Thread: Lighting question...Darklight vs. Minispot

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I am looking for some better spotlights. I have been using Minispots http://www.shop.minispotlight.com/ however their brightest spots are not quite bright enough for my needs. Does anyone have any experience with the Darklight spots. http://www.darklightsystem.com/ I was thinking of the PricisionZ high power spots. I need to light up a couple of skeletons that will be doing a 3 axis routine about 10-12' away. The lights will be controlled from a Prop 1 so 12vdc will be good.
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If you've got a little time, you can easily build your own for far cheaper. I can't believe they are charging $34.99 for what is basically 30 cents worth of LED's and 1 resister. You can use a PVC end cap, drill 3 holes, hot glue the LED's in place, solder the leads together in series, solder the resitor on (use a free web-based a led resistor calculator to find out what which resistor to use) and you're done.

Originally Posted by Xpendable

If you've got a little time, you can easily build your own for far cheaper. I can't believe they are charging $34.99 for what is basically 30 cents worth of LED's and 1 resister. You can use a PVC end cap, drill 3 holes, hot glue the LED's in place, solder the leads together in series, solder the resitor on (use a free web-based a led resistor calculator to find out what which resistor to use) and you're done.

--- that's like saying "I can't believe car companies charge $30,000+ for what is basically a tank of gasoline and spark plugs"

Hi there, please allow me to explain a bit on the cost and you'll understand that the product we make is not simply "30 cents worth of LED's and 1 resister [sic]"
First of all, our products are all CNC machined instead of a home made pressed copper tube. There are over a dozen circuit components that go into our Precision Z series to make the LED much more reliable and useful for an end user: there is a bridge rectifier built in to allow dual-polarity connection (you don't need to worry about + and - wires), there is a constant current driver circuit that allows the LED to hold a constant brightness over a wide voltage range (9V-16V), our products are sealed and water resistant, the plugs we use allows easy swapping without cutting wires, and last but not least there is UL listing on this product which we have spent near $10,000 in order to get our factory certified. Under normal use, our products will last well over 10 years --- that simply won't be true for DIY LED as prolonged exposure to moist environments will corrode the circuit components.

The best way to compare the products is really to either buy one or come to one of the trade shows like Transworld, HauntCon, MHC, WCHC and see the products in person. Sure, our products may be a bit expensive or hi-end for some haunters who are used to DIY LED's but our main market is for those who require a professional grade device and the added reliability and ease of use. The analogy is a bicycle vs. a hummer --- they'll both get you places but the hummer will survive much harsher environments. Price-wise, if you tried to build a DIY product with the features and finish of what we're offering, I wouldn't be surprised that you would spent 10x more than the cost of our item --- our products are mass produced off an assembly line, for what you're getting it's not expensive at all.


Please take a look at one of our customers' reviews to get a better idea: Darklight LED Lights

time2dive, Xpendable... thrilltainment is right, when it comes to higher power stuff. I don't know him, nor have I seen/used his products. But, while simple resistors will work fine for limiting the current on 20mA "superbright" pinspots, things get much more complex when you get to 350mA running through an LED (e.g.: Precision Z).

As a working engineer (day job, too), I get a few trade mags. In every one, there's at least one article, and several new products coming out, for control of high-current LEDs. It's a big growth industry, with a lot of research going on right now. The biggest issue for these is keeping them cool, and staying efficient (really two sides of the same coin). If LEDs get too hot, their life is shortened - just how hot, and just how short is still being figured out by the industry physicists and engineers. It's a work in progress. But in order to keep the heat down, while still controlling the current, the electronics end up looking much more like a micro-sized computer power supply, as opposed to a simple resistor! To get an idea of the alternative, consider running a current limiting resistor on both a pinspot and a "high power" LED (1W) at 12V. With the pinspot, you'd have 240mW of heat to get rid of, whereas with the 1W system you'd have 4200mW of heat to get rid of! That's 17.5x more heat! And remember, heat kills LEDs... so you can get an idea of why all the engineering goes into this kind of thing.

All that said, I did come up with some kits this last season to run high(er) power LEDs, and posted up the PCB for anyone to buy. I took heat and power concerns into consideration, and tried to come up with a compromise I thought would be acceptable for a DIY haunter. Because of the finnicky requirements for running them, and the potential for shorter life, I chose not to put these up on my own website. But if you want to do it on the cheap, can run them at 5V, and don't mind the potentially shorter life, take a look at this post for details.

Hope this helps with understanding. I feel thrilltainment's pain.

- Hook

Hook,

thanks so much for your post and pointing out the inefficiencies of a LED and resistor for high current applications.

time2dive, Xpendable:

Truth be told, our products are simply not something build in a garage with Radio Shack and Home Depot components. A lot of engineering time is spent working on our entire product line, including drafting, thermal analysis, programming, field testing, and many many revisions. The assembly line we use is that of a very well established lighting company who builds for multi-million dollar projects for theme parks and casinos. There is significant overhead in both time and money in order to engineer a product such as ours and in order to maintain a viable business, these costs are reflected in the product price. You do get what you pay for.

I don't mean to sound harsh or defensive of our product (which happens to be something I do take strong pride in), I just want to enlighten everyone with the what's "under the hood" so that you may appreciate the 16 hour days we put in to bring a product like ours to market.

- Quan

My brother in law used the Darklight spots in his professional haunt this year in Phoenix and was very impressed with the brightness and performance. I hope to get some for my home haunt this year (we'll see how the budget is for this year!)...

As I do not have any real electronics background I am a bit reluctant to just dive into building my own lights and I am fairly impressed with the Darklight spots. I have a question. If I have a group of these dark light spots what do you recommend as the best way to control them. For this year I will probably do little more than have lights shinning on mostly static props and I would like to add a lightening effect but over time I would like to be able to control them in concert with some animated props and maybe music.

There are several options to control our spotlights --- for the beginner who wants to add a dynamic element to their show without complicated control boards, I recommend the DarkBox Flicker module: http://www.darklightsystem.com/produ...Simulator.html
the module simply plugs inline with power and outputs various pre-programmed patterns such as flicker, strobe, blink, pulsation at 3 preset speeds each. There's a single button that you can press to cycle thru all the different modes (18 total). The controller even remembers the previous mode you've selected so even if you turn off power, the next time you power up, it stays in the same mode (you won't need to go back and click thru all the modes just to get to the one you were at before).
this flicker module can cover most of the needs of an average haunt --- for those who want more advanced control, we do offer a 6 channel LED dimmer called the DarkBox DMX. This unit must be hooked up to a DMX controller in order to generate any pattern you desire.

We're working on developing a few new control boards before March so you'll see some cool new products at Transworld in St. Louis, if you need help feel free to stop by the booth and I can go over the details with you.

I've had an eye on these spots for a while now and am very glad to have stumbled upon this thread! Thanks to thrill & hooked for their explanations concerning the viability of LEDs.

As they are popping up in nearly every facet that has anything to do with lighting you will see that many LED units (regardless of type/purpose) seem to be higher priced. This is understandable as it is a "new" technology for whatever application you are considering, and with that comes a lot of research, time (oh those terribly long days! ) and investment of a myriad of other details. When you consider that LEDs have been around for ages you must keep in mind that they were really only asked to do minor tasks (as far as mass market is concerned), such as indicator lights, etc. Now we're asking the same product to light up displays, yards, aquariums, plants and a whole host of other applications. To borrow a previous analogy it's one thing to learn how to ride a bike, but another to learn to drive a hummer over rocky terrain! For the money we spend we must keep in mind of the quality and longevity of the products we're using/making. While I have no affiliation or familiarity with the people/companies in question, nor their product, I do look forward to dealing with them in the very near future. It's nice to see somebody producing quality instead of sheer quantity at the cheapest price. You really do get what you pay for these days!

thrilltainment -

If a guy were to give you yard layout dimensions that were detailed professionally to any require specification, and the lighting goals a home haunter has in mind, would you be able to recommend a complete package?

I am more than willing to spend the money for a quality product. Lighting is excruciatingly important in this hobby and I'd really like to have a great foundation to work with for many years. My problem is I don't know where to start or what I'm buying.