Everything you need to know about LED Lighting

LED Lighting is becoming more and more popular for stage lighting. Nowadays there are many LED stage lighting options available from LED followspots and LED Par Lights to LED Moving Heads and Disco Lights.

What is LED Lighting?
LED stands for ‘Light Emitting Diode’, a semiconductor device that converts electricity into light. LED lights have many advantages including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, improved physical robustness, smaller size, and faster switching. In our experience, a 12 x 8w LED Par Light has a similar brightness to a 650w standard theatre fitting.

Why use LED Lights for stage lighting?
The most basic reason many people are now using LED Lights for theatrical lighting is that they allow for more colour options from one light without the need to change gels. The longer lifetime of LED Lights also mean that lamps rarely need changing, unlike standard light fittings.

LED lights are available in a range of colour options from the most basic RGB (Red, Green, Blue) through to the more advanced option of RGBWAUV (Red, Green, Blue, White, Amber, Ultra Violet) with many variations in between. Even a RGB LED offers thousands of colour options. 

One possible issue with using LED Par lights is that cheaper options often don't offer control of beam angles and function mainly as area illumination. While some models do offer options on barndoors for more control this can be an issue for venues that require a more focused beam.

Another added benefit for LED lighting is for those who use moving head lights. You probably know that discharge movers need to be turned on prior to each show and stay on for the whole show so they are ready to be used. Well, LED moving head lights completely remove this issue and can be switched on and off easily from the lighting control desk each time they are needed during a show rather then needing to stay on. This can save a lot of extra electricity.


How do I control LED Lights?
You can use the LED pars with a normal lighting desk. You need to get undimmed power and DMX to the light. An RGBW (Red, Green, Blue, White) LED can be controlled using 4 channels off your desk. If you have 2 (or more) lights and want them to do the same thing you can control them with the same four sliders. If you want each light to do different things you need at least 4 channels a light to control them.

An RGBWAUV (Red, Green, Blue, White, Amber, Ultra Violet) needs 6 channels for basic control.  

For people with a limited budget and just starting to purchase, the lights can be set to go to a certain state (ie Red or White or all on) at power up. When more funds are available control can be added.  

For those people wanting a new desk, the Jands StageCL and the LSC Lighting Mantra are specifically designed for controlling LED fittings. 

Check out the videos below for an overview of the key features and capabilities of each console. 

 

For those more experienced at lighting control,  LSC Clarity is another computer based control solution with a USB to DMX converter. It has a larger learning curve but is very powerful. They also have a 128 channel light version which covers smaller installs. This system can be can be trialled before purchase. Find a fully working version of Clarity available for download here.

 

Have more questions about LED Lighting for Stage? Feel free to comment so we can answer your questions.