Strand colour scrollers

[fredfish]

I'm trying to find some colour scrollers to fit strand Cantata lanterns.

 

 

 

we have hired the strand colour call range in the past, but I cannot find anywhere that sells this range.

 

 

 

any help?

[Tomo]

Given that Strand UK are now dead (although there are rumours of them relaunching), you're not going to find many places selling new Colour Calls.

 

Some other good manufacturers are ChromaQ, Wybron, Rainbow

 

These all do scrollers suitable for Cantata - it's a case of the right size scroller and a suitable fitting plate to slide in the gelframe slot.

 

There are others as well, but these are the best known.

[Bryson]

In my humble opinion: Don't get the ChromaQs unless they're the only type you can afford. I used to love my Wybron ones back when I had them - my ChromaQs that I have now are nowhere near as good.

[Ynot]

we have hired the strand colour call range in the past, but I cannot find anywhere that sells this range.

Showtech used to have some CC1's (I think) but not sure at the mo...

Give Gary a call, though Guernsey is a little away from the midlands, he may sort you out by sending them down.

[bh00]

Just a little note - we've had issues with our Cantata F's and ChromaQs. When fitted, you can't actually get one of the connectors into the back of the scrollers because of the size of the underside of the lantern (I believe you could get the OUT connector in, but not the IN connector). We ended up mounting the scrollers at 90° which seemed to work without any issues, however I wouldn't reccomend doing it on a regular basis! I think right-angled connectors would've probably fitted though. Not sure if this would apply to all Cantatas/ChromaQs, but there seem to be so many different types I don't know exactly which ones caused the problem.

[Calder]

A ex Strand Employee told me the other day that the Colour Call was a rebadged Rainbow.

 

C.

[gareth]

And he was right! A ColourCall is a rebadged Rainbow (old version) - it just uses 5-pin connectors instead of the 'standard' 4-pin.

 

I've never personally had any very bad experiences with ChromaQ scrollers (I've used CQ1Ds quite a lot) - they're obviously not a Rainbow or a Wybron, but as a low-budget solution they do the job very nicely.

[tokm]

Just a little note - we've had issues with our Cantata F's and ChromaQs. When fitted, you can't actually get one of the connectors into the back of the scrollers because of the size of the underside of the lantern (I believe you could get the OUT connector in, but not the IN connector). We ended up mounting the scrollers at 90° which seemed to work without any issues, however I wouldn't recommend doing it on a regular basis!

Had some cantata's & standard CQ scrollers this past week & had exactly the same issue. Took us 5 minutes to come up with the solution, which we thought was fine. Problem is, by the end of the week, the gel strings were nearly all screwed..

 

My guess would be that was because usually the fans blow the air in an upwards direction, with the heat being expelled through the grill at the top because of the fan & the natural direct heat travels, but as they were at 90 degree's rather than the proper way, the 'top' gel string roller and the gel rolled onto it, just heated up and eventually stuck together or made the gel simply snap.

 

Never had any problems mounting CQ universals or cascades onto cantata's...

 

Tom

 

Mods: Sorry for the O/T post, just thought I'd comment on the issue raised by the post of the the quote.

[dave singleton]

Again, slightly OT but has anyone come across the "Gel Stream" range. We have them in our hire stock, and as scrollers go they are built well and work very nicely however I don't think I have seen anyone else in the UK using them. Anybody know of anyone?

[tokm]

Again, slightly OT but has anyone come across the "Gel Stream" range. We have them in our hire stock, and as scrollers go they are built well and work very nicely however I don't think I have seen anyone else in the UK using them. Anybody know of anyone?

I suspect White Light have them.. The reason being, a couple of shows I've seen come though have had them on the front of their lamps, with all the cases being blue with the WL logo on them!

 

Other than that, only sightings have been in the west end, perhaps on WL gear'd shows.. Can't remember.

 

Tom

[MarcT]

As others have mentioned, fitting a ChromaQ CQ1/CQ1D to a Cantata F or PC requires the scroller to be rotated through 90degrees otherwise the plugs won't go in. This isn't necessary for Cantata Profiles though.

 

The other disadvantage with the F/PC is the loss of the barn-doors, though you can now get ChromaQ doors.

 

In any case I recommend you fit short PCB stand-offs between the scroller and the back-plate, and sandwich a sheet of Rosco heat-shield between the top of the stand-offs and the backplate. I've run my ChromaQ's on Cantata F's on many occasions like this and not had any problems with the Gel strings melting.

 

See here for my anorak post on suggested standoffs!

 

M

[Oovis]

Given that Strand UK are now dead (although there are rumours of them relaunching), you're not going to find many places selling new Colour Calls.

 

Just a note to say Strand are back in the UK. I was talking to Bill Richards at a White Light open day last month. The Strand website hasn't been updated since the last version of the company closed so I don't know how to get in touch with the local office, but they are around.