Ceiling cloud absorbers with integrated lighting

[Tadpui]

These are far enough along that I feel like it's a good time to show them off. I worked with our house builder's son (he works for his dad doing general carpentry) to design and build some ceiling cloud absorbers for the new studio. I needed them to have lights built into them so I could avoid having a bunch of 6" holes put into my nice soundproofed ceiling. I came up with a design, and he adapted it. He built the frames, my wife and I wrapped them in fabric, and I wired them up. Builder will hang them, and electrician will do the final wiring into the circuit.

Here's the side and back of the frames. This is 4 of them stacked. I liked his idea to basically just make two face frames and sandwich the insulation between, using just enough support on the sides and corners to keep them sturdy and make it easy to get hangers in them. Added bonus of having a little more exposed insulation along all of the sides

Absorber frame back.jpg

Here's the front. We found that the Safe n Sound was too floppy and wanted to sag, so he added some nylon strapping to help support it. And, oh what the hell, let's drill some holes to remove some mass and expose a tiny bit more insulation. 6" cutouts for the can lights.

Absorber frame front.jpg

Then came the fabric wrapping. I didn't take any photos of that process, but suffice it to say that it was mostly my wife and a pneumatic staple gun that got it done. That staple gun is the most fun tool I've used in a while (Arrow PT-50 with 5/8" T50 staples). Wife would indicate where she wanted a staple and I'd PHTT-TAAP that thing down. It was satisfying. The backing material is "cambric" furniture dust cover fabric, and the front/sides is Guilford Of Maine Anchorage fabric in the Onyx color.

The light cans are Phillips Hue Slim RGB downlights. I could only find them with white baffles, so I took all 12 of them, masked them off with tape, and sprayed them black with a rattle can. The finish came out pretty great, but the masking didn't work 100%. From a distance, they look pretty good.

Absorber light detail.jpg

The lights each have a junction box, and after some stewing over how to install them after hanging the absorbers on the ceiling, I came up with this. I ran the light's integrated cable through the insulation and through one of the handy holes that the builder drilled in the back support baffle for this exact purpose. Then I mounted each light's junction box on the support baffle. Then a single-gang 10-hole "handy box" mounted on the baffle, near the side that'll be towards the wall. I used 14/2 Romex to connect to each Hue box into the handy box, and connected them both to another Romex that I left for the electrician to wire into the circuit after it's been hung.

I bumped into the electrician yesterday and showed him my work and asked "is this too janky for you?". He only suggested that I add strain relief to the Romex (I'd only added it to the wire that I left for him to connect, but I needed it everywhere the Romex passed through a box). I'll take that as a win! The Hue lights use push-fit connectors, and I used Wago lever nuts for everything else. He stripped the end of the Romex I left and stuck it into a live power outlet (yikes!) and it worked as expected. So that's encouraging.

Here's a "before" of one of the Hue light junction boxes:

HUE box before.jpg

And after making the connections:

HUE box after.jpg

Here's the "handy box" before making the connections:

Junction box before.jpg

And after making the connections:

Junction box after.jpg

And here's the front of the completed absorber (a little dusty, as the house is still technically a construction site):

Absorber Front.jpg

And finally a couple of shots of the back of the absorber. This was our first one, and I accidentally stretched out the backing fabric while working on it (it kinda looks like that meme of Homer Simpson where he has all of his fat clipped behind his back). This was before adding all of the strain relief:

Absorber Back.jpg

And this is after adding strain relief and pulling the slack out of the Romex:

Wiring done.jpg

There will be 6 of these, hung in 3 rows of 2. So far we've completed 2. Hopefully this weekend we can knock out another 2. Once they get hung and wired, I'll post a few final photos. I'm pretty stoked!

There are a couple of things I would have done differently if I had it to do over again:
- I'd ditch the Roxul Safe n' Sound and opt for a rigid insulation like Owens Corning 703. Safe n Sound is just too floppy for use in a situation where it can sag and cause the outer fabric to bulge.
- I'd have him put the lights more towards the outside of the box, so they'd be more evenly spaced in the room when hung.

[Greg_L]

That's bad ass. Nice work!

[vomitHatSteve]

That's very cool

[rayc]

Flash work.

[JD01]

They look fantastic.. I might do something similar... albeit small, shitter and more of a botch job.

[Tadpui]

Hey thanks fellas! The builder got 2 of them hung yesterday. I'll go out today and snap a couple of pics of them in their final resting place. Wife and I will try to get the rest of them knocked out today and tomorrow.

@Armistice the lights are Phillips Hue slim downlights. I'm already in the Hue ecosystem for the rest of the lights I've used in my studios for the last several years. I'm a fan, although nowadays there are a lot of other good options that come in at a cheaper price. My one knock on Hue (other than the cost) is that they're typically not super bright. That's a big reason why I doubled up on them in each panel, hopefully 12 of them will provide enough light in a window-less basement room with a black ceiling.

[WhiskeyJack]

YOOOOO!! TAD!!!

Those are bloody amazing man!!!! WOW!!! I am so impressed by this! This is some major big brain DIY stuff dude holy smokes. I can't even think of anything but be genuinely stoked for you for this.

[Tadpui]

YOOOOO!! TAD!!!

Those are bloody amazing man!!!! WOW!!! I am so impressed by this! This is some major big brain DIY stuff dude holy smokes. I can't even think of anything but be genuinely stoked for you for this.

Thanks Shan! I'm hoping that the wife and I can knock out the other 4 of them this weekend so builder can hang them and electrician can wire them up next week! They've got lights and switches in most of the rooms of the house now, so just a couple hours ago I was able to see a well-lit house for the first time. It's just amazing. Plus we got a 30x40 driveway apron and a sidewalk today. It's been a big week at the house.

[WhiskeyJack]

YOOOOO!! TAD!!!

Those are bloody amazing man!!!! WOW!!! I am so impressed by this! This is some major big brain DIY stuff dude holy smokes. I can't even think of anything but be genuinely stoked for you for this.

Thanks Shan! I'm hoping that the wife and I can knock out the other 4 of them this weekend so builder can hang them and electrician can wire them up next week! They've got lights and switches in most of the rooms of the house now, so just a couple hours ago I was able to see a well-lit house for the first time. It's just amazing. Plus we got a 30x40 driveway apron and a sidewalk today. It's been a big week at the house.

It's becoming alive !!!! Man that would be so cool.

How much longer are they speculating?

[Manslick]

Those electric connectors are so nice opposed to the wire nuts, if only because you can work them in to a box in a better way.
At least in my experience.
I look forward to future updates on your progress.

[vomitHatSteve]

Those electric connectors are so nice opposed to the wire nuts, if only because you can work them in to a box in a better way.
At least in my experience.
I look forward to future updates on your progress.

The square ones rather than the conical twisty ones? Yeah, my partner likes those too.

[Manslick]

Those electric connectors are so nice opposed to the wire nuts, if only because you can work them in to a box in a better way.
At least in my experience.
I look forward to future updates on your progress.

The square ones rather than the conical twisty ones? Yeah, my partner likes those too.

Yes like the one in these pictures.
I did a bit of rewiring last year and I had one duplex receptacle with too many wires in it.
I had to undo all the big ol black wire nuts to check continuity and me not being an electrician I used the square type which took up less room.

[Tadpui]

All 6 panels are complete, hung, wired, and turned on! They came out even better than I thought they would, I'm so pleased. In the room, they're basically invisible. They blend into the black ceiling and I can't even tell the panels are there. I had to fiddle with my fancy camera to get it to show that the panels are there but I got a shot of them in action:

P1177316.JPG

I have to admit, I got a little teary walking into my studio for the first time and being able to flip a switch and have the lights come on. The light temperature is the default for the Hue downlights, and since I don't have internet out there yet I can't connect them to the app and dial them in. But they default to a pretty nice warm white, and the light is well distributed throughout the room. I was afraid that there would be a dark zone in the middle of the room but it's actually really well diffused.

And these things cut way down on the room reverb, which is awesome. This room was so reverberant that you couldn't have a conversation with someone in there. With just these 6 panels, it's much more controlled. I can't wait to hear it with the rest of my treatment in place.

[JD01]

Well, done mate. You've done really well.

[vomitHatSteve]

That is way more light than I would like in my recording space, but it looks like you did a really nice job with it!

[Tadpui]

That is way more light than I would like in my recording space, but it looks like you did a really nice job with it!

Suspect it's not quite as light as that because @Tadpui has fiddled with exposure etc. to make them appear ...

But does raise an interesting question - do you have a dimmer for them?

Yeah you're on the right track. They're Phillips Hue lights, so they're WiFi connected. Once I have a network set up out there, I'll be able to control their brightness and color.via and app and a remote. For now they're just at their default out of the box settings, which is full brightness at a pretty low color Temperature. I like a warm white color but these default to a warmer white than I prefer. They're maybe 2700k (a little too yellow) where I like 3000k for a cozy living space.

The lights are on a switch but I'll have a wall mounted remote control that can turn them off and on without cutting power to them, so I can still use them with Google assistant and be able to yell at them to set them how I want. And I can set up scenes with all the colors to create a mood. Most of the time I just want them set to a dim.warm white, but occasionally I like to set them to various colors.

[Greg_L]

That's killer man. Looks great. I love the black ceiling as well. I was thinking about painting my ceilings black too.

[Tadpui]

Well, done mate. You've done really well.

Thanks JD, this has been such a long process. I'm ready to get in there and make some noise.

That is way more light than I would like in my recording space, but it looks like you did a really nice job with it!

The brightness is definitely exaggerated by the photo exposure. I think it's a pleasant amount of light, but I'll most likely keep them dimmed a bit from what they defaulted to. And I'll have other lights in the room, mainly up-lighting that'll bounce light off of the walls for a bit of indirect light.

That's killer man. Looks great. I love the black ceiling as well. I was thinking about painting my ceilings black too.

Thanks! This is my first black ceiling, but so far I like it. I was noticing several studios and other public spaces like restaurants that had black ceilings and it appealed to me. The black that we're using here and in various other places around the house is Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black. Apparently it has some undertones, but I'm not very good with colors so it just looks black to me. Wife seems to like it a lot, so it's the black that we went with. I kept making jokes about it being "blackest black" and that there is "none more black" but she's never seen the movie and the references went unappreciated

[Greg_L]

I kept making jokes about it being "blackest black" and that there is "none more black" but she's never seen the movie and the references went unappreciated

I can't even mention the word "black" without adding some kind of Tap reference. Better get her educated quickly because there's a sequel coming!

[JD01]

@Tadpui I'm guessing there's gonna be a studio tour video when you've got the room fully set up?