Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Portable Theater Lighting?

I know that portable lighting systems do exist and are employed by DJs, rock bands, and theater troupes. Heck, there are even people who specialize in doing lighting (and sometimes sound) for an event. But both of those options can be quite expensive.

Now, I recently came across an Instructable for High Power LED Room & Spot Lighting, and I just had to wonder ...

Could this be an inexpensive way to rig up some very simple lighting for the occasional performance at, say, the local library or even retirement community? I'm not saying that this exact system could handle such an endeavor, but it might be a good start in developing one.

Thoughts? Comments?

RGB Color Controllable High Power LED Room & Spot Lighting

Color Controllable High Power Lighting -- no longer for billionaires only! Build your own fully color controllable RGB room or spot lighting for under $100. Perhaps you are asking yourself: "why would i want an any-color light?" well, for starters you can give your pets a virtual color make-over! ever wondered if Fido might look better in purple? perhaps you'd like to see your makeup the way Bono's seeing it with those blue-lens sunglasses? or maybe you're sick of your almond-white wall paint and want to give it just a tweak of eggshell today? of course, it's a gimme for the dance-party, but you can also use it to tweak the shade on your existing room lighting, or as a standalone to get any shade of white (and perfect color rendering) - invaluable for visual arts. in search of an existential crisis? i just spent a good half an hour with this light staring at my hand and trying to figure out what color it is *supposed* to be.

Specs:
- Controller can power up to 360 watts of LED lighting - between 3 and 100+ power LED's
- Analog dial or slider for Red, Green and Blue - create an infinite number of light colors!
- very fine analog control for precise color matching (or white matching)
- Includes current-limiting protection circuit
- Simple 7-component thru-hole circuit - No microcontrollers or programming!
- Controller cost: $25
- 50-watt, 15-LED lamp cost: $50
- Efficient: 50 watts of LED light equals 100 to 150 watts of incandescent light.
- Efficient: 80-90% controller efficiency
- Controller can be used with a variety of power sources
- Recycled materials & electronics: 20-40%

2 comments:

Andrew said...

Hi, yes I noticed this instructable also. I think you will find that in reality the amount of light output doesn't match up the same way with standard colour changing luminieres, and analogue control is not quite up to the flexibility of DMX :-) However the possibilities for relatively cheap and portable stage lighting do appear to there with LED technology. If you're interested in a cheap commercial version, keep an eye on products from Recreational Energy who are putting together a portable LED lighting solution specifically for non-profits and the budget conscious. It will contain DMX controlled PAR-56 style fixtures, however which would give a touch more controll than the instructables version.

Brainwise said...

Thanks for your comments, Andrew. And suggestions.

Upon further reading, I agree with you that this approach (as currently set forth in the instructable) will not be sufficient even for a little reading theater for the local retirement community. But it's a startm and would seem to indicate that power and portablitity are not mutually exclusive.