When the city recently undertook an extensive downtown makeover that included new roads, sidewalks, street lights and trees, Mayor Murray and his team wanted to do something that would really put the town on the map and make it stand out.
Anyone who visits Lindsay will see they succeeded. Hundreds of ornamental Chinese pistache and palm trees that line a six-block area in the city's downtown district are now aglow in brilliant colour - pinks, purples, blues, oranges, and a whole spectrum of dramatic hues. The trees are lit up with inground colour-changing RGB LED fixtures from Acclaim Lighting, designed and supplied by Illuminate Production Services (IPS).
Rick Franke of IPS said that his company won the bid for the Lindsay project after demo-ing the Acclaim LED fixtures and submitting a proposal. "The city manager asked me to help him think of something innovative they could do to their downtown area that would enhance the town's atmosphere and make it more inviting and friendly," said Franke. "He wanted something that would have the potential to be very festive and thematic during each season. We created this by lighting the trees with unique colour sequences."
The fixture used for the project is Acclaim's X-Drum HIP, an IP68-rated outdoor RGB LED fixture in rugged diecast stainless steel housing. Mountable inground, it is powered by 36 bright Luxeon RBG LEDs. Franke said he chose the X-Drum HIP because it is "a powerful LED fixture. To my knowledge there is not another LED fixture as bright that is rated for inground and even submersible applications. It has great intensity and colour saturation, along with a nice beam angle for many things, specifically trees on this project."
Some 225 downtown trees have been "lit up," with two or three fixtures per tree. The fixtures are controlled via a wireless DMX system from Acclaim's sister company Elation Professional, the EWDMX system. Three universes of DMX are transmitted wirelessly from a 50' mast at City Hall to more than 20 pedestals filled with power supplies throughout the downtown area. Inside each pedestal is an EWDMX receiver with an individual IP-rated antenna designed for signal boost as well as all-weather application.
(Jim Evans)
