Group Buy: Budget CRI 95 LED Strip Lights

[Manfred Lopez]

Does anyone know if power can be sent safely through an audio XLR cable like the one coiled up inside a sound boom pole? It would be great if we could power up the LEDs inside the china ball this way. Just plug and play. If so, then the China ball unit itself could be something that screws directly into the boom pole.

 

[Cristian Mihai]

This thread will get longer. So long that might overdrive the Nick's Contax guide !

 

[Nick Morrison]

This thread will get longer. So long that might overdrive the Nick's Contax guide !

Haha if Brandon keeps adding amazing features it may well do!!

 

[Steve Smith]

I'm all over getting a china ball or two as well!

Steve Smith

 

[ericyoung]

I vote the smallest & lightweight standard lighting attachment fitting, but with an articulated adapter to allow it to fit a standard audio boom pole as well?

Needs to be rigid enough to stand the china ball pointing up without sagging or blowing in the wind too much.

The ring that Lantern Lock added to allow easy clipping of blackwrap/filters is handy.

 

[Antony Newman]

Also interested in China_Ball.

AJ

 

[Nils Ruinet]

About the China Ball... What size do you think you will want to use? Should we have threaded connector on the top? ...or a 5/8 spud? ...or?

Time to throw out your ideas. I need to get a sketch done to get CAD drawings made from.

Interested in the China Ball also.

Size : I'd say 40-50 cm diameter.
with 5/8 spud (well, the female part) that can be oriented. A bit like this maybe : http://www.thomann.de/fr/manfrotto_026_lite_tite_swiveling_adapte.htm

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

If you plan to power it via the XLR cable inside a standard audio boom pole, then it should have a female receiver exactly like a boom microphone does.

And there should be no power issue at all running through the XLR cable of the boom pole.

Stephen

 

[ericyoung]

If you plan to power it via the XLR cable inside a standard audio boom pole, then it should have a female receiver exactly like a boom microphone does.

And there should be no power issue at all running through the XLR cable of the boom pole.

Stephen

There might be if you're running a full strip 10Amps through an underrated coiled cable enclosed inside a boom (& therefore with no convection cooling)! It'd be wise to work out the current rating of your particular boom and allow a healthy safety margin for being enclosed, by not using a full strip for the china ball.

 

[Robert Andriessen]

There might be if you're running a full strip 10Amps through an underrated coiled cable enclosed inside a boom (& therefore with no convection cooling)! It'd be wise to work out the current rating of your particular boom and allow a healthy safety margin for being enclosed, by not using a full strip for the china ball.

it might be 10amp but at only 12v the amount of power going through is only 80watts or so, like a single common incandescent light bulb

 

[ericyoung]

it might be 10amp but at only 12v the amount of power going through is only 80watts or so, like a single common incandescent light bulb

10A at 12V = 120W.
A 120W lightbulb can get plenty hot, especially when not in open air.

Heating effect is proportional to I squared x R, so current especially and conductor resistance (cross-sectional area of conductors) are the important criteria here.

 

[Scott C]

I'm interested in the china ball too. My vote would be the 5/8 spud, but I'm not too picky.

 

[Paris Remillard]

I'm in for some tubes and china balls

 

[Brandon J.F.]

In case any of you missed this post yesterday...

Just got these from the manufacturer:

The bags your spools come in will have these stickers on them.

They are just labels, but still pretty cool to see...

 

[Brandon J.F.]

Working on a few new things. Some of it has already been mentioned (e.g. China Ball). If you are in on this Group Buy and you are interested in possibly beta testing some of this stuff email me.

 

[Robert Andriessen]

10A at 12V = 120W.
A 120W lightbulb can get plenty hot, especially when not in open air.

Heating effect is proportional to I squared x R, so current especially and conductor resistance (cross-sectional area of conductors) are the important criteria here.

The 120W light bulb gets hot because most of the energy is converted to heat. But 120W over a wire isn't a whole lot of juice. To be honest I have no idea how the wire runs through the boom, if it's coiled internally it will of course have some impact.

 

[ericyoung]

The 120W light bulb gets hot because most of the energy is converted to heat. But 120W over a wire isn't a whole lot of juice. To be honest I have no idea how the wire runs through the boom, if it's coiled internally it will of course have some impact.

The point is that a cable of insufficient current rating when carrying a current of 10A can get excessively hot. When enclosed, the lack of convection cooling will increase that heating. A coiled internal cable, as is often used internally for audio boompoles will also increase resistance and heating.

Remember microphone cable only has to carry maybe milliamps at millivolts, so current rating of the cable is generally barely a consideration for that application. Fortunately, low resistance is desirable to minimise voltage drop here, so audio cable will be thicker than necessary for the tiny audio currents.

Edit: A casual glance at a few mic cable specifications would indicate that they are not rated anywhere near 8A, let alone 10A, and that's in open air. Will do a bit more research to double check, but looks inadvisable to use mic cable for this purpose!

 

[Corey Jacques]

I wouldn't really use anything smaller than 18 gauge wire. I'm not sure what audio cable is made out of, but personally I wouldn't recommend using the existing cable. 10' of 18gauge wire doesn't add much weight at all.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

Edit: A casual glance at a few mic cable specifications would indicate that they are not rated anywhere near 8A, let alone 10A, and that's in open air. Will do a bit more research to double check, but looks inadvisable to use mic cable for this purpose!

So maybe another option would be to still get a sound boom pole with internal mic cable, and then disassemble it and replace the cable with a proper electrical wire. This way we could keep the convenience of not having to gaffer-tape wire to the outside of the boom each time we want to use it.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

Either tomorrow or Monday I'll have a status update for you guys. Waiting on news about the last round of tests with the controllers. Our tweaks are still being optimized.