uplighting systems

[Andy P]

Hey you guys

How many uplighters are enough if you are putting together a system. Also would you suggest a minimum wattage for the lights.

cheers

[Excalibur]

How many? Well although I don't ( yet ) offer the service, I'd say ten was a fair starting number.

How powerful? Well my weapon of choice, the ADJ Mega Tripar is 5x3w Tri Led. There's a new quad LED version available now, and apparently a six colour one soon.

[DeckstarDeluxe]

Well you tell us! What venues are these likely to go into?

Personally I think the Stairville LED PAR 56s are solid units for their price. I'd start with 16-20. Don't forget to factor in rewiring, floor stands, cabling and storage boxes.

[Benny Smyth]

A friend of mine uses the general rule of thumb of one uplighter every three feet. So you'll need to work out how big the room is and go from there.

[Andy P]

1 per 3 feet - wow

I understand about the room size being a large factor and when I promote them I'll be stating the size I can cover. I was looking to place them at around 10ft intervals (or at least 10ft of cable) and get ten of them.

I'll have a look at the units linked and see if any do a bulk discount.

[surround sounds]

A friend of mine uses the general rule of thumb of one uplighter every three feet. So you'll need to work out how big the room is and go from there.

Every 3ft???
Do you mean every 3 metres

[Shakermaker Promotions]

I'd personally say 12 units is a good starting point.
One every 3 feet? I haven't used that system but I guess it depends on the size of the room.
A regular venue I do where I provide Uplighting as an extra for 75% of the bookings I do has 10 units in it and it looks great.
I have 20 uplighting units in total and I have never had to use all of them for one booking.
I have 12 x Kam RGB192 units (discontinued now unfortunately) and they are brilliant. Very bright and they are awesome for on stage lighting for bands etc.
I also have 4 x Megabars and another 4 x Chauvet Par 56 RGBW. They are plastic units but very bright.

I started off with LEDJ's and they did the job fine and I would recommend them as they are cheap but you do need a few of them.

[DeckstarDeluxe]

Quite often though you'll have features and the such like that which means every xxxx metres or feet isn't going to work. I carry loads of 2/4/5 metre IEC cables.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Same as that especially if I can't do a venue visit beforehand. I take as much as possible just to be prepared.

[Benny Smyth]

Every 3ft???
Do you mean every 3 metres

Nope. 3 feet.

[surround sounds]

Nope. 3 feet.

really.
Worked it out my living room is 24ft x 12ft.
That's 22 uplighters in my living room.
I would not use 22 uplighters in a average size function room.

[yourdj]

really.
Worked it out my living room is 24ft x 12ft.
That's 22 uplighters in my living room.
I would not use 22 uplighters in a average size function room.

Depends on brightess and room dynamics?

Mine are 135 watts (on paper) and 6 can adequately flood a whole room.
i have a set of 12 battery and wireless DMX ones but usually only use 8, so every few metres works well.

With my wired ones (generally used for installs as they are cheap) I generally work at venue with plugs all round so often make use of them. I would never go back to daisy chaining & DMX cabling like in the old days.

This was about 5 years back when everything was wired up and it was pretty good, considering the lights were the old par 56 ones.
It at least 50-60 % less brighter than the ones i have now and I still place them in the same place.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrfFDHQFDDY

[Shaun]

Which ones do you use Toby? Apart from the nice brightness I like the wide beam angle on the ones in use on your vid

[yourdj]

Which ones do you use Toby? Apart from the nice brightness I like the wide beam angle on the ones in use on your vid

They were stairvilles 56 metal cans. Most of them were missing some of the led's by the time that was shot too.
I use generic ones these days. i am putting in another oder for 50 soon if anyone is interested.

Forget i did this video. They are the battery versions of these ones - well solid - 30 degree beam 6 colour (I think?)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDiB0rewZ2s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnTQyH15APs

[ukpartydj]

I started off with LEDJ's and they did the job fine and I would recommend them as they are cheap but you do need a few of them.

I've still got your old LEDJ's there just starting to mess up now, got about 12/16 still working 100% with the other 4 lights the LEDs are losing brightness making the colours different. I'm going to be upgrading to some tripar / some Chinese version of soon because of the leds going. Very good starting point though and I've done some great up lighting... Let's see if I can dig out a picture or 2... 17077
There are 2 lights at the back with are stairville 64s much brighter as you can tell - using these as dancefloor wash nowadays
17078

[Benny Smyth]

really.
Worked it out my living room is 24ft x 12ft.
That's 22 uplighters in my living room.
I would not use 22 uplighters in a average size function room.

Dunno what to tell you. It's not a service I offer. All I know is that when I am able to pass on some uplighting work to him, it looks the biz. :)

[DeckstarDeluxe]

Dunno what to tell you. It's not a service I offer. All I know is that when I am able to pass on some uplighting work to him, it looks the biz. :)

Got a photo Benny? It does sound massively overkill to me but interested to see what it looks like

[yourdj]

Got a photo Benny? It does sound massively overkill to me but interested to see what it looks like

Depends on the venue I suppose? I find over brightening a room can have some inhibitive effects on dancing uptake, especially early on.
i can't stand starlit dance floors you can dim. my GWDMX button 5 is at 20% brightness on the up lighters. :)

[Benny Smyth]

Got a photo Benny? It does sound massively overkill to me but interested to see what it looks like

I'll have a dig around later. Although, if I am right:


17078

This may be me not being able to judge correctly, but that doesn't look like much more than 1m between lights.

[ukpartydj]

This may be me not being able to judge correctly, but that doesn't look like much more than 1m between lights.

Well spotted - it's pretty much spot on a metre, the IEC cables I use to daisy chain are 1m long.
I don't believe in any rules of spacing though - it should just be enough to highlight the rooms features / create the desired effect. In the picture I posted 1m happened to be the distance that looked good and wasn't obstructed (except from by a picture frame). Around the corner I was using 2m spacing because of windows.

[DJ Jules]

On this subject, I just had this deal come in from SimplySounds (£129 for 4x Showtec cans incl flight case):

http://simplysoundandlighting.co.uk/ShowtecLEDPAR56EcoSet?keyword=ledpar56ecoset

Not the best cans in the world, but a pretty good price.

Julian

[Benny Smyth]

Well spotted - it's pretty much spot on a metre, the IEC cables I use to daisy chain are 1m long.

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/d8/d85ea571f5cd80ed2e34107e959171ebcb95074a01950d4b38 49478b0afbdfdb.jpg

[DeckstarDeluxe]

I'll have a dig around later. Although, if I am right:



This may be me not being able to judge correctly, but that doesn't look like much more than 1m between lights.


Depends on the units I guess, from the looks of it that is a fairly narrow angle par can while the ones I use are much wider. Does look good though won't lie.