LED stage lighting
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
LED stage lighting instruments are stage lighting instruments that use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a light source. LED instruments are an alternative to traditional stage lighting instruments which use halogen lamp or high-intensity discharge lamps. Like other LED instruments, they have high light output with lower power consumption.
Types of LED instruments
LED stage lights come in three main types. PAR cans, striplights and moving head types. In LED PAR cans, a round printed circuit board with LEDs mounted on is used in place of a PAR lamp. Moving head types can either be a bank of LEDs mounted on a yoke or more conventional moving head lights with the bulb replaced with an LED bank.
USE
LED instruments can and have been used to replace any conventional lighting fixture, and some shows, such as Radiohead's recent tour, have used only LED lighting instruments. However, most shows use LEDs only for lighting cycloramas, or as top, side or back light. They can also be used as 'audience blinders' (lights pointed directly at the audience from a low angle).
Advantages
LED instruments can contain a number of different coloured LEDs, often Red, Green and Blue, and different light output colours can be achieved by adjusting the intensity of each LED color group. LED instruments should have a long service life relative to other options, without the expense of colour gel or replacement lamps.
LED instruments are increasingly used for live music events, most notably festivals where they are more visible than conventional lighting under daylight. LED instruments were prominently used for the 'live earth' festival as they are regarded as more environmentally friendly as fixture for fixture they use far less power than other lighting.
Another advantage of LED instruments is that they can be controlled directly using DMX and do not require additional dimmers; the intensity of the LEDs being adjusted by circuitry onboard the fixture. Because of their low power consumption several units can be daisy chained to one power supply.
Due to low heat output, LED instruments can be used in areas where the high amount of heat conventional stage fixtures put off would not be ideal. For this reason, LED instruments are used to light ice sculptures, especially when lighting the sculptures from within.