Brighest movers?

[ceecrb1]

Ok.. so we got a huge international athletics comp in Valencia 2008, we landed the contract for hanging some robotic lights to give some movement and gobos to a static space..

 

Our test today went badly....

(Although truthfully a bad decision was made to do the test at twice the height/distance that we'lll be using "on the day")

 

We hung two Coemar CF 1200 HE... was.. lets just say a p&££ poor performance.

I've heard of a 3k Vari lite but not found mention of it on their site..

 

I;m also wondering about robe's 2500E AT. I've used the 2500 AT and loved it... but a 3k is def better than a "boosted" 1200....

 

 

Anyone have other suggestions?

[Nick S]

Ok.. so we got a huge international athletics comp in Valencia 2008, we landed the contract for hanging some robotic lights to give some movement and gobos to a static space..

 

Anyone have other suggestions?

 

I mean, how big do you want to go? There's always the High End Showgun (or should that be....SHOWGUN), which has four gobo indexable rotators, and will certainly be bright enough. Just a thought.

[pyromonkey]

im sure Space cannons wouldnt be a problem for brightness just not much you can do with them. more ideal for flooding an area etc..

[Bryson]

I understand that SHOWGUNs (my, that branding is stupid...) are pretty bright. Not sure if the LEDs would be any use for you.

 

Also, the VL3000s are bright, despite having a 1.2k lamp.

[Jon T]

Again with a 1.2k bubble, the clay Paky Alpha Wash and spots are also very bright! Much brighter than anything else in its bracket!

[niclights]

There is no 3k VL. There is 1500W option on 3500 wash but not on spot AFAIK.

 

Beyond the Showgun (sue me) @100,000 lumen (VL 3500 1500 wash = 50,000) Syncrolite seems the obvious choice. Lots of different power options but obviously you need the 10k really!

 

Depends on budget & available power.

[Nick512]

You need to more specific here do you want a wash/beam(not gobos) or gobos? or both and a what throw? what do you need to get out of them.. ie coloring a surface of a track/wall or projecting logo's or just breakups. or big beam effects in the sky..

 

there are plenty of fixtures out there that will accomplish these jobs some better than others but it will depend on what you need it to do.. let me know and ill suggest some options.

 

I can tell you this from very recent experience in this particular end of the market.. that the published paper figures for all these units mentioned here and peoples experiences on particular units vary enormously from how they look once the unit is in production state and in the environment that you are actually going to use it.

 

I personally have had the ability to do a shootout with the following & seen data provided from a source that I trust completely; Showgun, VL3000 Spot, VL3500 Wash, Syncrolite MX3000, MX1000, SXB52, Martin Mac 2000 Wash, Mac2000 Spot, CP Alpha Wash 1200 & Spot HPE

 

I don't want to comment on the specific results as im sure many people will disagree with me, but if you put this lot together and do a proper shoot out you will be very surprised at the results. From this test I actually swapped out 20 MX3000 syncro's with a much lower powered fixture.. the result was a 3 fold increase in actual and a huge increase in perceived output of the fixtures. and an enormous increase in reliability.. actually leading to the scrapping by syncrolite of the MX3000.

 

I had guys on the show who have been doing Olympic size shows for 30 years, who actually could not believe the results.

 

So before everyone lets you know what the biggest and brightest is.. put some examples from this thread in an arena / stadium at the time of day that they going to be used actually doing what you are intending to do with them and decide for yourself as this is the only way. All the manufacturers and hire companies will be happy to oblige.

[gareth]

That post would've been far more useful, Nick, if you'd actually told us which fixture was the one that came out on top in your shoot-out. If you're not going to tell us, why bother mentioning it?

[niclights]

I must say I agree. Few people have the chance to compare so many fixtures like this. I doubt there are many that would be qualified to argue!

[JackBrienLX]

If you want a single fixture that does wash and gobo's then I believe that the SHOWGUN is the only one that will do this, that is without going into the realms of High End DL2's.

 

The Vari*Lite 3500 series with 1200w lamps apparently blow the SHOWGUNS out of the water in a shootout that a friend of mine recently attended.

 

Are you looking to buy these fixtures for the event or sub hire? If it is the latter then I personally would go for Vari*Lites, for the simple reason that SHOWGUNS aren’t stocked (as far as I know) in the UK yet. Companies will sub hire them in, PRG Europe did this for an event recently I believe. However the support you can receive for a Vari*Lite fixture breaking compared to the support of a SHOWGUN is probably much more readily available.

 

However when you’re looking at events large enough to warrant using these kinds of fixtures I would always get the various fixtures and do a shootout.

 

HTH

Jack

[tokm]

SHOWGUNS aren’t stocked (as far as I know) in the UK yet.

:P possibly not an issue seeing as the events not actually in the UK! Procon (big European hire co) have them though, IIRC.

 

Remember the Coemar CF 1200 HE units, while good workhorses, are starting to get on a bit, thus not necessarily an accurate reflection of similar 1200w type fixtures around today (mac 2k, vl3000, etc). Perhaps look at the recent articles covering the use of good ole' mac 2k's at the pan American games this summer. Some crazy throw distances, but still pretty dam good quality/amounts of light/colour.

 

As others have said you've not said what type of fixture your looking for, but seeing as you were testing a CF 1200, I'd assume you were looking for profile fixtures. If so, my vote would go with a vl3000 (or 3500 profile if they've made them in time for the gig) or the SHOWGUN. Both throw out loads of light and both can deal with gobo's effectively (rotate, index, custom ones insert-able). Just depends on what you can get your hands on.

 

Bedtime I think.. HTH.

 

Tom

[ceecrb1]

Ok, now its morning and I have energy again....

 

Truth Is I´m going to be "jefe technician" at this gig but the office are arranging it all...

One of those dangerous jobs.

 

Yes it seem to be all profiles the client is looking for.

Last nights test distances were a vertical drop of 40meters.... (it was fun pulling these lights up on rope by hand.........)

On the day, we´ll be hanging from a truss rig at half that height.

 

The arena is chock-full of stadium lighting, and so is pretty damn bright. The in-house guys told us brighter than daylight.... (yet another question not asked till last night, despite this being a project going for 5 months)

 

The other problem is that.. the office, being the office, have sent in the final budget.... expecting our lights to be used... So they arnt keen on hiring, but at this stage, we need to complete the job to save face!

[niclights]

"Brighter than daylight" would be interesting to see! Unless of course that is daylight in winter in Finland...

 

I hope Nick decides to return and let us know his opinion, esp. now you have more exact details. It would be very useful for this topic.

 

As an aside, do make sure any fixtures have new lamps, aligned correctly and with beautifully clean optics throughout. You can easily lose more than half output if not.

[Nick512]

The arena is chock-full of stadium lighting, and so is pretty damn bright. The in-house guys told us brighter than daylight.... (yet another question not asked till last night, despite this being a project going for 5 months)

 

Im afraid if your going to be running the Sports lighting on full ( usually a ring of Arena Visions fixtures depending on the size of the arena maybe 100 - 200 2k discharge floods ) then yes you could describe it as "brighter than daylight!".

 

With this system running flat out you will find it hard pressed to find anything that will get the effect your looking for. I have done shows where they have turned 50% of this system on to charge the Emergency luminous strips on staircases before doors.. and my entire rig of 200 1.2k fixtures might as well not be there!

 

Just had a quick check and an arena for sporting events should be able to provide a LUX of 2000 - 2500 at floor level. an overcast day is about 1000 LUX but full daylight is around 10,000 LUX therefore it isn't actually brighter than daylight..

 

A compromise between the arena lighting and your rig should be obtainable if thats what the client wants to see.

 

As for choice of fixtures here is what id recommend trying again this is only my personal preference and you should do appropriate shootouts to confirm your own..

 

For Big Bright Gobo Projection I would go for the VL3000 or VL3500 Spot.. basically the same but the 3500 has a shuttering system similar to the VL1000 which might be handy. For accurate logo projection over longer distances then I hate to say it but the VL7 is still pretty good thats it if you can get it to work without setting on fire..

 

For Tight Bright Beam looks (and hight intensity large wash) up to 5k the VL3500 is stunning. (use a clear front lense and wind out the internal lense - vari*bright feature) you can also pick which lens you put internally I like the buxom which provides a nice even wash. I wasn't However as much of a fan of the internal fresnel lense.

 

For the Huge beam looks into the sky then nothing can touch the Syncrolite range. the SXB5'2 is great a 12" wide beam that just goes on for miles. They also do an 8k and a 10k but I have always found the 5 to be sufficient I also believe that there is now a color mixing version of all the SX range. The also have an effects scroller which can be used with there flexible lense system or frosts to get varying degrees of wash.

 

Let me know hoe you get on.. especially with the arena lighting.

[ceecrb1]

Update:

Had a direct 1-1 with the company director and told him the whole of yesterdays (the test) story.

Then handed him print-outs of showgun & vl3500.

 

He was more interested in vl3500 and I have to agree with him.. for our company/clients the showgun just isnt versatile enough (mostly due to the 9-18 degree output....)

 

After telling him what happened, I talked him into booking another test period but this time we hang a section of truss where the truss is going to be and test the lights there... not twice (or more!) as high up in the roof!!

(especially as to test that we can leave the fixture on the floor and point it up, rather than haul the damn thing up and point it down.... apparently tech manager thinks this distance will change.....)

Also talked him into taking a selection of lights. He was insistant that the CF1200HE's had the best optics and therefore output that we had, but as I pointed out.. if where hanging 4 or so mtrs of truss its no hardship to bang 4 individual different lights on rather than 2 of the same, sometimes I think its worth testing a bad light to prove its bad, for the client to see were doing our best with the "best" we have.

At first he was defending the responsible tech manager but when I showed him the photos he had to agree that what we did was just plain daft...

 

http://www.telefonica.net/web2/colinbone/stadium.JPG

 

Hes also working out that if we can find a solution we ditch the contract as were (exuse the language) p%££ing into the wind with these in-house floods...

 

The situation was also made worse as instead of trying to solve the problem, responisble tech manager went in a huff and sat in the van, meanwhile I'm calling various techs/designers/companies I know in the UK for advice and trying to solve the problem (on my personal phone).

Not really what you expect of your boss.