KillerQ

Hey all,

I am renovating my current “theater.” Right now. The room is lit by 3 fluorescent bulb units (you know, the 4 foot kind) behind a wooden frame covered with plastic lens. These are evenly spaced over the entire ceiling. The frames are about 12” x 50” What I plan on doing soon, is taking the frame/lens off, and removing the fluorescent fixture. Now, instead of the wooden frame, I am going to have a solid piece of finished wood in it’s place. In that wood frame will be two evenly spaced and centered recessed can fixtures with baffling to finish it off. This way I can have the “theater-like” recessed lighting with a nice finished look, and the option to put a dimmer on them… I am sure it will look great… I hope this explained it enough. Has anyone done anything similar to this? Any suggestions....hints?

Thanks,

Matt

Brian Shannon

My theater has two zones of lighting, 6 recessed cans on a dimmer for one and 4 wall sconces on the other.

Sdallnct

No help on getting rid of what you have, but right now I have three zones of lighting and might add a fourth.

-One is the track lighting which I never intended to be on during movies. These highlight wall art, posters, equipment, DVD's, etc.
-One is for rope lighting under the edge of my risers
-One is for rope lighting over my built in book case

Both of the rope lights I have on dimmers and right now I like each of them at aprox 1/2 their normal output. I usually leave one on, sometime two when watching a movie.

All lighting is controled wirelessly with the GE Smart Home wireless system (bought at Lowes). The dimmers on the rope lighting are just the cheap, plug in, lamp dimmers. I use these as I don't see a need to consently change the light output on the rope lights, I just thought they were to bright.

I might add a 4th zone by putting rope lighting over the drapes. The GE system can handle 8 different zones, but you can put more then one light on each zone. Since the switch to change all the lights is near the door and also near the garage door, I'm going to add my garage light and attic light to the system as well.

Spiky

Dimmers are over-rated. They often damage the bulb, no matter which technology. And they make noise, not what you want in a theater. I haven't finished mine, but I already have a start on a couple groups of lights. Some bright for when I need to see, the others quite dim for viewing time.

Sdallnct, do you have any issues with the dimmers on the rope lights? I'm wondering if those would be more immune to the problems I mentioned.

The Bus

How much success have you guys found with the Lutron lights? I want to get a set to control three lights from one switch but everything I find is either too complicated or not Lutron, which is what my remote is compatible with. I don't want to special order since it's so much. Can you get a couple for cheap? I saw them on sale online for like $1000!

Sdallnct

You know, when putting together my system I read a lot of conflicting reports on lights, dimmers, remotes, etc, etc. Basically I figured I would go with what I wanted and if it didn't work would take it back or try something else.

A quick answer to your question, no I have no noise, buzzing, flickering or anything with the dimmers on rope lighting.

I also read where you should put powered lights near your PJ, components, etc. Take a look at my photos in the other threads. I have my PJ running within an inch of line level track lighting with actual lights with in a foot or so of the PJ. No problems what so ever. While I have watched TV with these track lights on, they are not intended for that and I did it mainly to just test to see if I had any issues.

I love the wall sconces. However, my room is just not set up for it (most of one long wall is windows and most of the other long wall is built in book case), so rope lighting was really my only choice. And I do like it. While I agree dimmers are overrated, I use them on the rope light more like a regulator. Since installing and cutting the light by about 1/2 I have not toughed the dimmers. And rope lighting is cheap and easy to install. If they go out in a year, big deal. I think the sets I'm using I picked up after x-mas for $5.00 or something.

edit: The GE Smart Home Wireless light controls are pretty neat. I guess they are the same idea as the X-1. They really saved me as I covered up two light switches (one for room lights one for closet) with my screen. Using these saved me from having to figure out how to run wires (closet would be easy, but room light pretty tough). I'm bought another switch for them today so that not only would I have a switch as you wall in the door, but one near the seats or equipment as well.

Dead

Do you happen to remember what your dimmers cost and where you found them? I've got a run of rope light on the floor below the screen that I'm thinking about dimming.

Brian Shannon

I use one of these to control my two sets of rope lights, I did not list them because I did not consider them to be actual "lighting".

http://www.smarthome.com/1147.html

I use two of these for my lighting, they have noise suppression built in and I have never had a problem with any of my equipment, although my equipment is on its own circuit.

http://www.lutron.com/maestroir/

Sdallnct

They are like $12.00 and they are in the light section. They are for plugging in a lamp and dimming it. Luckily, I'm able to hide these dimmers, one in the garage and one under my riser. Like I say, I don't play with them, now that I got them set, they pretty much stay there.

Home Depot has the $12.00 mechanical ones that I used and are fine for my needs. Lowes carries a little nicer one that is touch control and runs about $17.00 if I remember right.

edit, these aret the dimmers I used,

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...&s=electronics

I don't remember them being $18 but maybe they were and maybe the electronic ones were $24 or something.

KillerQ

What's "PJ" in this context?

Thanks,

Matt

Sonicflood

Projector

Dead

Great, now at least I know what to ask for and what area to be in when I ask!

blaineo

Why dont you go with LED color changing lights. They will never burn out and you can color mix up to 16 million colors .Check these out the Pixel Pup 87's from James Thomas Engineering. This company has been in the Entertainment lighting business for over 30 years. Very cool stuff

www.pixelpar.com

go to the built environment section and look under the products tab