# Build Your Own Audience Blinder



## Hesher (Jan 1, 2010)

Has anyone tried to build their own audience blinder? And I'm not referring to ghetto rigging some halogen flood lights together. They seam like they would be easy enough to build. I've had some experience in steel work, so building the outer shell wouldn't be hard and wiring it would be a breeze, but I'm not sure how i would make the par 36 lamp holder... Ideas?


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## coldnorth57 (Jan 1, 2010)

one thing I would think about is using low voltage lights automotive head lights or aircraft landing lights wired in series for blinders 
10 -12vdc lights work great


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## lightman02 (Jan 1, 2010)

coldnorth57 said:


> one thing I would think about is using low voltage lights automotive head lights or aircraft landing lights wired in series for blinders
> 10 -12vdc lights work great



Building a power supply for 12V bulbs would not be practical nor easily dimmable. Best off sticking with standard par lamps.


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## JD (Jan 1, 2010)

Also, the reaction time of low voltage lights is slow due to the thicker filaments. In many cases you want to avoid that slow turn-on and slow fade-out caused by that. My favorite blinder bulb was the 300 watt R30 BEP photo-flood. Although the lamp is discontinued (I think), the rise and drop time, along with the 3400k color temp made for a great blinder, or kick light when ganged. The disadvantage was the 4 hour life. Blinders don't spend much time on so it never was a big problem. You might want to check out some of the current photo-flood bulbs on the market. Best part is, it's a great way to recycle old strip lights!


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## soundlight (Jan 1, 2010)

lightman02 said:


> Building a power supply for 12V bulbs would not be practical nor easily dimmable. Best off sticking with standard par lamps.



Groups of ten 12V lamps or five 24V lamps would not require a power supply if wired in series, because the voltage would be close enough to 115/120V.

This is how MR-16 20-lite blinders work: two circuits of ten 12V MR16s each, wired in series to make each circuit 120V of lamps.


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## lightman02 (Jan 1, 2010)

soundlight said:


> Groups of ten 12V lamps or five 24V lamps would not require a power supply if wired in series, because the voltage would be close enough to 115/120V.
> 
> This is how MR-16 20-lite blinders work: two circuits of ten 12V MR16s each, wired in series to make each circuit 120V of lamps.



Are you sure they wire them like that?? They do make MR-16's in 120v. Also I would not want a bunch of bulbs wired in series as if one goes out they all go out!!!


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## soundlight (Jan 1, 2010)

lightman02 said:


> Are you sure they wire them like that?? They do make MR-16's in 120v. Also I would not want a bunch of bulbs wired in series as if one goes out they all go out!!!



This is indeed how they are wired. Here's the TMB product sheet with the 20-lite spec: http://www.tmb.com/Pdf/ProCanBlinders-LTR-web.pdf

Also, this is how Zip Strips are wired. But Zip Strips have the neon indicator lamps for when a lamp goes out.


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## lightman02 (Jan 1, 2010)

soundlight said:


> This is indeed how they are wired. Here's the TMB product sheet with the 20-lite spec: http://www.tmb.com/Pdf/ProCanBlinders-LTR-web.pdf
> 
> Also, this is how Zip Strips are wired. But Zip Strips have the neon indicator lamps for when a lamp goes out.



That sucks, I don't understand why they wouldn't just use 120v lamps.


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## church (Jan 1, 2010)

the performance of a 12V MR16 lampis better than the performance of the 120V equivqlent which has the GU9 base - more lumens, better response time and they are cheaper.

You can also use the 600W DYS lamp in the Raylight reflector in a PAR56. It is high output lamp with 75 hours life. I found some single cell handheld home movie lights that use the DWE lamps in a garage sale. It was easy to unbolt the handles and replace them with C clamps.


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## Les (Jan 1, 2010)

lightman02 said:


> Are you sure they wire them like that?? They do make MR-16's in 120v. Also I would not want a bunch of bulbs wired in series as if one goes out they all go out!!!





soundlight said:


> Zip Strips have the neon indicator lamps for when a lamp goes out.



As soundlight said, the neon indicator light is key. This keeps the voltage stable while also keeping the circuit closed so you don't lose all the subsequent lamps should a failure occur.


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## soundlight (Jan 1, 2010)

Yup, the neon indicator in the zip strips takes the load if a lamp goes out. However, the 20-lite blinders don't have such indicator lamps - if one lamp goes, the whole side of the blinder (10 lamps) is down for the count. I've seen halves of those blinders out at more than one show. Those 20-lites do look pretty sweet with scrollers on 'em though, nice effect.

As far as making blinders, I'm personally a fan of the 150W T3 lamps (the short ones) for blinders. I like the response time and the look of the linear filament. If you were to make or buy reflectors and buy the lamp sockets, you could make a great 4-light, 600 watt blinder that would be pretty nice. Jump up to the 300 watt lamps and you've got a 1200 watt blinder.


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## lilricky (Aug 5, 2018)

I know I'm resurrecting a really old thread but, has anyone done this with 50w Halogen or LED equivalent? There's a saying around our venue, buy buy commercial when it can be built for twice as much.


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## soundlight (Aug 5, 2018)

50W halogen won't have much punch - what size is your venue?


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## ship (Aug 5, 2018)

I have built a few hundred audience blinders over the years. First define if you want a wash blinder or more of a ray (VNSP) light. Typically an audience blinder will use a 120v/650w very high output DWE wash lamp wired in parallel for a maximum of three per circuit. Otherwise wired in series for 250w/28v #4596 VNSP lamps. There is other lamp choices. Over the years, many companies have made audience blinders with 12v MR-16 lamps, PAR 16, PAR 30 etc.

HI-Spot 95 Osram PAR 30, Quartz NSP 10̊ 75w/230v E-26 Jarag PAR 30
HaloPAR 30 Osram #64845 PAR 30, Quartz FL 30̊ 75w/230v E-27 KR-25

Two examples of even individually dimmable lamp audience blinders, the Jarag and KR-25. There is also now LED audience blinders. Than the 5-lite Mole Richardson #5511 Five-Light Molefay I converted to PAR36/9WW40/LED Halco/ILT #80651 PAR 36, LED 40̊, (807154806515) for my work table light. Easy enough if Leko Dpt. is focusing their lights in my direction, to turn it on and focus it in their direction. It's bright even if about 15 years old in 1st generation 9w/12v LED ttechnology designed for outdoor lighting. Probably some notes somewhere on the website about the fixture.

Overall, once you specify a specific lamp desired, the work starts in figuring out if this lamp - or bunch of them in a mockup will work for your purposes. Any lamp will make for lighting fixture, but before you start, perhaps some lamp sockets screwed to a board in simulating your fixture. Do a prototype in your theater space and ensure this is the lamp you want to work. I spend a few $K a year in R&D and learning stuff. For probably less than $100.00, prototype what you are thinking so as to ensure the lamp chosen will do what you want it to.

Were I to go 50w presumably store bought lamp, I would start by defining the beam spead desired, than 50w. leaves a lot to define in lamp size. The 75w/12v EYC lamp is a standard lamp for strips and probably for a MR-16 audience blinder. So if going LED... one would want a comparable to it dimmable and with a high CRI. Lots of lamps out on the market - thousands of them. Define by what specific lamp you want to use, output and beam spread. Than once a lamp is defined, you have a start once you identify it's lamp socket, how you change lamps and if needed transformer, wired in parallel or series if some form of resister (shunt) is needed. Often for a standard custom audience blinder, I will just buy parts from TMB to retain lamps for my fixture design to work with in hole and keyway. Just because you are making your own fixture, does not mean you need to make all parts from scratch.

Assuming you have chosen your wattage, how many lamps per blinder, what is it's size in specific lamp and its voltage? Overall 50w or LED equivalent is dependent on a venu and throw distance as with intent for how much blinding you want to do. Photometrics data on proper audience blinders should be available on the Thomas, TMB, Technilux and Kupo websites amongst other makers of them. But hard to help design further given just a wattage given without both voltage and lamp/base type defined - this in addition to lamp to lamp type and how many lamps per fixture.


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## DELO72 (Aug 6, 2018)

*1) Please don't.*  Just... don't. As a frequent audience member, I IMPLORE YOU, on behalf of all audiences-- ENOUGH WITH THE AUDIENCE BLINDERS! We paid a lot of money to see the freakin' performers, NOT YOUR LIGHTS, and we can't see either if we are blinded. It's honestly the single most F--king annoying thing in any concert. And it's 10x worse when done with LED fixtures which are hurtful to the eyes. STOP BLINDING THE AUDIENCE ALREADY. 

We hate it. 
*
H-A-T-E* it. 

The only valid use for Audience Blinders is for filming the video or a recording of a live concert and you need to showcase how enthralled the Audience is, or how full the venue is *for a few seconds. * For all other performances, stop annoying the F--k out of us! PLEASE.


(This post is by Mark the audience member & compassionate Lighting Designer, and is in no way representative of the feelings of OSRAM or OSRAM SYLVANIA who probably want you to buy more LEDs and lamps to make Audience Blinders.) But for god's sake, stop annoying the hell out of people who paid hundreds of dollars to see a show. Audience Blinders are a stupid F'n idea; whoever came up with it should be shot.


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## lilricky (Aug 6, 2018)

DELO72 said:


> (This post is by Mark the audience member & compassionate Lighting Designer, and is in no way representative of the feelings of OSRAM or OSRAM SYLVANIA who probably want you to buy more LEDs and lamps to make Audience Blinders.) But for god's sake, stop annoying the hell out of people who paid hundreds of dollars to see a show. Audience Blinders are a stupid F'n idea; whoever came up with it should be shot.



How do you really feel?


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## lilricky (Aug 6, 2018)

DELO72 said:


> *1) Please don't.*  Just... don't. As a frequent audience member, I IMPLORE YOU, on behalf of all audiences-- ENOUGH WITH THE AUDIENCE BLINDERS! We paid a lot of money to see the freakin' performers, NOT YOUR LIGHTS, and we can't see either if we are blinded. It's honestly the single most F--king annoying thing in any concert. And it's 10x worse when done with LED fixtures which are hurtful to the eyes. STOP BLINDING THE AUDIENCE ALREADY.
> 
> We hate it.
> *
> ...



But, then you got the guy who say's light 'em up after everysong


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## Chris Pflieger (Aug 6, 2018)

I'm just trying to imagine the audio equivalent of a blinder...

White noise at 124 dB, amirite?

Does that sound appealing to anyone?


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## dreamist (Aug 6, 2018)

DELO72 said:


> *1) Please don't.*  Just... don't. As a frequent audience member, I IMPLORE YOU, on behalf of all audiences-- ENOUGH WITH THE AUDIENCE BLINDERS! We paid a lot of money to see the freakin' performers, NOT YOUR LIGHTS, and we can't see either if we are blinded. It's honestly the single most F--king annoying thing in any concert. And it's 10x worse when done with LED fixtures which are hurtful to the eyes. STOP BLINDING THE AUDIENCE ALREADY.
> ...
> The only valid use for Audience Blinders is for filming the video or a recording of a live concert and you need to showcase how enthralled the Audience is, or how full the venue is *for a few seconds. * For all other performances, stop annoying the F--k out of us! PLEASE.



I generally share your dislike of audience blinders, particularly as a general tool for concert lighting.. but I'd argue that there ARE uses, particularly in theatre. The easiest example I guess would be the final reveal in "The Full Monty" -- you generally want the audience's irises to be nice and closed up, so that the full detail of the nude performers is mostly obscured. There are other less abrupt ways manipulate things so the contrast is too great to see detail, but it's much harder in my opinion to make the cue look right in those types of situations.

Cheers,

Joe


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## JonCarter (Aug 6, 2018)

I'm with Mark DeLorenzo on this one. DON'T DO IT!!


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## ship (Aug 7, 2018)

Given Mark's well presented post, more a question of time and money on making something that might be used once in a while in considering cost efficiency. Cannot otherwise rented or in stock par 64 ROCK and roll cans or 8" Fresnels or Scoops with photo flash lamps pointed to the audience also do this concept of blinding the audience? For a particular show's need assumed. 

This instead of making your own which will be an expensive in materials and labor and detailed process to make safely? Remember no holes for venting bigger than 1/4" as an example. And venting even with LED is necessary. Good stop point to make, thanks Mark.

Been presented a 50w halogen or it's version of Led unless MR-16 low voltage isn't worth much, and even than is not enough for proper blinding. Granted a theater could be blinded by some form of 50w lamp - see above in other options that could also. Support the concept of blinding if required for a show, but building fixtures instead of re-purpose to consider before doing.


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## Chris Pflieger (Aug 7, 2018)

So when using blinders, how do you handle cold filaments on large lamps? I would assume that any heat built up before the show would dissipate before you call on them, so do you just flip them on and accept shorter life (and the potential for blowing the lamp)? Is this why MR16's are used instead of 2K fresnels?


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## ship (Aug 8, 2018)

Normal dimming pre-warming curve I assume.


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## DELO72 (Aug 9, 2018)

dreamist said:


> I generally share your dislike of audience blinders, particularly as a general tool for concert lighting.. but I'd argue that there ARE uses, particularly in theatre. The easiest example I guess would be the final reveal in "The Full Monty" -- you generally want the audience's irises to be nice and closed up, so that the full detail of the nude performers is mostly obscured. There are other less abrupt ways manipulate things so the contrast is too great to see detail, but it's much harder in my opinion to make the cue look right in those types of situations.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Joe



I absolutely get it for those RARE instances where it's necessary for the show, and an essential element to telling the story like you describe above. My venting (I loved that "Tell us how you really feel, by the way" *laugh*) was for when it is used "non-judiciously" throughout concerts for no real purpose other than to bathe the crowd in lights and "look cool". One person (the LD) wanting to make the audience "look cool" is not a valid reason to piss off a thousand people or more. ;-)


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## ship (Aug 10, 2018)

My thoughts are not design wise - design good or bad, for a theater in Mark's point, is this gear you need to be making that will be useful later this year if not next year + further, or something you are up to the challenge of building? If not and needed for the show, perhaps rent or re-task any number of lights that could blind.


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