[Smiffy]

Hello Chaps and Chapesses.

I've a gig coming up and I've been offered a pile of Showtec Sunstrip Active DMX's and having never used them before I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or thoughts as to what they are good for.

I'll be driving them from an MA, and so shall likely have them in their full channel counts. Are they bright bright, and useful as a blinder effect or should I be thinking of them more as subtle eye candy?

Cheers

Smiffy

[The Seedage]

Smiffy, on 17 May 2011 - 08:39 PM, said:

Hello Chaps and Chapesses.

I've a gig coming up and I've been offered a pile of Showtec Sunstrip Active DMX's and having never used them before I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or thoughts as to what they are good for.

I'll be driving them from an MA, and so shall likely have them in their full channel counts. Are they bright bright, and useful as a blinder effect or should I be thinking of them more as subtle eye candy?

Cheers

Smiffy

Yup, very bright in the face.. I've got the task of bunging 23 onto the Ice Show rig this year, and the only thing I've ever had an issue with (and I never pinned this down, but would be good for other users opionions) is when they share a data line with other fixtures - always seemed to be fine if Desk and Splits were on before the sunstrips, otherwise got flickers.

They are great units imho.

[Smiffy]

Thanks Mr. Seed. Just what I was hoping for.

This one's already a bit of a blinderfest, but if the setlist pans out the way I hope then it's going to be well paced. You can never have enough blinders though hehehe.

I'll bear that in mind about the splitterers too. Might chuck a couple more onto the list to be safe,

Cheers ta

Smiffy

[TomHoward]

We've got a pair - you could either load them with all white lamps (75w gu10s if you can find them) and use them as blinders in a smaller venue, or we keep them with coloured lamps in and stick them uplighting the drummer with some colour chases. The output from them isn't too bad, but the beams from our lamps aren't smooth - the gu10s have a really stepped beam, so they aren't a huge amount of use as a theatrical light.

They may make a decent effect as blinders or framing the stage if you had enough channel control to chase around the units.

[Smiffy]

This gig is firmly rooted in the Folk Rock arena so steppy-ness in the dim isn't too much of an issue with the exception of a couple of 30 to 40 second fade outs that I'm planning. On the whole though, very un-subtle blinders is where I'm seeing their usefulness at the moment.

Cheers

Smiffy

[themadhippy]

Quote

Are they bright bright

they aint no moleflay,but the do an alright job for the size and can produce good beamnage if you've some smoke,dimmed down a bit then yep you got eye candy

[TomHoward]

Now that it's been mentioned, I've had them flicker before once as well, and we found they were being fed from a DMX line that had a signal leg lifted - obviously they didn't like that. We've never had any problems with them in a rig without any damaged cables though.

Smiffy, on 17 May 2011 - 08:52 PM, said:

This gig is firmly rooted in the Folk Rock arena so steppy-ness in the dim..

Just to clarify - I'd meant that the beam spread is really uneven, rather that the dimming - although that's most likely down to the lamps we use.

[J Pearce]

Kept down at 30% you can get some nice warm eye candy glows, but at 100% you get blinder. As the hippy says, not an 8 cell molefay, but bright enough to work as a blinder.

You can do some nice stuff with fade times and playing with the thermal lag on the filaments, they're fairly quick to get going but seem to have a longer glow on fade out. A twinkle chase can look very pretty on them.

Rigged pointing up you get a howiebatten-esque beam into haze, but I've always used them facing the audience. I've had them both level and at strange angles, and both ways work. I'd like to try them vertical at somepoint, hanging down from the rear bar/truss.

Setup wise, they work in all the locations you might put pixelline, but you get the warm rosy tungsten glow instead of bright saturated colour.

[Smiffy]

Excellent stuff guys, Sounds like they are ticking all of the right boxes for this gig.

Much appreciated

Smiffy

[Tom Baldwin]

Might be worth pointing out that there's no easy way to gel them.

The front of the actual lamp is very close to the grille, and there's just not enough standoff distance (nor indeed any runners or frames) to fit gel.
If you need colour, it's either coloured GU10 lamps, or a bodge involving Black-Tak and large swooping pieces of gel leaving an air gap (the exact same problem as gelling cheap 500W security floods).

Other than that, nice little fixtures, and good value for money.

[Smiffy]

Thanks Tom, I tend to go with white light for blinders in general as I like that warm filament glow. but good to know nevertheless.

Cheers

Smiffy

[LXbydesign]

Yup, I'll 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th that or whatever as well! Great fixtures. I love 'em.

Really good on 10ch DMX mode. The amount of visuals you can generate is mindblowing. Chase city!! When they're all on a glow and pulsing gently, it looks lovely.

Make sure the prod LX has plenty of spare lamps though. The little buggers drop like flies.

We used to have them in flightcases holding 9 or 12 stored vertically and usually a couple of leftover units ended up being the spare lamps supply.- if we forgot to pack any......

Whack up some pics Smiffy of the beautys in action when your done

[niclights]

Warm glow through haze. Lovely. The only thing I might add is they pretty much instantly snap on/off if you operate them that way. In other words they don't have the natural cooling down afterglow of DWE's or Pars. Not that is sounds like an issue from your description of the event but it can come as a surprise.

[Jon T]

I will second them as well, we had a load out on White lies beginning of the year, and they complimented the 2cell moles we had in the rig! One thing I would say is don't put any flammable objects nearby, ie drummers towels!! Haven't tried to gel these before but I would imagine the units would burn straight through them!... Im sure Tom wont mind, here is a vid of how we used them...

http://www.youtube.c.../10/kRI8gqw2kdg

[Smiffy]

Precisely the sort of thing I had in mind Jon. That looked great.

I've got 18 of them to play with on a very small stage so things should look quite busy hehehe.

Cheers

Smiffy