Can anyone help me create the perfect shadow for an art installation?

Hi forum folk,

This is my first post - so hello to everyone!!

After countless hours of scouring the net and trying a variety of products I'm on the verge of losing my marbles in pursuit of the perfect solution for an art-lighting installation I'm working on. I know that there's a huge wealth of experience on this site and I'm really hoping that someone can point me in the right direction.

The project:
I'm making laser cut steel panels with botanical designs cut in to them. These will be sconces/shades fixed to an exterior wall through which I want to shine a light so that the cut out pattern will be projected on to the floor. Essentially they are big steel lampshades, likely to be around 60cm x 40 cm. They will be around 10-15cm from the light source.

The link below will show you an example of the effect I'm trying to create. (Couldn't hotlink and show it here for some reason)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/K...hNjv9qrSZawHwM9mP6w_CkMuUQg=w524-h930-tmp.jpg


My problem:
I need the smallest pinprick of light of the highest lumen output in order to cast a crisp shadow. It needs to be suitable for exterior use too. There are many light sources that will give me a blurry shadow, but very few that make it crisp. It really needs to be a tiny, naked light source, as far as I can tell. I would love to find some off the shelf product that would suit, but would also consider building something - or working with someone experienced who could make something bespoke for me.

Close, but no cigar:
The closest I have to a solution is this:

It's a festoon bulb to fit car number plates or reading lights. It claims to be 250 lumens and is in fact incredibly bright. The tiny single emitter means that there is almost no blurring of the shadow on the floor. I can house it in a waterproof case and use standard car bulb fittings.
However, I need a bit more oomf! I think that I could really do with 400-500 lm.

The only things that seem to be able to do the job are the cree xlamps. However I can't seem to find that in any consumer product (such as a car bulb) as a single smd.

What I've tried:
Cheap chinese Creee Q5 torches give me quite a nice light and crisp shadows, but I obviously cant hook this up to the mains.
0.5w strawhat led. Perfect light - way too dim
10w COB floodlights- Perfect brightness. Weatherproof. Unfortunately, they cast a fuzzy shadow.
3030 superblock 1.4w 120 lumen module. A bit fuzzy and a bit too dim.

Can anyone help with a solution or suggest alternatives?

Any help of any sort would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Andy

Soraa used to have some shadow examples on their web site (I can't find them). Here are some examples from one of their vendors:

http://www.totaltracklighting.com/soraa-led-information.html

so basicaly you are looking for a bright light source from a single LED correct? Do you know about how much light you would need? a single Cree XP-L2 LED can get you to 1200 lumen from a small 5mm x 5mm source, so that will be small enough to give you crisp shadows.

Then you would need to see if you need optics since the LED would be nearly a 180 degree flood. After that figuring out how to enclose it and power it. There are small LED drivers that hook up to 120V AC power that woudl work.

Point light sources are the way to go, I'd agree with MDS82 on the Cree xp LED but there are other options as well. A single, small HID would work as well. I tinkered with this a few years back, toughest part was the fact that such a high percentage of your available lumens are masked out rendering them useless. What seemed bright at 10 watts was cut down massively. I made a planetarium style star projector, ended up using a 100 watt short arc to get the results I wanted.

A household unfrosted halogen bulb in a basic can lamp; halogen bulbs have a tall vertical filament, so when viewed from the top, the total emitter profile is remarkably tiny. That combined with no diffusion throws some seriously sharp shadows. A pieced-out improvised LED assembly could probably work better, but a store-shelf bulb and lamp is perhaps ~$15 total..

StarHalo said:

A household unfrosted halogen bulb in a basic can lamp; halogen bulbs have a tall vertical filament, so when viewed from the top, the total emitter profile is remarkably tiny. That combined with no diffusion throws some seriously sharp shadows. A pieced-out improvised LED assembly could probably work better, but a store-shelf bulb and lamp is perhaps ~$15 total..

Click to expand...

I'm certainly not averse to cheap and cheerful if it works. I havent really experimented with halogens yet. I'll have a crack tomorrow, Thanks.

MattPete said:

Soraa used to have some shadow examples on their web site (I can't find them). Here are some examples from one of their vendors:

http://www.totaltracklighting.com/soraa-led-information.html

Click to expand...

Thanks, that's a pretty crisp shadow. I'v just found their uk site and will have a good rummage around there.

Cheers

FRITZHID said:

Point light sources are the way to go, I'd agree with MDS82 on the Cree xp LED but there are other options as well. A single, small HID would work as well. I tinkered with this a few years back, toughest part was the fact that such a high percentage of your available lumens are masked out rendering them useless. What seemed bright at 10 watts was cut down massively. I made a planetarium style star projector, ended up using a 100 watt short arc to get the results I wanted.

Click to expand...

Yes. Totally inefficient use of light!! I'm resigned to that fact, I'm just banking on the fact that my 250lm festoon bulb almost does the job, so a 500+ lumen bulb should be the business for this purpose. The shadows only need to fall about 2-4m away from the light source. Thanks for your help

mds82 said:

so basicaly you are looking for a bright light source from a single LED correct? Do you know about how much light you would need? a single Cree XP-L2 LED can get you to 1200 lumen from a small 5mm x 5mm source, so that will be small enough to give you crisp shadows.

Then you would need to see if you need optics since the LED would be nearly a 180 degree flood. After that figuring out how to enclose it and power it. There are small LED drivers that hook up to 120V AC power that woudl work.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm on 240v here in the uk, but I know what you're on about I think
But yes, a tiny, bright light source. I think 500-700 lm should do it. I'm not too fussed if it's warm or cold. I think any optics will interfere with the crispness. There's a guy on budgetlightforum who has shown me some examples of shadows this evening. It looks like domeless XPL Hi seems to be a strong contender.

Enclosing and powering is another issue. This has to last outside for a long time.

Oh well there are plenty of 240V led drivers as well. I didn't realize you were int eh UK at first.