Showtec LED Light Bar RGB

[mooly]

Hey Guys,

 

I'm looking at Showtec LED Light Bar for an architectural install project I’m working on. Has anyone had any experience of these? It seams the cheaper end of the LED market can be a little ropey to say the least, but the budget calls for a unit cost of around £150. If anyone has any other suggestions they would be greatly received… Need a unit that will light about 6m drop of wall evenly from about a 5m away from the top of the wall. Looking at about 30 units so bulk prices may apply.

Jack

 

Download 42202_MANUAL_GB_V2.pdf for free on uploading.com - Manual for Showtec product!

[musht]

More power Igor.....

 

Don`t say how long your wall is but 6m drop is almost cyc height, 5m away is a lot. 1/2K cyc light probably pushng its at that range depending on ambient light, 50W 10mm LED unit really is not quite the thing.

 

Seriously LED gear is getting cheaper but there is a limit to what can do on 3 grand....

[DrummerJonny]

We have a couple of these at work (Nightclub).

 

As a rough idea, we use 1 each side of the stage, in combination with 6 LED Pars to the rear of the stage, to provide a general colour wash on stage. the bars are pretty bright, but I wouldnt be sure they're good for the brightness you need. they only provide decorative colour highlights on the dj, riser, haze ect, rather than being used to actually light anything properly.

 

stage is 10m(w)x6m(d)x3m(h)

[maeterlinck]

As above, does it have to be LED? A more traditional route sounds like it will yield better results with your price tag. Although power and heat are more of an issue...

[rossmck]

I've used (and own) some cheap LED kit... and it's good for some things (certainly the price) but 10mm LEDs aren't going to cut it in this case I don't think.

 

I had some success with using 6x (Hired) Showtec Sunstrip RGB fixtures (these each have 36x 1W LEDs) to light a 3.2m x 5.5m cyc on a very small stage, placing 3 at the top and 3 at the bottom to get a more even spread out of the and to give us the ability to have gradients which suited this particular show..

 

Does it have to be LED ? We now use Martin Cyclos which give a far more even light, and don't use much power either if that's a consideration... The colours are a bit different from the LED kit in that it's harder to produce vivid colours (particularly red) with them, but conversely they're much better at more subtle shades (and white) and they dim a bit smoother than most cheap LED kit I've seen.

 

Particularly as you say it's for an architectural project the Martin Cyclo 03 Directionals are quite nice, and look more in keeping with most buildings than theatrical fixtures (unless you're looking for that effect) - These are what we use for our Cyc lights (although we've bodged ours to hang on an LX bar... and are contemplating getting them powder coated black at some point ;))

 

Edit: Do any hire companies near you stock any budget LED kit ? Quite a lot around me do (used as truss warmers/uplighters etc for corporate stuff) and it might be worth getting hold of some various units and trying them in your space to see what works :)

[mooly]

This is to replace P64s in place at the moment, that have diffuser and gel (meaning both burn out very quickly). So they are looking for a more ‘maintenance free’ solution that has the colour changing advantages of the LED… Be it at a lower output for the budget, (which yes I personally feel is too low to do it ‘properly’).

The space is a white room, roughly about 60 meters of perimeter wall to cover, so about 2m per unit. Maybe LED is the wrong way to go, power isn’t technically an issue, although people always prefer the ‘greenness’ of the LED option.

Maybe something like this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TECHNOTRONICS-OCTILI...304214001r28100 might work better?

[back_ache]

Why not have a chat with someone who sells and hires them and see if they will do some kind of loan agreement that will allow you to prove the concept with a few of them to your customer on the understanding you bring them the business if you win it.

 

That way the customers goes into this having seen exactly what they will get (and you'll have covered your back).

[Stuart91]

This is to replace P64s in place at the moment, that have diffuser and gel (meaning both burn out very quickly). So they are looking for a more ‘maintenance free’ solution that has the colour changing advantages of the LED…

 

I've had a demo of the Showtec LED Light bar, and we also owned a bunch of fixtures with 10mm LEDs for a while. There's no way they're going to come close to the output of a Par 64, even if they are only 500w lamps. I had an interesting comparison a while ago when we had a batten with 144 x 1w LED shooting up a white wall, with a Par 64 1kW with a yellow gel shining down an adjacent patch of the same wall. The LED was more or less equal brightness on the same colour. It would pull ahead on more saturated colours, but this is a significantly more powerful batten than the Light Bar.

[musht]

Mebbe something more along lines of MiniCity or Showtec copies.

 

http://www.studiodue.com/products/minicity150.html

 

really long lamp life is major selling point, about 9K hours for CDM150

[mooly]

Mebbe something more along lines of MiniCity or Showtec copies.

 

http://www.studiodue.com/products/minicity150.html

 

really long lamp life is major selling point, about 9K hours for CDM150

 

Yes I did vaguely think about that... does anyone know if there is a cheep Chinese of these? Or even have a bunch of these they might need to sell… perhaps after upgrading hire stock?

I will of course be demoing any solution first, just interested in peoples views!