Education Home Cinema Renovation - Project Log

I hadn't tried the Dioder, just saw them instore.

As an alternative, I think there are a couple of entries on Hackaday about rolling your own "Ambient" TV backlighting if that helps?
I can't check right now as wordpress-based sites are blocked at work.

 

Isn't the Ikea Dioder available in small lengths, I'm presuming Mister_Tad wants long lengths given his link to the 5m one over at Maplin?

Though, the Ikea stuff does look decent but as mentioned seemed to be wired, well the last time I checked.

 

http://www.firstlight-products.co.uk/03_products.htm have a look under strip light. Used these alot in the past and will be of better quality than Ikea and the high street stuff

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll need around 13.5m of whatever I go for, so it gets cost sensitive fairly quickly.

They're bringing the Hue Lux out "soon", which I plan on using the GU10s for the main room lighting. They're not colour controllable, but have the benefit of being around half the cost per bulb. I've seen non-coloured Philips strips, but the objective of the strip lighting is to provide accent, as opposed to main room lighting, so colours are a must.

These might be just the trick. Have you used the RGB ones, and if so how's the colour gradation/selection? Are they RGB LEDs or alternating R then G then B to make the colours (looks like the former, which is good)? What sort of ballkpark cost might I be looking at?

 

On the topic of lighting, I'll be ordering the GU10 fittings this week.

The room is 4x4m - I'm thinking that 3x spots on each side of the room, evenly space (inset in to the tray) would be okay, though I'm on the fence as to whether that's enough and would need 4x on each side, since the walls and ceiling will be grey - they will be dimmable, so can always be dimmed down if it's too bright, though I'm thinking that they might look a little bunched for 4x on either side.

I want to avoid lighting across the back or walls ideally to minimise glare on the screen.

 

We had Gu10 dimmable LED, got the 6.5w ones from B&Q. We had 10 in our room, it is long but thin, and that was far too many really. 8 or even 6 would probably have been OK, as it is at the minimum setting the room is bright, when on full it is retina melting, stadium level bright. I keep trying with taking some of mine out, but I never get around to it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

Have you considered a tensile fabric ceiling with light bounced up onto the solid ceiling and down onto it? Because you're working internally it wouldn't have to be anything complex (unless you wanted it to be) a simple six or eight point layout would be quick, easy, light-weight, take it down and stick it in the wash. Or you could go for something much more complex covering wall(s) as well if you wanted to go mad...

Added acoustic absorption too

 

I popped some markers up last night and I'm thinking I'll go with 8x GU10s, more so because the 3x on either side looked kind of wierd, and 4x looked "right".

For the RGB LED accent lighting, I think I'll try to cannibalise a Hue lightstrip and use the output from that to feed in to a separate amp/psu and generic RGB LED strip... seems that most have had success with this, and it will mean that ~14m of "Hue" light strips costs ~£200 instead of £640

I'm not entirely sure what you're suggesting, so I'm pretty sure I've not considered it

 

have you seen this? http://www.adafruit.com/products/461 It's not very expensive

 

Googled it for you... It's basically taking a fabric or light weight sheet (externally such as PTFE; internally it can be any fabric, as long as you don't exceed it's tensile strength [rip it]) and stretching it taught, and then a little bit more. You can create really interesting organic-seeming forms, or go for more conventional planes.

And if you bounce light off the plaster ceiling it should give the fabric a uniform(ish, may need some hours tuning) glow superior to simple indirect lighting.

I know it's probably too late - but swapping your perimeter timbers for aluminium box or a lipped channel (probably superior) and getting some nice springs, a large bolt of say 250 TPI linen and some good strong eyelets could produce stunning results. The lights could be mounted flush (box) or recessed (channel) and either would provide a path for wiring, though channel would be easier for alterations - it would also give you a high level run for any other cabling you require...

Damn... I need to find a plot!

*That looks pretty awesome Margon-theMargo-Baggins*

 

Arg, that would be amazeballs for the bias lighting to the point of me getting incredibly excited, until I noticed that it isn't something that can do HDMI passthrough :/

I wasn't sure if you meant something like that, or something else entirely - I'm not entirely convinced it would be something I'd get on with, could be a bit too much of a focal point in a relatively small room, with fairly standard ceiling height? At any rate, it's entirely irrelevant as it's definitely too late now, as the framing for the tray has been completed this weekend...





I'm away for the next few days, so will spend some time researching lighting options with an intention of ordering everything by the end of next week.

I'll be choosing from...

Bias lighting (~2m strip):
- Philips Hue lightstrip, full integration with harmony
- Generic RGB light strip, remote controlled for colour and triggered from 12v relay from the amp
- Something a little more bespoke allowing for integration w/ harmony
- Something like the adalight that can pass through HDMI, and not screw with it in the process?

Ceiling/Ambient lighting (~14m strip):
- Hue lightstrips x8
- Cannibalise 1x hue lightstrip and use the output for a separate PSU/driver (I'm liking this one the most right now)
- Cheap & cheerful RBG remote controlled lightstrips, <£150 that wont burn down my house or break in 15 months time
- Philips extend lightstrips x3 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Licht-7098055PH-LightStrips-Extend/dp/B00ETKXKKO), confirmed that one remote can control three strips simultaneously (A close second currently, cheap enough and easy to throw up)

Direct/Spot lighting (x8 spots)
- GU10 fittings, dimmable LEDs (on-wall dimmer) - I like the Lux, but this option would save a chunk of cash and honestly, I'm not sure I need to get any fancier than a vanilla dimmer switch on the wall. The gimmick of the lights auto dimming with certain actions on the remote may wear off fairly quickly
- Philips Hue (full colour)
- Philips Hue Lux (white only), not available for a few months, so would go non-dimmable LED for now as I'll always be able to use them elsewhere
- Something other than GU10 entirely


I'll also need to research some cable organisation options...



Still more to go in, but all of the essentials are there for Sky and PS3 - managed to watch a film last night.

I'll also need to decide what I'm doing about speaker plates...
- Brush plates (meh, not even considering these TBH, would go for option 2 instead)
- Blanking plates, drilled and grommeted - did something like this in the kitchen and very pleased with it.
- Proper speaker terminals - introduces unnecessary connections and extra work terminating some tiny little cables though

Thoughts?

 

I'd just go banking plates to be honest. Save yourself at least a little bit of the fiddly work.

 

The Telco company I worked for a few years back used these (the green brackets screwed into the rack), but I have no idea what they are called; they might even be a custom part. Yeah, they use zip ties, but damn they are convenient.

 

You could replace zipties with velcro straps. Just buy a giant roll of it, will work very well, and it's isn't as "permanent" as zip ties / reusable.

 

+1 for Velcro you can buy it in a double sided roll.

Coming along nicely

Sub'd

 

The problem with sticky velcro or cable tie bases is that the glue fails with heat.
You might do better with some proper trunking fixed to the uprights.



This stuff is self adhesive, but for the reason above, I'd bolt it on.
For larger cable bundles, the fingers can be snapped or cut off where needed.

Available from Screwfix.

 

Dump panels & Velcro.

NEVER use zip ties in a rack.

 

cant wait to see it finished. looks great so far!

 

I have one of these, I built it using the guide from Adafruit and parts I bought from ebay, from memory total build cost was £80. You need an HTPC and depending on what software you are running something to drive them (sorry I haven't read the whole thread)

In my case I have a 50 light setup and my HTPC runs Windows 7 media center so I use Ambibox.

Is a little temperamental to get running but looks absolutely awesome, my wife (who watches most of the TV) loves it.

o/

Chunks

 

Not much happened last week on account of being away, but been busy with a few bits and bobs since then - got further with the cabling, wired up a couple more wall plates, and all of the cables run to the back of the room that will be needed.

I managed to crack one of the plates for the sub RCA by moving the sub whilst plugged in, pulled laterally on the plate... snap. Only broke the socket on the module itself, and luckily I left plenty of slack in the cables just in case I ever needed to snip and re-terminate - replacement socket turned up today for that.

I also ran an extra power cable back to where a projector would/will live when I eventually decide to go that way (approximately when 4K, LED and "good" come in the same package for a sensible price).. forward thinking.



I considered running either HDMI, or a couple of CAT6 for balun boxes, but considered that either of those might be irrelevant in 3-5 years time anyway, so will just cross that bridge when I come to it - the light fitting holes will allow me to feed things back fairly easily anyway in future.

Cut in the corners of the tray by 300mm also seen in photo above and below...



... and finally with the help of my favourite hooker (an implement fabricated from a wire hanger, as opposed to the other kind of hooker) managed to pull twin & earth from where the light switch enters the ceiling cavity to each side of the tray for the spots, marked here with red electrical tape to signify death.

The ceiling rose is naturally disposed of as well now, which is making for some dark photos, so apologies there. Apologies in general for the photos... courtesy of a Nexus 5 for the most part, as I'd never get any real work done if I stopped to stage beautiful photos at every step... auto-upload makes things so much easier.