3-colour DMX ParCans

[Pete Alcock]

Dear All,

 

I saw these RGB Par Cans on demo at Plasa on the Batmink stand. I'm sure other people must do them as well. You may have seen them - 3 x HPL lamps in what looks like a cheapie Par Can with built-in DMX dimmers. I'm thinking of getting 4 or 6 of these for a particular show and for the hire stock thereafter, and wondered if anyone here had used them.

 

The upsides I can see are:

Bright (or at least ought to be with 3 HPL lamps)

Dichroic, so nice rich colours

Relatively cheap (about £250 each)

 

The downsides I fear:

Must get incredibly hot - will they last?

Can't imagine much beam control (optical precision of a garage floodlight?)

Will they be noisy (the fan, or electrically, - buzzes on to my sound?)

Will take a lot of juice in Pub/village hall situations (4 on a ring main max)

 

Would I be better off getting some scrollers instead or save up for 'proper' colour changing washlights?

 

All the best,

 

Pete.

[Pete Alcock]

I'll take that as a no then...

 

Pete.

[Stu]

Hello Pete.

 

Not used these beasts, or ever recall coming across them, but I can offer one suggestion to you that might be off use. If you were going to purchase 6 (which would set you back £1,500 at your guesstimate) I would seriously think about getting 6 Chroma CQ1s and PSU from Iain at www.usedlighting.co.uk which are going for £950 ex vat, £1,120 inc vat. Obviously then you can have true matches for exact colours you want, you can use them on whatever you have in your stock etc.

 

Hope this helps, and sorry I can't help with your original question!

 

Cheers,

Stu

[slim_mcslim]

I have seen these in various catalogues for the last few years and too have wondered how much use they would be. They seem like they should be quite cool, fairly bright (not sure how bright when in blue) but quite bright in open white at about 1500 watts.

 

I can't believe that no one has used these fixtures before...

 

But I think I would prefer them over scrollers for being quieter, however the running costs of the 3 lamp units might be quite high - with each unit consuming £45 worth of HPL 575's

 

Paul...

[vinny baby]

I have used these 3 colour pars, and they are quite good, very good light output!!

 

it is reccomended that you plug them into a different phase as the PA system, as you can get buzzing, as with any dimmer unit.

 

there is a bit of fringing and fallout, but not as much as the NJD spectre, or quartet.

 

the thing I like about them is you can snap or crossfade into any colour from another, which you cant do with scrollers.

 

they do get quite warm, but the fan does keep them from overheating.

 

the other option is to get some subtractive wash lights (CYM) but they will cost you more they have a static 250/2 MSD colour wash in the terralec catalogue, but they are still around £650 each, but dont get me wrong these units are very good, remote beam shaper, CYM, seperate colour wheel with temp correction, congo filter ect, smooth dimmer, shutter for very fast strobe effects. and a bright discharge lamp.

 

vince

 

ps, terralec also do the RGB par

[P. Funk]

but quite bright in open white at about 1500 watts. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In theory, if the filters were completely efficient, you'd get the equivalent of one open white 575W HPL's output - as the filters cut out 2/3 of the light of each of the 3 lamps.

[vinny baby]

In theory, if the filters were completely efficient, you'd get the equivalent of one open white 575W HPL's output - as the filters cut out 2/3 of the light of each of the 3 lamps.

 

 

tis true