Ledtranceguy Blog, LEDs, Trance and other EDM, and Festivals

2026/08/29 John 00 Fleming at Halcyon

π 2026-08-29 01:01 in Clubbing

It had been ages since last time I was at Halcyon. They have fantastic lighting and sound, but unfortunately that night it was run pretty badly. The room was dark and uninspiring most of the time, and on top of that it was way too warm, as they weren't running any AC or enough of it, which was disappointing.

John, whom I love with passion, played a set different from the Deep Trance he usually does, so unfortunately that was not my favorite set either. It is what it is, next time will work better hopefully :)

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2026/08/07 Second Timescape near Cambridge, UK

π 2026-08-07 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

Timescape this year was moved 2 weeks later, and whether it was luck or not, the rain from last year, was replaced with beautiful weather, not too warm, not too hot, it was just perfect. Of course, sunset was still a bit late given the northern latitude but the party went on until at least 02:00, so no complaints (apparently it actually went until 06:00 in some fashion on saturday night, after having started at 11:00). If that's not enough trance, I don't know what is ;) (and yes, there were 4 other stages of course, not all trance)

Rick, redbull powered troublemaker in chief

Just like last year, Rick Weekender, Adam and his crew who I've now confirmed are indeed powered by triple espressos and buckets of red bull, did a great job with the venue. It had some improvements in decors this year, more lights at night, better lasers, better tent. And there was a full psytrance tent a bit on the side, short walk but better to avoid sound bleed (there was no sound bleed, unlike at lumi where sometimes you could hear 3 sets at once).

Another big plus of this event was the limited costs. The ticket costs were very reasonable given what's offered, and you could camp onsite to save money. Given that costs are a concern for many, timescape did a great job keeping that in mind (interestingly multiple people I chatted with mentioned one of their main issues with lumi was the high and increasing costs).

Venue

beautiful weather and shade, so I didn't have to bathe in sunscreen. Not too hot, not too cold, awesome!

haha, a trinket swap box, awesome!

There were multiple vendors with the essentials for clubbers and campers:

the bar was also well stocked

The venue itself in otherwise kind of unknown Huntingdon, was conveniently 1h-ish from London by direct train, which was a huge plus. Small downside was that nearby Luton airport was not easily reachable by train, but about 1h via uber, not the end of the world.
For people like me who avoid camping if they can (especially with my gear that needs to be recharged nightly, and soemtimes also fixed ;) ), the nearby hotels in town were about 15mn away, and thankfully there were enough bolt/uber drivers to get us there and back without issues.

People

Of course these events are not just about the music, but the great fellow trance lovers, many I get to see around the world, chasing the same high ;)

friends!

another chief troublemaker :)

lovely outfits

And then this legend was back with the POV light sticks

Meeting Djs again to thank them for all the great tunes

Cold Blue did a wonderful melodic set

I had no idea that after 25 years, I would finally get to meet the legendary Ian van Dahl, who has done a lot lot more than just Castles ;)

Security

There was good perimeter security and at the same time, the security staff was nice and chill. They did their best to stop people from bringing lots of drinks instead of buying them from the bar, which is fair enough. For the rest, the attendees didn't give them much (or hopefully any) work to do, which is great:

this is the best scenario for security staff :)

I should add that thanks to a chat with Dave Clement, one of the co-organizers, who was so kind as to share some of the work they do and how they do it, including indeed ensuring that the security team does appropriate work for the crowd at hand (in this case mostly trance lovers). And this is exactly what Lumi fails terribly at due to total lack of clue from the organizer.

3 Days of Music

the lasers were great

Video Summary of the 3 days:

And I was thanfully a ble to record almost all of Ian Van Dahl's set:

After-After Parties

Timescape really offered much later hours this year. The die hards could go into the wee hours of the morning at the wellness ten, which had pretty cool lasers this year:

Conclusion

First, I'm told the attendance was 3 times higher this year, which is great news, and good proof that the event is doing well and people appreciate the uniqueness of Timescape and what it offers (seriously, where else do you see DJs from 20y+ ago that many like me have ever had the chance to ever see?).

The lineup had lots of trance, a full psytrance lineup for 3 days which is not that common for EU festivals, so big props for that, and 3 other stages. Plenty of music...
Now, I also need to say that just like Euphoria Malta, the lineup was "cheaper" as in fewer expensive DJs. That's of course not a problem at all, it's a chance to see plenty of other DJs that play lovely trance and don't get the cchance as often, while keeping pricing down and the whole event affordable. And then surprises like Ian Van Dahl, OMG, IvD, this is worth 10 big name festivals where I get to see those bigger name DJs, which I absolutely enjoy, but often see multiple times per year.

Just like last year, I'll repeat that I hope UK people realize how lucky they are to have these trance events, few countries have that many. Heroes like Rick, Dave and their crew of rockstars who make these parties happen, are what makes the UK unique and lucky. Let's thank Rick, Adam, Dave, and the many others who made it happen

Links

Google photos

Video Summary:

IG Stories Videos:

Merged IG Videos All in One

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2026/07/31 Sunrise Festival, Poland

π 2026-07-31 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

I'll mix things up around a little and start with "where and why Sunrise"? :)

If anyone associated with Sunrise Festival ends up reading this page, please contact me (ledtranceguy on IG or FB), I would love for the extra LEDs to be allowed without issues:

Sunrise, should you go, would I go back?

Sunrise is a legit festival in Poland, if you're Polish and reading this page, you rule :) and you probably already know about Sunrise so you don't need my help with it. If you're not Polish, should you go?

First, since I come from far, once I already fly to Europe, I try to line up more than one festival to make the trip worth it ;) In this case, it was supposed to be Sunrise, Timescape, and a psytrance eclipse festival in Spain that Spain itself unfortunately cancelled. Sunrise is definitely worth the trip if you like to visit good festivals.

Getting there: it is honestly hard to get to. The nearest airport, Szczecin if you can manage to spell it :), is 2h away and barely has any flights and mostly despicable ryanair which were b*tches with luggage as always and costing me a lost hotel room in London after landing 5h too late). Gdansk is a bit bigger, but 3H+ away which is over $300 by private transport unless you manage to catch several buses in a row which may only run once a day. Basically renting a car and driving is the way, or being willing to spend $500+ in taxis/private transport.

But the cool-ish thing about the location is that it's literally on a former airport, with the main runway separating the stages and the campsite. Not a bad idea, an airport is not a bad place to make noise :)

this is actually the runway :)

The festival production itself is quite good, the team knows what they're doing and the DJ selection was pretty good (varied and included a fair amount of trance, which was much appreciated). The 5/6 different stages were quite nice (I'm told they stay in that location all year as the space is otherwise unused the rest of the year).

Another plus is most of the festival was late in the afternoon/at night, and the weather north of poland and close to sunset, was pretty cool and comfortable, which was a nice change from the heat waves going across Europe. Actually to be entirely fair, it got pretty cold later a night, as in bring layers cold.

not too long to wait before sunset

Pricing: it was not cheap. It was priced close to EDC Vegas level which I found high given that it's good but not EDC Level good. If you bought the VIP tickets, it was over $1000, which did include some ok food, but no drinks (those were extra). The food+drinks combo at Euforia Poland a few weeks earlier was much better, and the VIP experience was not to the level of EDC while being close to the same price. Poland is going well, I guess Polish people can afford it :)

VIP: a big plus was being able to get in easily and security just letting you in, but it was quite expensive for a side viewing area on some stages, and some food that was decent, but not worth the $1000+ for 3 days (especially when no drinks were included, not even water)

[rigimg:1024:297*|it was mostly about spending more money to be with other people who had also done so

as many expensive drinks as money can buy ;)

took advantage of the food

Security: that one is a bit tough to write about. The perimeter security was good, the security staff was quite thorough and seemed fair enough in what was allowed, and what was not, but indeed my LED panels were a bit too much for them. There wasn't really a good reason outside of mostly "a bit too weird and high tech". The guy who dealt with me at the entrance called someone to ask for guidance but that person wasn't even there and probably just said no as it's the default answer in Poland :) and to be honest they aren't really used to more elaborate outfits and didn't want to deal with it.

- On day 1, the guy allowed me in with it so I didn't have to go back to the room, but asked me not to use it or he could get in trouble. It was of course simple for me to use it anyway and figure no one would really care, but indeed the guy tried to be careful, I gave him my word not to, and I did not.
- On day #2, I tried another approach (camping side entrance), which was worse, and then figured out that because I had VIP on day 2 (which was very expensive), I could just walk in the main entrance with it and no one cared. Go figure...
- On Day 3, I didn't have VIP so they cared again, and it was about to get denied, until I showed pictures of day 2 where everything was fine, and then they said 'fine'.

So I'm not quite sure what to write, the disappointing part is that there was no one to contact before the event to ask for permission beforehand (no one replied). When I talked to a person in charge of security at the end of day #3 on the way out if there was someone I could reach and get proper permission for a future time, he took email info and I never heard back after that. I understand they have lots of do any many details to worry about though.
Yes, I know some will say "TMI, who cares?" and you're not wrong, while others have told me they are amused when reading the stories of my dealing with security or airports :) (on that topic, I did fine with all 3 airports after replacing my safe USB powerbanks with not as safe but legal lithium batteries)

All in all, it was a nice festival, it was possible to stay at decent hotels walking distance (but not cheap), but I'm not sure if I would go back if I can't reach anyone from the event to get approved for a future time.

Venue

nice decors, even outside by the campsite

camping side

good use of shipping containers ;)

green stage

plenty of food and drinks, for sale but the plastic glass recycling program was way too hard: stay in line, and return a useless token along with the glass or it doesn't count

For people not camping or staying around the area, they had busses that went to the main next town 20-30mn away I assume

3 Days of Music

I spent most of it at the "trance stage" aka blue stage.

a Paul Van Dyk - Aly and Fadi!

yes!

First time seeing Gus Gus

While I was mostly at the trance stage, aka blue stage, mainstage had some interesting acts:

scooter

still rocking

JAmes Hype is not generally my music, but he's an very skilled DJ and he played some fun tunes when I walked by

Video Summary of the 3 days:

People

The previous Polish festivals, not many people had any outfits at all, but some did at Sunrise, which was nice:

at least LEDs were allowed ;)

Another chance to say hi to a few favorite DJs

Farius

and Ruben

Ben Hemsey

Grundy

Asteroid

Fadi rightfully complained my picture of him didn't match anymore, I fixed it :)

Richard Durand

Links

Google photos

Video Summary:

IG Stories Videos

Merged IG Videos All in One:

Oh, and they had a few fireworks, pretty but felt like 30 seconds or so, at most ;)

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2026/07/26 LED Panels Battery Self Made Powerbanks

π 2026-07-26 01:01 in Arduino, Electronics

Why we live in a sad world where I had to make my own powerbanks

This page: Europe and ICAO Just Screwed Over Many People with 2 Powerbank Limit on Planes explains why people who rely on powerbanks to power things, are now screwed, at least in Europe. Please read that page for more details, but the summary is, they just passed a law earlier in 2026, and I found out the hard way. It boils down to: - you can still have 2 powerbanks, of any size below 100Wh, but only 2 - so the tiniest little phone booster I have in my pocket (I travel with 4), counts as 1 - I was going to an off the grid festival and had 4 real size powerbanks (90Wh+), so after trying to take off from Wroclaw in Poland, they told me to get rid of 2 - This didn't count the extra 6 smaller 60Wh powerbanks I had to power my LED outfit. Those were not allowed at all either, because too many - Now, what is a phone but a powerbank with a screen? These are thankfully allowed - What is a laptop but a powerbank with a screen and keyboard? Those are fine too - And you can have 20 raw lithium batteries. The ones that are not safe, the ones that will catch fire if you pierce them, and the same one that can cause a fire if you short them, which is easy to do on some.

So there we are, now I have to go back to using raw batteries, even to power USB things like my outfit LEDs, which basically means I need to build powerbanks with raw batteries (which means the batteries get counted as 20 batteries, and not powerbanks, and then I plug in the powerbank module and they become powerbanks after I'm already past airport security)

So now, I'm forced to make my own powerbanks again

I Emailed every powerbank manufacturer I bought from, and let the know they should seriously consider modular powerbanks where the battery can be unplugged and carried separately so it counts as a lithium battery with has a limit of 20, instead of powerbank which has a limit of 2 or 1, or even 0 depending on the country.
A few listened to my feedback, but I'm not sure they took it that seriously, or the fact that their powerbanks are literally getting banned in planes in more and more countries this year.

As part of looking for new batteries, I found foxbuying.com which made custom Li-Ion packs of multiple form factor and voltages and the support person I talked to was amazing in how much they cared and were willing and able to talk tech. As part of that, they gave me recommendations of powerbank ICs to look for on aliexpress, which was very helpful for my search.

Considering if Lipo Batteries would work, the devil I knew

The irony is that I used to use lipos for my LED outfit, mostly because it's what I already had from flying RC planes, but the truth is that they are not the best choice:

their energy density is not actually that great compared to Li-Ion batteries, Lipos are meant for high power discharge, which I don't need on my LED outfit (it uses up to 20W or so), so they are bigger and heavier for no godo reason

lipos are still optimized for weight since they are used in RC planes, so they have little anti fire protections. They can be pierced pretty easily and will catch fire

if you short lipos, you're going to have a bad day, they can put out 100A or even more, enough to melt a lot of things

of course lipo packs need to be carefully balanced or you could overcharge a cell and get it to catch fire

and if you over discharge them, you will damage them forever

plus you need a custom balancing charger to charge them carefully, and those chargers are usually not small

Given all of this, it's kind of a miracle that I used them for more than 5 years without any issues (even if my circuits did have fuses and I was religious about using low voltage alarms).

I didn't have a lot of luck finding nice lipo packs that weren't too big, and I found this one:

6S 88.8Wh

but the issue is that it had no BMS, so I checked if I could find small balancers I could just connect forever, and by the time I got them, I realized they were huge and even their balancing plug is not the same size as the one on batteries.
As part of the BMS boards I found on aliexpress (thanks to foxbuying.com), one of them supported lipos and balancing packs, which would have been great, but sadly it was configured with undocumented micro resistors on the back that I Was not equipped to adjust:

this could have worked if I could have changed the board to 4S since almost all my lipos are 4S

turns out after days of back and forth on aliexpress support, I Was told the boards could be used with straight batteries without the balance connector, but still limited to 3S

Too bad it was not configurable for 4S or 6S as I did get it to output 20V for my laptop

So I gave up on lipos.

Trying Powerbank Boards and Picking Li-ion Batteries

I tested lipos while I was waiting for the foxbuying lithium packs to arrive (I bought 2P/7Ah 3S, or 84Wh, from which I was able to get around 70Wh of real capacity).

This other board I received from aliexpress turned out to be the first winner: it supports 2S to 6S, can charge at 60W and also has a USB-A output which is a win for me since my LED outfit does use USB-A

of course, it can make any USB voltage up to 20V and charge a laptop or a phone

The problem with those boards is the poor documentation and I couldn't get that board to charge my batteries, until I saw this on the back:

needed some help from google

the tiny 2/3/4/5/6 solder traces are just right of the display

and finally got the power to flow the other way

added some shrink wrap to protect it

I did built my LED outfit to support multiple voltages and work from raw batteries or USB-PD from 12 to 20V:

and USB-A for my pants and shirt

I can also use the USB-C as output for other LEDs

While going production, finding the right multi battery cables was hard, so many had insufficient wire gauge that was disclosed nowhere in the product

even this male male connectors melted the inside wire

the outside still works, but 0.1 ohms shows poor and cheap wiring

And then, even the foxbuying batteries were not able to deliver the 8A they were rated for. I don't actually need the 8A, but the anti short protection BMS kicks in very late and allows the battery to overheat and melt its shielding. Here, discharging at 8A, I got 78C on this connecting bar that overheated enough to melt the shield

I'll be honest the battery was warm enough to burn my finger, not good...

and this happened on a partial short that was not enough to trigger the BMS short cutoff, not good

and the short was due to this bad soldering point that failed

The best of aliexpress, poor manufacturing and no quality control

A huge thanks again to foxbuying for the outstanding pre and post sales support, as part of that, they recommended:

Lightweight Board (for LEDs): An SW6208 or IP5328P module (18W-22.5W, 1x USB-C, 2x USB-A, flat display).

Laptop Charging Board (for 65W/100W): A standalone SW6308 / IP5388 buck-boost module

While looking for those, aliexpress also recommended IP2366, there are plenty of options and they are small and efficient, it was just hard to find quality boards that arrived undamaged, and none of them came with a case or box, which is still an ongoing issue for me (I'm not much of a 3d case designer).

Then, these boards finally arrived, and those were china at its best, great features, cheap, and 3 broken out of 4 :

shipped with broken screens

shipped with broken button, support wanted to ship me a new button for me to surface mount solder

pretty when it works

So I got a refund for the broken ones, took one week of arguing with the sales person, bought more, and 3 more were broken:

how is that even possible?

the new version with a bigger screen is nice, this is the only one that worked but good luck putting it in english but the IP2366 chip is cool

I had to use google translate to finally find the menu in chinese

and this other bigger screen one was also broken

Those boards were great until I realized that if I unplug the battery to change it, they will not work or initialize until I plug USB charging power and reset the battery info on the screen (how many cells). OMG, so stupid... It was nice and pretty, but useless if it won't work after a battery change. After sales support did not agree that the board should remember last setting and work after a battery change, sigh...

I tested the one non broken board I got to charge 4 batteries in parallel:

starting at 9.9V

after 10H charging, 317Wh charge to 12.6V for 4 batteries (80Wh per bat)

And that's another board's documentation, positive on the negative point. WTF?

Turning Batteries into Stable 5V, 8A RC plane UBEC with 5.2V output

All this time, I have been using an automotive rated 12V to 5V 10A tobsun step down converter from amazon. Turns out it does work all the way down to 9V, but after that, not as much (and it's big). I had issues with my led panels rebooting in the field under high load and when the batteries were not as full. I bought DC 8-36V to 5V 10A 50W Step Down Converter Voltage Regulator but it turned out to be worse, it claimed to work down to 8V but that was untrue and it was even bigger. Waste of time and effort.

So I asked google gemini for help and it suggested RC BECs, which I didn't consider even though I have plenty. The big plus is I wanted to them output 5.25V to end up with more than 5V at the rPi3a after wire losses, otherwise the rPi would slow down and even reboot. Of course ESCs are designed for exactly that and plenty offered 5.25V output, but few had more than 3A output, until gemini offered this one, an 8-16A UBEC with 5.2V output, yes!

tried it under load at 4A and with poor wiring got 4.85V (more on my microcontroller with better wires)

and the best part is that the ubec is much smaller and lighter, triple win!

Thanks to this Ubec that works all the way down to 6V, I did a test with 2 7A/3S foxbuying packs and I'm now able to get 65Wh per battery pack:

works all the way down to 6V, 130Wh discharge

and 160Wh to recharge in 6H

While the foxbuying batteries are not super sturdy and as safe as powerbanks, I already knew that going back to my own battery packs would be less safe, but I also need to be honest that while they are very compact and light, it's disappointing their melt their thin outer shield while delivering the 8A they are rated for:

In comparison, these packs were clearly built with more safety and path redundancy in mind (there was a better sleeve around them I already peeled off before this picture and much better path for electrons to travel):

I however can't use them as I bought them at an electronics flea market for super cheap and they do not have official Wh markings on them other than what I measured myself while testing them. Their shape is also not pocket friendly. This one I took apart to salvage the individual cells and use them for solar lights ;)

The foxbuying folks did recommend to put my own fuses but I'm using cable doublers, triplers, or quadruplers and I would have to put fuses on each and every branch of these cables, which is a bit too much for now, I might do that later, but I really wish this was part of each battery's BMS, as it should be as adding all the external fuses is splitting cables, more connections, more places that can short, break, or go wrong. For now, I'm going to hope they won't get damaged during use or travel.

And in the meantime solid state battery powerbanks that do not catch fire if you pierce them: https://heybmx.com/ , are still banned.

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2026/07/25 Daxson at Aura San Jose

π 2026-07-25 01:01 in Clubbing, Tfsf

I was excited to see Daxon again, but in the Bay Area for the first time, on the day of my birthday party no less, lucky timing! It was great to have a TFSF event again!