Have American DJ P64 LED can - Any way to narrow the beam?

[quidpro]

Picked up one of the American DJ P64 cans recently and am quite pleased with the unit. The unit itself throws a 30 degree wide beam... but at the distance the light is positioned at, the beam is too wide.

 

I don't have much knowledge about lighting, but is there an easy way to narrow the beam... the unit will accept a frame, so I am wondering if there is any lenses that someone may recommend?

 

Any help is appreciated!

[younglighttechy]

:s dont know much about led par cans but couldn't you get a barn door for a normal par 64 and put it on the front of that to shape the beam better?

[Jon T]

We sometimes use 'makeshift' tophats on pixelpars using gaffer tape backing onto itself to get rid of the awful spill they produce and to give a more directional beam.

 

Hth

Jon

[ceecrb1]

rosco cinefoil + croc clips springs to mind

[quidpro]

Thanks for the replies. I should have also mentioned that I wanted to increase the light at the target, so I don't know if there is typically "lenses" that can do this both?

 

American DJ sells some narrow lens, but they are for their "Opti-Par" products... and have no clue if they would work on the P64 LED cans?

[3guk]

You will struggle to be honest due to the nature in which LED's produce light, you can try experimenting with different lenses, but I really doubt you will find anything that works perfectly, it will always be a compromise.

[niclights]

Indeed. I don't think you will have any success focussing a multiple LED source like this. This is one of the major problems. None of the big players have managed it yet.

[quidpro]

Yeah I figured there was a reason why I don't see any lenses for them... might just pick up one of the American DJ lenses and see if I can get it to concentrate the light a little... if worst comes to worst then I am only out a few dollars.

[Ekij]

Optically trying to tighten the focus of a multiple source target is a nightmare.

Even if you could do it the lens to do so would be prohibitively expensive.

 

Since the LED Cans are so cheep and so low power why not just buy more of them, set the addresses the same and point them in the same direction?

[Don Allen]

For info but it is not your solution is Lee filers http://www.leefilters.com/LP1.asp?PageID=44 228 Brushed Silk Directional soft light effect used for scattering light in one direction only, 60% transmission so you lose 40% of your led output and the light is pushed outwards so you end up with a narrow wide beam.

[Tomo]

Unfortunately, LED lenses for every currently existing fixture are completely custom for the individual fixture, and they actually consist of an array of lenses - one 'sublens' per LED junction or co-located LED triplet, rather like the compound eyes of insects.

 

The 'cheap' end of LED fixtures use the optics of the individual LED device enclosure - these have a huge amount of spill, and the beam angle cannot be changed at all.

 

While you can catch the spill by using a top hat or similar, you'll also see multiple colour shadows around the edge in all varieties other than co-location LED triplets. This 'colour shadow' effect may or may not matter, depending on the effect you're trying to achieve.

 

The most successful uses of the cheap LED fixtures I've seen so far were cyc washes and truss warmers - in large numbers, they look really good.