Custom project newbie help!

[Lampy]

Hi all, first post here. Trying to build some rgb lighting fixtures for use at gigs. Looking for any help and advice about
products to use including rgb led strip, dmx decoder/controller and the power supply!
Basically it is an upright standing frosted perspex tube that will have rgb led strip glued at the back on the inside. I have
attached a drawing to give a representation, these need to be super bright as they may be used in daylight occasionally, there will be 3 strips together at the back to add to the brightness. As the tubes are 1.7m tall then the 3 strip adds to 5m which is a standard roll length i believe. The only real complication to this project is that i will be controlling it via dmx and want to be able to do things like a chase up and down rather than the whole strip on together at once. Also i would want to be able to have the 3 strips mimicking each other i.e a chase going up and down across all three strips together. I guess i could give each strip a seperate decoder with the same dmx address, or is there a better solution?
So really, if anyone has suggestions for rgb strip (minimum 14w/m), power supply and dmx decoder you would be helping me hugely as this is all over my head. Thanks

 

[Bird]

Keep in mind I'm not an expert and do not want to give advice as to controllers etc.
As to design.
Have you tested a single strip in the tube yet? From your post I would assume not. I would test 1 or 2 strips before mounting 3.
Are the frosted perspex tube the tint tubes that have been talked about many times this year in the forums? The walls are fairly thin and might work with 1 or 2 strips in the daylight.
This is where I could be wrong, but cutting the strips the length of the tube and wiring them as one strip going to the controller should give you the desired effect of 2 or 3 lengths acting as one strip.

Others will chime in here in a few hours and give you direction as to controller and PSU, as well as correct me, if needed, on the wiring.

OH and by the way

to ACL Lampy

 

[AAH]

Welcome to ACL Lampy.
Being able to do chases down the length of the strip basically means that you'll be wanting a pixel strip. Something like http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/4m-WS2811-LED-digital-strip-60leds-m-with-60pcs-WS2811-built-in-tthe-5050-smd-rgb/701799_633124138.html will do what you want. That strip is 14.4W/metre which is incredibly bright so going to 2 or 3 strips would probably be overkill. It may be possible to directly parallel the strip so that all 1/2/3 have the same data being fed to them at the same time. I'm not sure if the loading of the data lines would allow that but if they don't then I'm pretty sure 1 of the J1Sys pixel controllers could be configured to mirror the same data out on 3 outputs.

 

[Lampy]

Hi guy's thanks for the input, very much appreciated. That led strip looks ideal, though i think as i want to make eight of these tubes it might become quite expensive. I was thinking, i could just join a load of these together in a line - http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/634826315/Smart_pixel_LED_Module_light_20pcs.html - then effectively i will have my two strips of led as well as data control from bottom to top and probably work out cheaper.

 

[Kaden]

If you don't need per pixel control and are happy with every three lights are individually controllable, these are popular http://m.aliexpress.com/item/568458133.html and it will be cheaper without the waterproofing.