LED PC's & Fresnels

[Chris99rogers]

I have been tasked with a partial replacement of our theatres 1200W Selecon PC's and Fresnels to LED equivalents.

 

Anyone out there had any experience or have any recommendations for these fixtures..

 

Also

 

Have been authorised to spend £2K to buy 8 LED Par Cans that can be used for music gigs (tight beam) or corporate events (large washes) -

 

• I want either replacement lenses or zoomable
• Long throw
• Vivid colour
• equivalent or more output than CP62

Am hoping to go to PLASA for a nose about but any guidance beforehand would be appreciated

 

 

 

 

Chris

 

Theatre Tech

[J Pearce]

£250 a unit? Inc. or Ex. VAT?

I suspect you’re quite tight for your spec on that budget. £400-£600 a unit is probably more realistic for professional quality rather than DJ equipment, more again for theatre/corporate grade.

[Chris99rogers]

£250 a unit? Inc. or Ex. VAT?

I suspect you're quite tight for your spec on that budget. £400-£600 a unit is probably more realistic for professional quality rather than DJ equipment, more again for theatre/corporate grade.

 

Currentl;y Ex VAT (I hope)!

[timsabre]

You're going to struggle to get anything decent with that price, that's only £250 each

I would recommend you look at Prolights Studiocob, they are 60 degree with optional 30 and 15 degree optics. A PC or Fresnel will go tighter than that though, I would not describe these as suitable for "Long throw" even with the 15deg lens on.Output is as good as CP62 in vivid colours but not as good in white / pastel colours.

 

https://www.ac-et.com/product/prolights-studio-cob-led-par-range/

 

If you want something which works like a 1K PC or Fresnel you'll need to spend quite a bit more.

 

 

 

[Chris99rogers]

You're going to struggle to get anything decent with that price, that's only £250 each

I would recommend you look at Prolights Studiocob, they are 60 degree with optional 30 and 15 degree optics. A PC or Fresnel will go tighter than that though, I would not describe these as suitable for "Long throw" even with the 15deg lens on.Output is as good as CP62 in vivid colours but not as good in white / pastel colours.

 

https://www.ac-et.co...-led-par-range/

 

If you want something which works like a 1K PC or Fresnel you'll need to spend quite a bit more.

 

 

 

 

I was looking about £300 / can for 8 x Pars and possibly £500-£600 ea for 4/5 Fresnels..

[Don Allen]

The specifications for a Selecon Rama 1200 fresnel shows a Beam angle which is 50% and a Field angle which is 10%. Most LED PAR's have 12 or 18 lens so have different beam characteristics , but in general will spill light out the sides, so are not as bright or focusable as a fresnel or pc. The Studiocob led par has a Field Angle of 60 degrees and a Field angle of 80 degrees so is closer to a fresnel or PC, but does not have a variable beam angle. For that the ideal solution is a zoom COB.

Theatrelight NZ have a 100W and a 200W LED Fresnel that is similar to a conventional fresnel, but the LED source is not a point source like a halogen lamp, so is diffused. It will be nice when a coloured led source comes out, to save having to change gel.

[alistermorton]

For comparison, we have a couple of elumen8 MP75 that we bought to try out. They're about 220 ex vat and are RGBW with a plastic micro ring fresnel lens, rather than being an LED "par can". They're (manually) focusable from flood to spot and subjectively they're anywhere between a 300W+ and a 1000W tungsten lamp depending on colour e.g. deep saturates like blues and deep reds they look brighter than a 1kW par can in a similar colour, but in paler shades like whites and straws they're nowhere near as bright. OK, maybe brighter than a 300W PAR56, but not quite as bright as a 500W fres, say.

 

Edit to add link.

Edited July 18, 2019 by alistermorton

[paulears]

The killer is profiles. You can replace a par can fairly easily now. However the ability to throw a sharp standard gobo on the floor is a much more expensive product even from China, and is quite difficult to do. I've never been a fan of PCs but that puddle of light on the floor is what typically the LED washes do, and the lovely blendable pool of light from a Fresnel is not that simple to replicate. I suspect your shopping list can be done but it depends what you currently use to do the job. If you want to do even washes you an do it. If you want salts of light in the air with haze, you can do it, but if you want the actual look of the old lights then your budget falls down. You don't need profiles so that's OK, so if you want an even wide wash the multi source RGBWUA or RGBWUA+ units are good and the price range decent. One thing to remember. You're buying a package so you MUST buy more than you will need for decent lifespan. You won't be able to replace or add more in the next year because the next batch will be different. If you need ten, buy 12.

[Ynot]

We've just invested in ten Chauvet EVE P130 RGB to do our overhead stage wash replacing some Stagg LED PARs that have failed to fulfil the promises made. But the Chauvets are looking VERY nice indeed.

They come with a magnetic rimmed interchangeable 25 or 45 degree plastic lens as standard which is quite neat.

A little bit steppy at the lower end of intensity, but not unmanageably so - and I've found in the past that level changes as part of a cue is better than driving the change from a fader (no idea why but it does seem that way).

 

Don't get hung up on the 'DJ' marking - these are nice and solid fixtures with Powercon in/out and 3 AND 5 pin ins/outs as well. No fans, so a bonus there (actually it was a requirement for me). We did look at the Prolights Studio COB options but weren't as impressed (and they have fans)

And if you get the right deal from your favourite supplier they should come inside your budget.

 

Time will of course tell, but our Chauvet Colorado tri-tours have been giving solid service as our main side-wash units for over 10 years I think, with only a couple of replacements needed so far.

Oh - and being just RGB will limit the colour range of course, but it depends on what you're looking for.

[paulears]

With LED, it seems you constantly have to keep watching them, One of my Chinese suppliers just produced a 250W COB LED mover - zoom, focus, 2 x gobo, prism etc. 250W means a big box again, but the brightness will be interesting to see. I thought brightness had levels out, but no, it's on the up again.

 

I wonder if it's worth blowing a few hundred quid on a range of brand new random very cheap products and looking for the gems, and giving away the awful ones?

[alistermorton]

No fans, so a bonus there (actually it was a requirement for me). We did look at the Prolights Studio COB options but weren't as impressed (and they have fans)

 

The Elumen8 fixtures we bought do have fans, but so far we haven't noticed them intruding, and we have used the fixtures on full power for whole scenes. The casing and whole build of the fixture feels quite chunky and that may well be helping to get rid of the heat.

 

TBF the fans in our ageing Mac 550s are probably noisier.

 

 

 

[Ynot]

The Elumen8 fixtures we bought do have fans,

The fan element limit was twofold - yes, the lack of fan noise is preferred, BUT the more pressing issue was that the fans also suck in dust & other bits - and our stage sees several ground-up builds every year which creates a lot more debris than just a receiving house would. That meant that in the past twelve to eighten months we saw the Stagg PARs lose partial colour on the COBs and also a lot of random flickering. We noticed that the flickering was usually after the lights had been run for a time and after checking the fan intakes and finding the build up of dust etc on the outside we've concluded that the blockage of the air intake was causing them to overheat, blow the COBs and cause the intermittent strobing.

I've cleaned and replaced the COB chips (not an asy job...) in I think a dozen of the 14 Staggs we own, and I now have the very last COB manufactured for those lights ready to go into another faulty unit - Stagg no longer produce them so there's no longer a source of spares.

So when the rig comes down for PAT on Sunday this weekend during our dark month they'll all be cleaned and tested - those that are still as they should be will be put into the temporary stock pile and the new Chauvets will go back up when we're done.

 

 

 

[alistermorton]

I'll keep an eye on ours. We do 9 productions a year, each one running for a week and a half (roughly) and each one requiring a complete tear down and rebuild on a monthly basis. The fans in our Macs don't seem to be faring too badly so far (we've had them at least ten years, maybe a bit more) and hopefully the same will go for the LEDs and projectors etc, but we do have an annual pull down and clean of the rig, which can't do any harm.

[Ynot]

We have 4 off week long musicals, a youth musical and three pantos plus Gang Show every year, all of which have build elements. Add to those 7 or 8 comedy nights, about the same number of tribute shows, a handful of touring shows film screenings and a large spattering of dance shows and that's our year... :)

We close for 6 weeks as of this Sunday which rather than being a complete break for some of us means maintenance and refurb work time...

[alistermorton]

Our rest and recuperate whoops I mean clean and refurb starts on Monday.