Stage Designs

Oh, the Dots

James Feltz and Adam Hoskins from Radiant Church in Ann Arbor, MI brings us this homemade LED wall.

From James and Adam: Has your Pastor ever said “I wish we had a LED wall.” Well ours did and after some DIY researching and a lot of prep work… we got one.

This stage design was created using LED pixels and Pixelpusher controllers and ProPresenter to push video to a 16 foot wide 10 foot high LED wall. The stage design was created to add a dynamic element of atmosphere to worship.

The structure is made of custom CNC’d MDF panels that were mounted together with aluminum angle and lumber. The CNC’d MDF panels have holes spaced at 2 inches in each direction for a large 96×60 pixel display.

The LED pixels are controlled with a custom applet using processing (https://processing.org/). This allows for ProPresenter running on a Mac to have the output syphoned into this applet which then sends the color commands to the pixelpusher controllers.

This was a large project but well worth the time and effort that went into it. The best part is that you can create it in any size or shape you want.

Materials:
5760 – WS2801 LED pixels (116 – 50 pc strings)
2 – Hero Robotics Pixelpusher controllers
6 – 5 volt 70 amp power supplies
6 – CNC’d MDF panels (8 ft x 3.5 ft)
Framing materials

The Wedding Throwback: Interlocking

17 responses to “Oh, the Dots”

  1. Hey,

    Nice job! I didn’t see a cost in the description. Do you know about how much you spent on this project?

    • James Feltz says:

      I am currently working on a full instructional which will be shared once it is done. after doing a cost break down of the material that went into the wall. Our estimated cost is $3600 with about $2000 being the LEDs. It cost us a more due to some of the trial and error that I hope to have others avoid once I finish the instructional.

  2. Winnie Lo says:

    Hi! Thank you for sharing this! I very much want this to be my next project. Is there more information on the signal chain, and how the processing work with the pixelpusher?
    Thanks!

  3. Chris says:

    After doing a little research on the materials it looks like this stage design would cost around $7000. Maybe $6,750. The biggest cost is all the pixels. Each string is $50 and they bought 116 of them. The other materials aren’t that bad. So if go for a smaller screen you can save some money.

    • James Feltz says:

      We found out that eBay was our friend for the LEDs. We bought half of them from amazon, but they kept running out of stock. you can also use other pixels with this design, but we were not sure on how they would operate and were following along with another build that used the WS2801s. you will definitely want to shop around for the pixels.

  4. Kevin Smith says:

    Are they willing to share the custom app they used for processing and ProPresenter?

  5. Adam Hoskins says:

    We found the best pricing on eBay for large quantities. Tried doing it through amazon, just wasn’t a good option for the quantity we needed.

  6. Dan says:

    Hi,

    Idea is great, would love to see more details and plans on this. Also the wall looks grainy. I’m wondering if that’s just the picture shots of it but in person it’s really clear. Can you give any details on the resolution?

    • Adam Hoskins says:

      Hi Dan,

      The wall is definitely grainy. It is not your typical hi-res screen, think of it more like an animated lite-bright. The pixel spacing is 2”x 2”. I think the resolution boils down to 96 pixels wide by 40 pixels high.

  7. Trevor says:

    Hey guys, very nice job! Our Church is looking at doing the same type of wall. Is the instructional still coming along?

    Thank you!

  8. Winnie Lo says:

    Hi. Is the instruction still coming? I would love to build one.

  9. Joel Tomkinson says:

    Yes would love also, please let us know :)

  10. Stephen Morgan says:

    Was there a structural reason why you went with 2×2 on the hole spacing instead of 1×1?

  11. Jordan Hull says:

    Did the instructional piece ever get made? I would love to do this and would really like to know how you guys did this. Thanks in advance.

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