Fast colour mixing washlights

[gareth]

Are scrollers not slower than colour wheels????? Also, the Chroma Q ones I have used had a tendancy to slip if they were changed to fast, and end up in the wrong place. Maybe the more expensive ones are better and faster.

Slower than a dichroic colour wheel in a moving head - but much faster than the old-fashined 5-aperture colour wheels that you'd stick into the colour runners of a lantern. (I'd imagine many contributors to this forum are too young to have even seen one of those ... and what about the old semaphore changers, eh?! Ahh, those were the days ...)

 

Re. your slipping ChromaQ's - sounds like you didn't put enough tension on the scrolls when you loaded them in. Are you talking about the CQ1D's or the M-series?

[P. Funk]

yeah bt the VL5 still has wheels - a Cyan one, a magenta one, and a yellow one.. they are just gradiented all the way down. or I assumed so anyway...

 

edit: as for the 5 colour changing thingies... they are great! we used one of those at a production. was totally pointless but still fun...

[Rob]

The VL5 doesn't have any wheels. It's kind of hard to explain, but it has three sets of dichroic petals (CMY) which 'fold' in.

[P. Funk]

like an adjustable iris style thing?

[peter]

Not really. They're more like individual triangular plates which fold over the main optics to create a full dichroic plane. A very similar system is used in the new High End Color Command.

[Joshwah]

You can kind of see the petals in the picture below they move vertically so they can let the light pass without effecting it or as you see them in the picture the light passes through them.

There are 3 sets of these inside the lantern and mixing the colours is done by combining them together.

Not the best explanation sorry!

 

http://www.livewiretech.co.uk/vl5.jpg

[gareth]

There are 3 sets of these inside the lantern

Well, strictly speaking there are four sets of these 'vanes' - the ones that are visible in the picture are the diffusion blades ... ;)

 

But the pic does illustrate the concept very well. So you see, no wheels in the VL5. To be fair, the system you're describing is what you've probably seen inside a Mac600 - graduated dichroic colour discs are what Martin use.

[James]

but much faster than the old-fashined 5-aperture colour wheels that you'd stick into the colour runners of a lantern. (I'd imagine many contributors to this forum are too young to have even seen one of those ... and what about the old semaphore changers, eh?! Ahh, those were the days ...)

 

Hey - I used a pair of those on P23's last week uplighting the back set piece - realy looked nice and one of the best effects of the show in my opinion...

 

(But not only were they slow but the two of them turned at completly different rates, Colour change through the whole wheel looked realy odd after 3 or four colours..)

 

James

[martinw]

Not really. They're more like individual triangular plates which fold over the main optics to create a full dichroic plane. A very similar system is used in the new High End Color Command.

 

Not really, the VL5 and colour command use totally different systems. The VL5, as can be see from the picture, has sets of petals which rotate through an angle of 90 degrees, about an axis perpendicular to the path of the light. There is a diffuser set at the front, and 3 dichroic sets behind.

 

This fixture (and also the VL4) exploits the inteferance pricipal on which dichroic glass is based. By changing the angle at which the light passes through the glass, the frequency, and hence the colour of the light changes. You can see this with any bit of dichroic glass by holding up to the light, and tilting it.

 

Color Command works by using a custom designed lens which focuses the light into a star shaped 'hot area'. The light then passes through a mask plate, and then through 3 dichroic discs, which are the same diameter as the lens.

 

The dichroic glass is etched in a graduated star pattern to match the mask, which allows the colour to be hidden behind the mask plate for 'open white' output. The glass discs rotate about the centre point, and due top the multiple symetry of the system, the discs only need to rotate about 20 degrees between open and fully saturated, hence the colour change is quite fast. A second lens at the front takes the star pattern of the light, and reverses the effect of the first.

 

If you'd posted that picture 10 years ago, you'd have been in court for the rest of you're life ;-o

 

 

Martin

[themadhippy]

but much faster than the old-fashined 5-aperture colour wheels that you'd stick into the colour runners of a lantern. (I'd imagine many contributors to this forum are too young to have even seen one of those ... and what about the old semaphore changers, eh?! Ahh, those were the days ...)

thanks gareth youve made me feel very old now

[Joshwah]

Cheers gareth explained it a lot better than I could, I forgot the front ones are the diffusers. I have 2say I think the vl5 gets my vote for being a good fast colour mixing washlight!

[timmath]

"I have 2say I think the vl5 gets my vote for being a good fast colour mixing washlight!"

 

once you've used better you will realise how slow and noisy the fives are!! they are still a good washlight tho - especially the 5 arc - very bright and very light!

 

regards

 

tim