 IMG_7257 IMG_7258 IMG_7263 IMG_7264 IMG_7266 IMG_7296 IMG_7325 IMG_7447 IMG_7477 IMG_7478 IMG_7491 IMG_7492 IMG_7493 IMG_7495 IMG_7579

Tentacles LED Tunnel

One response to “X Out”

  1. Hi my name is Chris and I have just a few questions.

    -Where did you hide the wires for the LED Strips? Are they running up the chain or down?

    -How long is the truss System?

    -For the Black Chains how far apart are each chain from one another?

    -How long are the Black Chains?

    -Where did you purchase the LED strips?

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