Bought a Couple of Strip Lights To Play With

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steve149

Shine on you crazy diamond
Staff member
Sep 26, 2011
28,175
45,944
Connecticut
.. and "strip" as in linear bar .. not, well, for stripping ...

Bought a pair of these .. https://www.rockvilleaudio.com/battery-strip-24/

I was looking for bars with independent "pod" control so I could get a Knight Rider type effect (and others) from my myDMX Go unit .. that means the bar has to have a LOT of DMX channels and most do NOT. This one has a 58 channel mode where each set of 3 LED units are separate (RGBW, Dimmer, Strobe), so myDMX Go can see 8 different sub-units in the bar (there are 24 lights in this one). Also is battery powered, though less of a need since it doesn't have wireless DMX .. though I can use 2 of my rechargeable Donner type units for them if I place them in a hard to wire area.

They don't look all that robust, but they were about $250 shipped for both of them, so decent value if they work. Might use them vertically on the lighting stands, maybe horizontally at top, or as a wash unit. A Winter toy ...

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Let us know how well they perform.
  • color mixing and the quality of the optical blend if there is more than a single LED producing a given color
  • seamless blending (no focal artifacts of the lens)
  • actual versus advertised battery life
 
Let us know how well they perform.
  • color mixing and the quality of the optical blend if there is more than a single LED producing a given color
  • seamless blending (no focal artifacts of the lens)
  • actual versus advertised battery life
I will, though I bought them more for an effect light as opposed to one that I needed the light from. I plugged one in yesterday .. a bit heftier than I expected. Standard colors seem pretty decent (RGB+cyan,magenta). Yellow was slightly off and Amber was more so, a bit of haloing going on, so the optics aren't converged well. Probably not the right tool for washes and such.
 
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I've already liked strip lights, mounted vertically, on either side of my table. Lot of bang for the buck.
Once I play with it in myDMX Go, going to try both horizontal and vertical mounting on a light pole to see what looks good. Still not sure if this will go up high, or used around facade.
 
Once I play with it in myDMX Go, going to try both horizontal and vertical mounting on a light pole to see what looks good. Still not sure if this will go up high, or used around facade.

I've tried them on a truss (across the top, over my table), mounted them horizontal above my speakers and vertical on speaker poles on either side of the table. The last option was the best in terms of effect and ease of setup. If it's just a pair of strips I don't know if it's worth it to DMX, just use sound active. Speaking of which, I need to take down the colorstrip minis in my venue. Taso was right, they're tacky.
 
I've tried them on a truss (across the top, over my table), mounted them horizontal above my speakers and vertical on speaker poles on either side of the table. The last option was the best in terms of effect and ease of setup. If it's just a pair of strips I don't know if it's worth it to DMX, just use sound active. Speaking of which, I need to take down the colorstrip minis in my venue. Taso was right, they're tacky.
I don't generally do weddings (save for the one last year), so "elegant and formal" is not much of a concern. I bought these primarily to do DMX. If they're on a stand, then some other light will have wireless capability (or I use a Donner-like receiver). These are long .. 3.5 ft long, so I'll play with the locations .. maybe make a video and see what y'all think.
 
So .. Longevity test .. I charged them up (over 2 days, so they should have been topped off) ...

I ran both of them on full brightness .. one on a single color (Blue) the other on a multi-color (they call it Amber, though it looked Yellow).

The Blue is still going (I'll update again later when it dies) after almost 6.5 hrs. (EDIT: Looks lik 8hrs 45 min)

The Amber died at just around the 4 hour mark. The manual doesn't state what colors go into Amber (though it's normally 100% Red and 75% Green). 2 color is supposed to have lasted 6 hours, so it didn't quite make that.

Either way, for $125ish they're OK, as I plan on mostly AC powered use ... Next up, testing color fidelity, haloing and use in myDMX Go. I created a profile .. need to find time to test it.
 
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