The Stonewater Cinema Build Thread - Page 5

The lockset can be ordered from House of Antique Hardware at THIS link.....danger averted!!! The sconce that I previously posted is also available on this website HERE. The light is produced by a company called Metropolitan Lighting, a division of the Minka Group. The lighting is part of the Walt Disney Signature Storyboard Collection, fyi.

I agree with you and this is the difficulty I find in having an overall style without beating a particular element of that style to death with overuse. I also have to be somewhat realistic that for the most part I will have to live with commercially available parts and pieces - either vintage, reproduction or new. For an engineering / mathematically inclined guy like myself, style and design is what I struggle with the most. One has a great impact on the performance and the other has a great impact on the aesthetic. If you refer back to the first post in my thread to the lobby of the Paramount Theater, you'll see a lot of curves at the entrance doors. But if you look at the lobby as a whole, there are quite a number of hard edges and linear lines, particularly with the ceiling coves. I am also trying to look carefully at the different styles that are out there and see what blend works. For example, the light below has the curves on the lampshades that I liked but has square "buttons" and the traditional Art Deco geometric lines at the base. I think the fixture looks nice with the combination of styles and a blend of geometrics and curves may be what I land on. But as you know I am not even close to final in my thinking on this and am completely open to any and all suggestions. I think if absolutely everything was curved or if absolutely everything was linear, my fear is it might be too repetitive. What do you think?



Here is an Art Deco radio that incorporates geometric lines and curves:

Edited by TMcG - 12/9/12 at 9:13am

Actually, if I am doing anything it is taking the classic Art Deco style and giving it a big kick in the butt with modern touches. That's probably a better description of what I am trying to achieve, especially with the LED lighting and a mix of classic and modern materials. The Ar Nouveau reminds me a of the Lord of the Rings and the architecture of the Elves. It doesn't suit my taste, but thanks for the suggestion.



By the way, for those following this thread, the actual construction and "build" part of this thread is coming without all the style and design talk. I haven't even started the design of the entrance door to the theater which will contain some sort of LED lighting, but that will come much later and will be done concurrent with the construction.

Aside from the theater door, the only other major design aspect left that I will be discussing is with the RGB LED lighting system I have planned which has taken a monumental self-education effort. What started as looking at $20 RGB LED 5050 light strips on eBay has morphed into a full-on commercially available system with DMX lighting control. There were a number of limiting factors with RGB LED light strips - primarily control - that forced me into evaluating commercial systems. These light strips are great for single zones of lighting with direct IR control, but are almost completely unmanageable for larger systems because the systems are not designed to be scaled. I have just ordered a smaller version of the commercial system to do some testing with my 3-Form alabaster samples. But I also found several other companies that have really, really cool panels that can either be edge lit or back lit. All of this work has to be done NOW because I have to make absolutely sure to get all the right wiring to the right spots.

There seems to be a lot of folks on this forum who are starting to explore LED lighting in their theaters and a lot of questions regarding integration - power requirements, control options, "Dos and Don'ts", etc.

I can either just share what I finally ended up with or I can share what I have learned and put it all together with my research in this thread if anyone happens to be interested.
Edited by TMcG - 12/10/12 at 3:55am

Thanks guys! Glad to have you following along.


A bit of an update.....

I went a bit crazy yesterday and ordered a lot of the Color Kinetics RGB LED items I will need, plus just last week I ordered a sample kit from a company called Sensitile (http://www.sensitile.com/) who make very modern looking acrylic panels designed to be edge lit and back lit. Once I receive the RGB LED lighting I will be posting photos here of my 3-Form Alabaster panel samples and the Sensitile samples being edge lit and back lit. It will be a good time to put my new Canon T4i to the test...although I am quite sure it is actually my picture taking talent that will be tested to accurately capture what I see in real life.

My favorite so far from Sensitile is Jali Triangolo, pictured at the link below:
http://www.sensitile.com/portfolio/sky-city-casino-new-zealand

Understood. I'll collect everything together at some point in time and post my findings for the pros and cons for each type of system, although you will probably see pictures of the actual system I am purchasing first because it shipped yesterday.

I think Dennis has me beat in some of his awesome theaters, especially during his collaboration with Epic Home Cinema where he used Stewart Filmscreen's LED accent lighting system. Here is a picture of Dennis' build on Stewart's site with the LED system: http://www.stewartfilmscreen.com/residential/products/special_applications/LED/LED_accent_lighting_residential.html. I found Stewart's system to be nice, easily controllable and scalable....but INSANELY expensive, particularly with the need to buy power supplies and controllers again and again as the system grew. Not to mention the actual LED light strips didn't appear to me to be anything different than the 5050 light strips sold on the open market - but they came with a Stewart Filmscreen price if you catch my drift. Color Kinetics is a far more robust professional level system with far more advanced features than Stewart's system could even begin to dream about. Stewart's system fills a market nitch and is less expensive than Color Kinetics, but because Color Kinetics is more ubiquitous you can find job overages, new old stock and pretty much anything you need on the second-hand market for far less than retail pricing, hence my decision to go with Color Kinetics.

But the real reason to go with such insane planning now is because I need to make 100% sure that all of the power and control wiring are in place and installed at exactly the right spots for seamless integration before I close up the walls. So the lighting design is technically what is holding up my construction progress at this point.

Hopefully sharing my findings on all the different RGB LED systems available (that I came across, which is most), will encourage others to take the plunge and even tackle complicated systems on a DIY basis with a little support and knowledge from this Forum.

Thanks Bill. Much appreciated.

Well, I Googled WS2801 and lets just say that would be WAY too DIY for most people, present company included. But I really like to see all of the innovation happening in this area from every different angle. There are a bunch of YouTube videos from developers / innovators out there on this WS2801 as well, most of whom have main family rooms that are stocked with enough tech, wires, computing power and soldering irons to put the Matrix operator "Tank" to shame.

[IMG]Thanks for the suggestion, but I'll have to stick with the professionally built systems....which should be coming via FedEx today. I'll have pictures tonight plus a full explanation of the parts and components I plan to use fromPhilips Color Kinetics.
Edited by TMcG - 12/13/12 at 5:29am

It took me quite a while to find the time today to set these lights up, so please excuse the quickie guerilla set-up. Once I got all of the lines unfurled and attached to the power supply, I took my piece of 3-Form Alabaster and tried to find the right distance away from the lights that I could no longer see any hot spots. The company sent me one strand of clear domed lights and one strand of translucent domed lights so I could really see the difference. As it turns out, the spots can no longer be seen about 4 or 5 inches away from the lights. It's difficult to see, but there is a definite brightness difference between the clear and translucent dome lights when it comes to backlighting this substrate. My guesstimate would be about 10-20% brighter with the clear. I had a couple of drinking glasses that are 4.5" tall and the perfect height to hold up the material above the sample panel above the lights.

The power supply came to me pre-programmed with a number of different light shows which are accessible by some tiny black buttons inside the unit. I'll post more pics on this later, but I ran it through a slow solid color roll to take a bunch of pictures to show how the Alabaster changes color with the backlighting. I'll post more tomorrow when I have the time.

Enjoy!

Blue:


Orange:


Pink:


Purple:


Green:


Teal:


Yellow:


Multi-colored random:


The light strands sprawled across my floor:


Supposedly these strands can produce 16.7 million colors, so I only have 16.699993 million more pictures to post -

I have to say I am really pleased with what I have seen so far and can't wait to set up a larger mock-up within the next week. I'll provide all the details and more pictures tomorrow.

Free help? Bring it on!!! You'll just have to tell me how you like your steak done. Please send me a PM when you are back on this side of the planet!

LOL! Probably by the looks of it I may be trying to put on a Cirque du Soleil show right here in my house. But seriously, I have plans to use RGB LED lights to backlight faux alabaster panels in my columns. I will be using RGB LED light strands in other areas such as for my cove lighting and in columns flanking the main screen. On top of these faux alabaster panels I am exploring the possibility of installing custom nickel-plated decorative metalwork. The metalwork will be seen when the lights are on in the room but create a decorative shadow line when only the RGB lights backlighting the alabaster panels are on.

The reason why there is so much design "stuff" at this point is because the system I am putting in is relatively complex and the engineering for power and control needs to be complete now so I can run the right kinds of wires to the right spots then close up the walls where you will see some of the more traditional home theater construction photos. Once the finish carpentry starts, you will start to see this sophisticated lighting system installed. I think that's when you might have your "Ah-ha" moment and understand fully what I am doing.

As it stands now in its current design, the lighting system has a retail value approaching $30,000 in materials alone to give you an idea of the caliber of system I am putting in. One of the benefits I had was time before starting this theater, so I used that to my advantage and have been able to secure most of what I need for about one twelfth of this retail value. The lighting system simply would not have happened without finding the right parts and pieces at the right price over the last 20 months. But I am happy that I was able to secure the last bits needed just recently, brand new, as part of a closeout special.

I posted about this before a week or so ago....but the traditional construction pics are coming. I am almost completely done posting "historical" photos of work I have already done so very soon all photos will be live, real-time construction efforts.


Thanks Skip! Welcome to the Forum and thanks for stopping by my thread. In case you don't know, you can click on the "subscribe" button to receive automatic e-mail updates for any thread you would like to follow.

Thanks Vik, I am just trying to catch up to your theater at the moment! All kidding aside, I hope it ends up being the theater I have wanted to build for many years. I think that collectively the knowledge base on this Forum is incredible and there is virtually no topic related to a DIY theater build that is not left uncovered. Maybe I can make my little contribution and "give back" to the community I have received so much from over the past 12 years. (Yes, I have been on the Forum that long....but I had a long "hiatus" when I transferred jobs and was overseas working for a time. I think my old user name was purged via the "use it or lose it" approach, hence the new ID.)

Thanks RT! I'll try to get better photos at some point in the near future. I was able to secure enough 8" x 8" sample alabaster panels from 3-Form to build a full-scale mock-up of my proposed column panels. I bought Melamine sheet material from Lowe's so I can construct a scale mock-up to work out the specifics of the RGB LED backlighting. Plus, I'll try to use my new camera with tripod just as soon as I figure out how to take good low-light pictures and turn off the automatic flash! Much, much more to come....

That's a loaded question, but many, many different sellers over an extended period of time. I know it may seem like I have a big budget, but I am having to scrimp, scrape and find the right deal for every purchase. For example, the iPlayer3 handles ALL of the RGB LED lighting loads and will allow sophisticated control of everything right down to each individual LED. The sky is the limit with this incredible device, but at $1500 it is way out of my budget. Even the $1200 "street price" is a non-starter. But I have had the luxury of time to shop and found a used but like-new iPlayer3 on eBay from some California movie studio that used it for two weeks for only $250 off eBay. Power supplies have the same story....they alone would have run me close to $3700 all totaled at retail value, $2900 street price. Enter eBay again where I found most new, but some used but in new condition including original packaging, for $550. I was able to find strands of iColor Flex SL for an average of $55 per strand vs. their $805 retail price and $600 street price. You can see where things can really start to add up when you need multiples upon multiples of everything.

By the way, I finally had a few minutes to go through all of YOUR threads....very nice!! You are FAH-LYING, at least by DIY standards! I see now why you are all over the WS2801 technology as an early adopter / tinkerer. You should ABSOLUTELY post a video of your Christmas lighting display!!

Thanks as well for the thorough description of the power considerations necessary to properly execute RGB LED lighting, particularly with voltage drop / resistance. I was going to jump in and explain the same thing in later posts to share what I have learned, but I doubt I will do it as eloquently. This was another reason for me to go with a professional Color Kinetics system - because all of the engineering work is already done. Voltage drops are addressed with different lengths of professionally designed "leader cables" which cannot be cut. So the whole system is a bit more plug and play. I may have said this before, but the real reason I sought out a professional system was for control AND the ability to interface with other third-party systems such as Lutron and Savant / Crestron / AMX easily. Although there are many stand-alone dedicated controllers that can do a very nice job, they offer no Integration with third party control systems.

I'll have to send you a PM in the near future asking for a bit of help / input for the edge-lit panels on the outside of my theater door. The Color Kinetics strands cannot be cut, so I have to seek another alternative. I was considering the cheap 5050 light strips, but I would like to run my engineering by you first as you have a lot of experience. Any guy who claims he is a not an electronics guru but has built thousands of LED light assemblies is still a guru in my book!!! Nice job again on your thread. I am subscribed and will be following along.

For those of you wanting to know the post I am referring to in Mr. Tim's thread on LED voltage drops, HERE it is.



Work is extremely busy this week, but .......my family will be here for Christmas and my brother and FIL are excited to help me with the theater, primarily getting two layers of 5/8" drywall cut, Green Glued and caulked between the joists in the ceiling of my theater. With any luck I'll even insulate and make it to the construction pics of the soundproof shell. I can't wait!

EDIT: Correcting horrible early morning pre-coffee grammar!
Edited by TMcG - 12/18/12 at 3:51pm

Mr. Tim. Is this the type of WS2801 product you are talking about? http://www.ebay.com/itm/50pc-12mm-Diffused-RGB-LED-Pixels-5V-WS2801-Drivers-Waterproof-Addressable-Color-/150889364507#vi-content

If so, it is very similar to the Color Kinetics iColor Flex SL: http://www.colorkinetics.com/oem/lamps/flex/

I see a lot of information on serial control, but nothing via the DMX protocol. Are you aware of any native DMX enabled WS2801 pixel devices? Seems like the only thing available is a protocol adapter to do the translation.