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LEDs Help Keep the Current Flowing in Kansas City

Spanning Highway 470 in Kansas City is the Power & Light Utility Bridge, which carries the city’s electrical cables, rather than people, from the Crossroads Arts District to the Power & Light Entertainment District. The city’s vision for the Power & Light Utility Bridge was to make this infrastructural necessity an attractive part of the Kansas City cityscape. According to Architectural Lighting, the Power & Light Utility Bridge is 163ft long set of trusses featuring steel panels perforated with holes of varying diameters to give them a swirling and undulating appearance. At night, the panels are illuminated 52 60w RGB color changing wash units and accentuate the undulating quality of the panels’ design.

The Power & Light Utility Bridge represents a creative and aesthetically pleasing solution to a infrastructural problem, how to get electricity from one side to the city to another with a highway in between. The use of outdoor LED color changing units is a testament to the breadth of applications for LED technology and its durability and usability.

BulbAmerica has a wide selection of outdoor LED products to get whatever space you are working with to look its best. Please do not hesitate to leave us a comment or a question on our blog or Facebook, or call us at (888)505-2111. 
By Victor Lopez | 20 November, 2014 | bulbs, led, lights, outdoor | 0 comments | Read more

Fun-Identified Flying Objects: LEDs Go Extraterrestrial

If you’ve read this blog with any regularity you’ve probably read at least one article about the architectural and entertainment applications of LEDs. In this article I’m going to detail another application of LED technology that is truly out of this world, namely UFO lighting. New York artist Peter Coffin recently completed a 23ft in diameter UFO that featured 3,000 individually addressed bulbs that were controlled via a computer to create vibrant extraterrestrial lighting. Coffin and his team took their remote control LED UFO on a flight through the historic city of Gdansk, Poland to the delight, and among some, the disquiet of pedestrians on the ground. The LED UFO has also made a flight through the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, and before a crowd of 500,000 displayed its impressive color changing LEDs and its elegant flight.

Peter Coffin’s LED UFO is the likely the most creative uses of LEDs I’ve come across thus far. Indeed, LEDs are not only ideal for spacecraft, but their durability and compact packages make them ideal for aircraft, watercraft, and automobiles as well. BulbAmerica stocks a wide array of LED products perfect for all applications. LEDs will last long, likely never fail, and will save you money. As usual, give us a leave a comment or question on our blog or Facebook or call us at 1-877-622-0897 with any further questions you have.

By Victor Lopez | 20 November, 2014 | bulbs, led, lights, outdoor | 0 comments | Read more

LED Lighting on Display in one of Germany's Greatest Museums

By BulbAmerica Editor

LEDs are often used in applications where color changing and strobing is required, as in stage lighting. In museum applications however, white LEDs are being used for their ultra-violet and heat free light. LED lighting was recently installed at Hamburg’s Museum of Art and Industry, a prominent museum in Germany that attracts approximately 250,000 visitors a year. LEDs were utilized in nearly every museum application from illuminating the ticket desk in the museum’s entrance to the LED bulbs that lit up the museum’s collection. The museum’s halls featured LED luminaires which provided a partial wash for hallways’ vaulted ceilings, highlighting the building’s 130 year old architecture while providing sufficient light for museum visitors to navigate the museum. Even the lighting used in the museum’s bookstore was LED, thus fulfilling the museum’s goal of making its lighting both efficient and highly functional.

The Hamburg Museum of Art and Industry provides a wonderful example of not only LED architectural lighting, but the exclusive use of white LEDs, proving that LEDs are not solely useful in color changing applications. BulbAmerica has a wide selection of architectural and stage and studio LEDs to give you the lighting you need, so check out what we have to offer. As usual, leave us a comment or question on our blog or our Facebook. Also don’t forget to give us a call at  (888)505-2111 with any further inquiries you have.
By Victor Lopez | 20 November, 2014 | bulbs, led, lights, museum | 0 comments | Read more

Griven's Outdoor Lighting Attracts Investors to Ukrainian Business Park

Griven’s outdoor color changers are an important tool for any business or group that wants to draw attention to itself. This past winter in the city of Donetsk, southern Ukraine’s industrial center, employed Griven’s color changers to draw attention to its thriving commercial sector by illuminating the city’s new business park, the Stolichiny Business Center. By washing the main buildings of the Stolichiny Business Center in the rich light of Griven’s Kolorstream color changers, officials in Donetsk hoped to attract business owners who were looking for new or additional space for their businesses. Not only did Griven’s outdoor color changers illuminate the buildings with brilliant light, but they also made the buildings of the Stolichiny Business Center stand out against the other buildings in the area.
When it comes to outdoor lighting, Griven’s color changers cannot be beat. Their power, durability, and beautiful CYM color changing make them truly unrivaled. BulbAmerica carries Griven’s entire line of outdoor color changers and other products, so be sure to check out what we have to offer. As usual, be sure to leave your comments or questions on our blog or
Facebook
 or call us at 1-877-622-0897 for any further inquiries.
By Victor Lopez | 19 November, 2014 | led, lights, outdoor | 0 comments | Read more

LED Lights Bring a Taiwanese Department Store to Life

Telee Star Place is a department store featuring high end retailers, restaurants, and apartments in the center of Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan. The building features an avant-garde all white curving design with a ‘void’ toward the front of the building that the building’s 12 floors bend around. Though the interior of the Talee Star Place is radical, the exterior of the building is mesmerizing. The glass façade of the building has placed over it a giant aluminum lattice of metal fins and ridged pieces that create a swirling pattern on the front of the building. Fitted into the aluminum fins are LED modules which are controlled by external controls and animation software, making the building appear to come alive with light.

The LED façade of the Telee Star Place represents the boundless creativity possible with LED lighting in architectural applications. BulbAmerica has a wide range of both LED products for architectural and entertainment applications, so be sure to check out what we have to offer. As usual, leave a comment or question on our blog or Facebook or call us at (888)505-2111 with any further inquiries.

 

By Victor Lopez | 19 November, 2014 | bulbs, led, lights, outdoor | 0 comments | Read more

New York's FAO Schwarz Gets an LED Makeover

By BulbAmerica Editor

The FAO Schwarz on New York City’s iconic Fifth Avenue is likely the most famous toy store in the world. The designers responsible for the lighting for the store’s renovation therefore faced a significant challenge when they were faced with the task of redesigning the store's lighting. The designers sought a lighting system that would sustain the store’s fanciful and exciting environment while remaining versatile and efficient. Another hurdle was devising a way of evenly and vibrantly lighting the store’s expansive 140ft by 60ft floor space and while ensuring that the store’s merchandise be adequately lit. The lighting designers settled on a plan to stud the entire ceiling with almost 80,000 individually addressed LED bulbs. When the project was finally completed the ceiling was adorned with an astounding 28,080ft of color changing light. Moreover, the ceiling lights also serve as a gigantic LED panel and can create lively shows, shapes, and images for the customers at the store to enjoy. The color changing and LED panel effects made them ideal for matching the lighting to the varying themes and displays used at the store.

Though you may not be able to create an LED light system quite like FAO Schwarz’s, you can come close, and save money and energy while doing it. Start adding color to your home or business lighting and check out what we have to offer today! As usual leave a comment or question on our blog or Facebook or call 1-877-622-0897.
By Victor Lopez | 19 November, 2014 | bulbs, christmas, effects, holidays, led, lights, outdoor | 0 comments | Read more

The World's Largest LED Screen is on Display in Shanghai

By BulbAmerica Editor

The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, which began in May, is a multi-month event for the nations of the world to congregate and share with each other their cultures, peoples, and spirit. The architectural and artistic contributions of the nations present were not the only thing on display. Beginning this year’s world Expo featured a display of the wonders of LED technology with a light and fireworks show with the largest LED screen ever created at its center. The Shanghai LED screen was 9,500m, which is equivalent to nearly 105 football fields. The screen demonstrated many of the unique merits of working with LEDs. For one, because LEDs emit light from tiny bulbs and are clustered together, they can be formed into virtually any shape. This is especially useful for LED panels where they may need to be mounted in oddly shaped ceiling or wall spaces. The screen was also amazingly colorful, highlighting LEDs’ ability to rapidly change color and create bright, well rendered color. The durability of LEDs made them an obvious choice for the World Expo. The screen was situated on the banks of the Huangpu River in the center of Shanghai, so the weather and environment were unpredictable.

I probably sing the praises of LEDs too often on this blog but applications like the screen in Shangai beautifully display the technology’s versatility. From high resolution and low resolution panel displays to LED bulbs, consumer products,LED PAR cans, and DJ effects, LEDs are changing the lighting game. Though we can’t offer you a 105 football field long LED screen, we can offer nearly all other LED products and at great prices too, so check out what we have to offer! Don’t forget if you have a question or comment you can leave it on my blog or call toll free 1-877-622-0897.
By Victor Lopez | 19 November, 2014 | led, lights, outdoor | 0 comments | Read more

The World Cup Lights Up with Osram's LEDs

By BulbAmerica Editor

The World Cup soccer stadiums in South Africa are the object of attention of millions of viewers watching the greatest soccer talents in the world vie for victory. Some eyes, however, are trained on the stadiums in South Africa for reasons unrelated to soccer, namely their use of cutting edge LED and HID lighting technologies. Osram-Sylvania has agreed to supply all ten World Cup venues with environmentally friendly lighting solutions, and has done so, particularly at the Green Point and Moses Mabhida Stadiums, in a spectacular fashion.

The Green Point stadium, located in Cape Town, is one of Osram’s greatest lighting achievements in South Africa. The rebuilt Green Point stadium features its LED lighting as its architectural focal point. The stadium has a wavy balustrade of white light that wraps around the entire stadium. The stadium’s designers needed a light bulb that was slim and would not interfere with the stadium’s elegant architecture. To solve this problem Osram used its Opto Semiconductors and Golden Dragon Plus LEDs to be hidden, yet produce a striking white light. In total Osram used 482 luminaires which amounted to 1.8 meters of lights. These lights were installed along the wavy balustrade and the ring encircling the top of the stadium. The Osram luminaires, like most LED bulbs, have an estimated life span of 50,000 hours or more and guarantee the lighting system to be low maintenance.

The second of Osram’s largest lighting installations is at the Moses Mabhida Stadium (pictured above) in Durban. The Mabhida Stadium features a 350 meter long arch (1,148 feet), 105 meter (348 feet) high, spanning the entire stadium. The beam is illuminated by 12,000 Osram Golden Dragon plus LEDs as well as custom LED beams. The LED system on the beam features exciting strobe patterns that bring the stadium to life. In both the Green Point Stadium and the Mabhida stadium Osram also installed HID lighting, T5, and T8 fluorescent lamps. Osram’s decision to outfit the World Cup stadiums with LEDs signals the global push toward LEDs and other forms efficient lighting like CFLs and HIDs.

Embrace the World Cup fever and check out our LED and other green lighting technologies today.
By Victor Lopez | 18 November, 2014 | bulbs, led, lights, osram, world cup | 0 comments | Read more

Taking Control of Your Lighting System

  The controller is the brain of your lighting system. Controllers have always been central to production and theater lighting. With the adoption of the DMX512 protocol in 1986, the controller could easily and precisely dim numerous lights from a central location. As the demands of lighting productions and the technologies they require have become more advanced, so have the lighting controllers. Today, not only are controllers used to dim and raise lights, but they are used to control various parameters such as panning, gobos, colors, strobes, chasing, scene memory, etc. The introduction of
LED lighting into theater and production lighting has also added additional considerations in choosing an appropriate controller for your needs. This article is an introduction to today’s lighting controller and its features. 
  Generally speaking there are two broad categories of controllers, namely the dimming controller and the intelligent controller. The dimming controller is very basic and is geared to the individual who only wants to control dimmers. Intelligent controllers are for individuals who want to control dimmers and fixtures that require the control of numerous types of attributes and parameters. These controllers are compatible with moving lights and are typically found in concert venues, DJ lighting, large church lighting systems, etc. Optima’s DMX I, for example, has the ability to remember 6 chases, or light flash sequences, of 240 programmed scenes. The chase patterns can be activated using programmable chase buttons. The pan and tilt of moving lights can be manipulated using two jog wheels. Many intelligent controllers have the ability to precisely control light movements, chases, and fades. The Optima DMX I’s speed slider, fade time slider, and fine button allow minute adjustments to your chase speed, fade speed, and light tilting to perfect your lighting performance.

LED technology, particularly LED par cans, is the most important new technology to come to theatre and production lighting. Nearly all LED par cans available today come with dimmers and effects already built into them. Provided that your controller and your LED par can use the same protocol, the LEDs’ internal dimmers, colors, and effects can be triggered remotely by the controller. Because LED par cans have so many on board features they can be operated successfully on both a simple dimming controller and an intelligent controller. Making the decision concerning which controller to go with will depend largely on what other lighting components you have in your system and on what degree of control you need and want over your lights.

The technical capacities of lighting components and the controllers mean endless possibilities for the creative lighting designer. The integration of controllers and computer software adds another dimension of control and creativity to the lighting designer not otherwise possible. Optima’s Sweetlight USB to DMX512 box and control software, available for Mac and PC, allows for the full simulation and control of all facets of your lighting performance, including full syncing of music and lighting. The scene builder and 3D view allows you to fully construct your production; the generator function allows you to manipulate fully the movement, light, gobos, etc. of your lighting components, giving you unprecedented control. Regardless of whether you choose an intelligent controller or a computer-based controller, the future of lighting system control is promising.
By Victor Lopez | 18 November, 2014 | dmx, led, stage lighting | 0 comments | Read more

LED Strip Lights Get Dialed In with Optima's Colorstream Strip Kit

LED strip light packages are easy enough to come by these days, but what is not as common is coming across one with an easy to use control that allows you to fully take advantage of the dynamic color changing ability of your color changing strip. The COLORstream RGB LED kit, featuring the PAVO dial is a great option if you are looking for an easy to install and easy to use LED light source for accent, diplay, under railing, and under cabinet applications. The nearly 40in 7w strip features 35 bright 50,000hr SMD LEDs with a wide viewing angle of 105˚. With a depth of .43in, the COLORstream strip is extremely low profile, making it easy to conceal so what you are lighting is on display and not the strip.

What really excites me about this package is the 100w Optima’s PAVO dial, which is an intuitive and easy to use control for the color strip. By turning the dial initially and selecting among its first four settings: red, green, blue, white, you choose the strip's base color. Once this selection is made, press in the dial and adjust the color and speed of fade1/fade2 and the random flash program. This control is easy to use and allows you fully customize your strip light’s look.

BulbAmerica has a wide range of LED products for display applications as well as LEDs for the home, office, and stage. As usual, leave a comment on our blog or Facebook or give us a call at 1-877-622-0897 with any remaining questions you have.

 

By Victor Lopez | 18 November, 2014 | bulbs, led, led strips, stage lights | 0 comments | Read more
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