Acme Panther

[Darkness]

Hi,

 

I'm a volunteer and a local charity that are in the finishing stages of doing up a mini theatre, we have just purchused the zero88 fat frog and I have been offered a very good price on some acme panthers.

 

I have read they are more dj/disco effect lights so wasnt sure weather to get them or not, we do a lot of siniging a dancing on the stage so they may be ok.

 

 

Does anyone have any experience with these lights with any views on them

 

 

Thanks

[Tomo]

Well, those just blew my mind.

Some salescritter is referring to them as "Moving heads", when they are clearly scans!

 

Are you sure the price is good? These things are around £300 (inc VAT) for two of them, brand-new.

(First hit on Google)

 

Anyway, the light itself:

I can't find a manual for it, so this is all from salecritter writeups:

 

There is no dimmer - you turn it off by putting the gobo wheel in the 'shutter' position.

It has pan and tilt, but is also described as a 'goboflower' - unsure what it means by that to be honest.

 

One colour wheel with 12 colours, a bi-colour, a quad-colour plus open white.

One gobo wheel with 15 gobos plus blackout.

 

So in summary - it's an incredibly cheap DJ effect.

 

In your position, I would never buy this as I can't think of a single use for it in theatre.

[Darkness]

hehe, I did see them mentioned as moving heads somewhere

 

For a theatre I would be against them but as we ourselves mainly do singing and dancing I think they could be used for that, im primarily looking at these as we are doing a saturday night fever type show and for the price they seem to give an idea effect for that

[Tomo]

If you're only doing one or two shows that want them - hire the movers.

You'll get much better and reliable ones that way, plus you can choose the ones that fit a given show.

 

The purchase budget will probably be better spent on generics.

It's a long-running suggestion actually - there are very few places that genuinely need to purchase moving lights.

 

Most the the time you're better off hiring them, as that way maintenance just isn't your problem - if it breaks, they'll send you another.

(Unless you broke it of course!)

[3guk]

Most the the time you're better off hiring them, as that way maintenance just isn't your problem - if it breaks, they'll send you another.

(Unless you broke it of course!)

 

Or in the case of one unnamed hire company, they break them and then send them out to customers, hoping that the customers will fix them !! :blink: :huh:

[Darkness]

Hehe, we are quite good a fixing stuff, one of our technicians is an electronic engineer so can fix most things electrical.

 

Hiring could be good but that would be extra money everytime we do a show and as we mainly do variety shows ourselves although other people will hire the hall for numerous events I think the scanners might work well for quite a lot of our shows which is why im considering buying them.

 

I'm also thinking long term as we are planning on making our lighting rig portable for when we go to other places and scanners add a bit more of a wow factor to certain songs.

 

If I didnt feel we would use them enough I wouldnt consider them but at the moment as we do very little drama and a lot of dancing and singing I think they will get used in most of our shows

[Jivemaster]

I've just seen a set of 2 panthers fail to sell @£150 the pair! So your offered price must be better than that!

 

Realistically you need old disco effects rather less than PAR cans, load rated bars and a safe power infrastructure.

It doesn't matter how good your techs are CE (China Export) disco stuff usually doesn't have spares available for competent repairs.

[lampieman]

I would specify them for a disco as that is what they are built for but I would steer clear of them for a theatre, no matter what events are run, I dont wish to sound rude here but whats the point of coming on here asking opinions if you have already made your mind up, where the majority are telling you to stay away from them, and hire or maybe wait a little longer and buy something more suited, which IMHO is very good advice.

[Chris Beesley]

I have a batch of them for Disco work/hire - cracking effect light and sooo simple if operated with the CA-8 controller, but this is their realistic limit. If used from a standard DMX desk the set I have do sometimes hesitate when given fast cues (B/O & Gobo change etc), also they seem to lose sync with the other units even though they are all run from decent cable and properly terminated. If your after something a little faster and refined go for the iSolution range or another brand.

 

Have a peek at the importers website Prolight Concepts for more information.

 

 

Chris B.

(non-CPC Post)

[pete LD]

Cheep disco scanners can't cut through generic lights at all so the wow factor you get when in a club or disco shop filled with smoke and very dark is somewhat p155ed on!!. and to turn them off you have to scroll through all the gobos and that looks sh1t! if you really do want movers why not look at mac 250s? the old ones are going on ebay for around£400 they can cut through are bright and spares are easy to get as is user support. and in a theatre you can use them as specials or gobo work. you say you have a fat frog? so easy to use on there without making up a fixture profile.

hth

pete

[niclights]

As others have said I think these will look awful for your application and not achieve the effect you think they will. They are just very basic disco scanners.

Some of the cheap LED options might work nicely for that 'saturday night fever' type of show.