LED’s, a modern wonder have slowly become a well-established and accepted technology. Having once been the incandescent globes crazy cousin, LED’s are now the meat and potatoes of the lighting world. There is still fun left in the old LED though, LED Cubes, Spinning LED’s and Nightclub LED displays are but 3 examples of LED’s having fun.
LED Cubes, with a ghostly kind of lighting and colourful fast animation have caught on around the world. Pre-built cubes as well as DIY instructions and kits have been available for a while now.
The world’s largest installation of an LED Display was recently completed in Zurich’s Central railway station. Who would have known that you could stack LED’s to such mesmerizing proportions. Amnesia Nightclub in Ibiza makes incredible use of LED’s as part of their lighting system, to great effect as is evidence in their 2011 end of season party.
Video’s selected for your viewing and listening pleasure. Sit back, relax, press the play button and let the LED’s take you away…
QUBE LED
Cube LED, Pioneers and Leaders In The Field
CubeLED sells pre-built LED cubes, a well known name and pioneer of LED stacking. A simple 5x5x5 LED cube starts at £179, with the 8x8x8 rising quickly to £599 and the dream system 16x16x16, 4096 LEDs arranged in one meter square cube costs £5950, outstanding. Enough to light up an office building if they are all light up at once. Weighing in at a whopping 40kg’s this is a serious piece of technological bling. Even the base model 5 by cube is a little over 11.5cm cubed and weighs 1kg.
There are many sets of online instructions for those handy with a soldering iron. Making your own LED cube is more a matter of having the time to invest than it is technically difficult. DIY kits are available with all of the required parts but the truly adventurous can even build their of controllers and assemble their own parts. Many of the kits make use of the open source Arduino controller board and software, making it an easy option for the hard core DIYérs. Making a 125 LED 5 by cube seems to be the perfect target size for the DIY crowd. The size most aim for. 3x3x3 seems to be a good starting point.
Zurich Central Railway Station’s LED display comprise 25’000 LED spheres assembled into on a type of electric string hanging from the ceiling, the largest of its kind in the world. Measuring 5mx5mx1m this is no coffee table display, even in the cavernous main hall of the Railway station the display looks enormous.
Spinning LED’s, The Globe
RGB LED GLOBE – POV – 40 x 200
The twist on the LED display is the rotating LED display. Relying on persistence of vision caused by the biology of our eyes. Producing impressive animations with a dash of danger the rotating display has been used on everything from car wheels to computer case fans. Perhaps one of the best DIY examples of the rotating LED display is The Globe.
Created by Gopfert and Heller, it cleverly curves the rotating led display to produce what appears to be a sphere of LED’s, with quite impressive frame rates and resolution. As with any spinning device getting the balance right, allowing the globe to spin smoothly up to speed was the biggest challenge. Impressive results none the less.
Amnesia Ibiza, The Best LED’s At The Best Nightclub In The World
Amnesia Ibiza, the best global club 3D LED installation
The use of LED displays at Raves, outdoor gigs and night-clubs is increasing all the time. Over the last few years the software has become very intelligent, integrating with the DJ’s mixing desk in the last few generations. MADRIX has been hard at work installing their software in nightclubs all over Europe and America. With all of the big names from Ibiza to Acapulco now installing LED lighting setups in their clubs they are well established, the technology has plenty of room to evolve too, it will be a bright and flashy future for night clubs.
Amnesia Ibiza, arguably one of the best nightclubs in the world knows how to use LED’s, putting MADRIX to work Amnesia has one of the best ceiling LED displays in the world, the nightclub world. With multiple racks of LED stacks hanging from the ceiling, LED snakes winding around, enormous LED screens and the usual assortment of spot lights and highlights, Amnesia has a ceiling with enough silicon to start a Chinese chip making company, it is the high tech envy of many in the world.
2011 was Amnesia’s 20th Birthday Year, the closing party for the 2011 season was bound to be a massive party. Amnesia’s Lighting technicians had been tasked with turning it up to 11, they had to keep pace with the best DJ’s in the world. Benny Benassi gave them a work out.
As the official video of the night demonstrates the party was massive, in the background, working hard on dazzling were the LED’s and lighting rigs. The behind the scenes technology making a good party great.
Reference: CubeLED
Official Video: Amnesia Ibiza Closing Party 2011 – EL CIERRE