Reliable Birdies

[WiLL]

I'm in the market for some new 'birdies' (par 16's) which I use on the front edge of the stage as footlights. Although I'm constantly frustrated by the lack of build quality in most units like this. The yokes never tighten very well so that they lose their tilt focus almost as soon as you walk awy from them. Resorting to using gaffa tape to stick the little critters in place inside their 'birdie houses' seems a little unprofessional. I was wondering if anyone knew of any birdies which might be manufactured to a good enough standard that they can last a whole week at least without 'drooping'.

OR, if anyone has any recommendations on an alternative lantern, similar on wattage, output and cost?

[johnhuson]

We have Thomas ones in our hire stock, very durable and I've had no problems with the lock off on them at all. I will warn you they're not the cheapest, but like everything in life you get what you pay for!

 

Thomas PAR16

[GregB]

I currently have some 200 Par16's in my stock of various makes and quallity. By far the most robust and user friendly model is an Italian manufacture D.T.S who make a "Par16 Spot" my product/batch code is G008Y.

The quallity comjponants on the product are:

 

1 Robust nylock nut to hold trunion arm in fixed possition (one side)

2 Good size robust 4* adjuster nob (other side)

3 Lamp base in the 'Head' of the lamp not in the body means easy acces and fitting

4 Locking screw to the head as well as sprung catch

5 Robust trunion arm (proper solid thing!)

6 Top catch for filter frame (sprung)

 

still in its first year of use but all ready showing its value over the other fixtures :)

[WiLL]

Thanks, I will bear this in mind when I get my new budgets in the autumn :)

[Bryson]

Has anyone seen the "Source 4 par-type" birdies that take a Mains GU10 lamp?

 

Aside from the obvious design rip-off, are they worth the considerable extra cost?

[Brian]

I have real reliability problems with GU10s, even using branded lamps. Being mains powered, the filament is thinner than a LV lamp and they seem to blow much easier. A couple of years ago I went completely GU10 at home and have just ripped them all out. Life wasn't even close to the claimed figures even on soft start dimmers.

[gareth]

We had a quantity of GU10 birdies as uplighters on the band rostra for panto last Christmas - the lamp life was abysmal.

[Jamtastic3]

hmmm... I have used GU10 bulbs in birdies with blue dichroic glass on them as downlighters for the control area and so far so good (done around 800 hours so far). It's the same as the ones at home, yet these ones are just 35W clear ones. The first one that went had done at least 1300 hours.

[Neil Hampson]

In a dom3stic environment the 12v MR16's are far superior, the only downside at the time was finding somewhere to hide the PSU. I have never tried the mains birdies.

I have a mixture of the Thomas and the DTS birdies and both types lock-off extremly well, one thing of note though is the DTS ones are more suited to narrow beam lamps as the nose is considerably longer that other tyes I have used. by the time you put barn doors on them they are hardly discrete. the way the locking mechanism works on the DTS units you can only adjust the tilt from horizontal to vertically down (if hung fron a hook clamp), although this can be modified.

 

The Thomas ones have a better lamp holder as the lamp is clipped into the body and then you attach the cable, much like a full size PAR, the DTS ones are not held in place other than by the lamp base, which can be a P.I.T.A.

[GregB]

I would have to second Brian on that, the only ones I've used and seen used only had the advantage of direct feed from a rack. The out put and build quallity where not up to scratch.

[peternewman]

We've covered the Mains/12V issue before, but to reiterate what I posted previously, I've never had any real problems with mains ones. One blew when it fell off a chair/table when it was on when I was testing it, but apart from that I may well be on the first batch of lamps still. On the other hand we've had constant problems with 12V ones, but that may be because they're cheap and the lamp is only held in by the holder, which doesn't lock very well so they constantly go off.