DMX Colour Changer... LED or traditional Lamp?

[Trav400]

I work as a Technician in a secondary school and have been allocated up to £1000 to purchase some new lights. We usually do a main school show (musical) once a year, along with some dance shows and a few drama exams. The lights will be rigged on stage in the main hall which can seat 250 people. I was hoping to get some colour changers to rig on the main bar that will save me changing gels too much. Will LED's be bright enough? I have only used LED's once when I was helping out a DJ friend of mine and they didn't seem that bright. I don't really want to go down the scroller route. I have found this non LED colour changer from Thomann http://www.thomann.de/gb/showtec_club_color_wash_575.htm Would this be a good purchase or will it be more cost effective in the long run to go LED?

 

 

We already have:

Zero88 BullFrog desk

4x Betapack 2 Dimmers

10x Par 64's

20x Strand Minim's

4x Prelude's

4x Quartet's

4x Cantata's (rubbish)

4x Patt 743's

8x CCT Starlette F's

4x Coda 3 cell

4x Cheap 500w Fresnels

2x Showtec Phantom 250 Spot (great but noisy fan)

50cm Mirror Ball

 

Thank you in advance! :)

 

[CallumP93]

I have been looking at this as we are after some more LED kit for our rig at school, for £908.08, we could get 10 LED Par 56, 6 Floods and 16 Hook Clamps. At the moment we have two of the LED PAR 56 we are after, and for the size of stage we have they are perfect. Yes they have no dimming function, just RGB but there is a nice fixture on the Zero88 Desks for RGB with virtual dimmer function, which I think works rather well. The links for the units I am looking at are:

 

LED PAR 56 10 £28.00 £280.00 £33.60 £336.00 http://cpc.farnell.com/pulse/led-56-eco-black/par-can-DMX-5mm-led-par56-black/dp/DP30505?Ntt=dp30505 LED Flood 6 £67.97 £407.82 £81.56 £489.36 h ttp://cpc.farnell.com/adj/profile-panel-rgb/rgb-led-panel-288-x-5mm-leds/dp/DP31608 Clamp 16 £4.31 £68.96 £5.17 £82.72 http://cpc.farnell.com/ultimax/umgc50125b/hook-clamp-50mm-125mm/dp/ST01700

As a school you might not have to pay VAT so will come to £756.78. I would say in your case these "buget" models would be fine due to the fact you are a school not a theatre.

 

Sent me a PM if you would like to see any photos or futher information.

 

 

Callum

 

[smalljoshua]

I'm going to have to disagree with you here Callum. I've got a number of similar (Stairville) and they're not really up for masses over just Eye candy and a bit of side light.

 

For anything serious, I'd be looking at 36x1w or 18x3w LED units before even considering putting them into action for a serious show.

 

I realise that this is a school, but I see no reason why the money should be wasted on less than ideal equipment.

 

Josh

[brainwave-generator]

I have to agree with Josh. I have recently bought 6 Showtec LED battens (the good ones, not the cheapo ones). They were £700 each or so and look very good.

 

We tried some others out and I think really you need to spend £500 per fixture with LED before it really sits in the same league as traditional lamps.

 

Cheap LED stuff is quite good for architectural lighting but not much good for lighting performers or set.

[Don Allen]

I use ETAN Lighting LED EMPORER led par's 48 x 5w RGBA which are the lowest output I would consider for a medium stage. The 12 x 5w leds are a match for a 1K fresnel with a gel or a PAR64 with a gel. The limitaions are that you do not get the full spectrum with 4 led's. RGB are even worse.

 

Led's are suitable for musicals as you can select any colour from the LEE swatch book but cannot do skin tones well yet at a cheap price.

 

Always get a demo, preferable in your venue, doing a side by side comparison.

[paulears]

Me too = I have 12 of these attempting to wash a cyc, and they're pretty easy to wipe out with spill. They're cheap, work pretty well - but just not that bright.

[northern-monkey]

I have seen these Par 56 packages, when I was at school we had no drama tech so the Music Tech Teacher and I decided they were the best for us!

 

And to be fair they did the job we wanted. However our normal facilities were not a fraction on what you have in your list there. We had maybe 10 working Fresnels and that's the job lot! So colour was a brilliant attraction as we were never allowed to go up and change filters. Heights and all that H&S stuff at schools. Even with the tiny rig the LED's got lost completely when the Fresnels were on at 50%. In the end we only ever used them for colours when we needed a full colour wash and no general light. Even then we had to pick say, aqua, as this meant we had blue and green LEDs on making it bright enough.

 

Also I've been back a couple of times to see younger siblings in productions and have noticed quite a lot of the cans have strings of LEDs failing already. Only 5-6 years old. Yet the 25-30 odd year old conventionals were still going strong. So it was almost a false economy. With LEDs failing they were even less bright! Another thing I have since noticed is the dimmer curve on the cheaper ones is bad!

 

How about Chauvet Colorados?

I recently did a site specific piece where we had to use a 100% LED kit. We used Colorado's and they were rather good. They cost around £500 from stage super store last time I looked. So you could only get 2 or maybe 3 if they have gone down in price. But I'd say you'd get the equivalent output of 2 cheaper PAR 56 LEDs. I can't comment on their reliability other than ours were hired from stage electrics who wouldn't offer unreliable kit to their clients. And these had been well used but were working fine! IThey are also available second hand.

 

One LED light I've that can give a PAR 64 a run for its money is the ETC Selecon range. They are bright, well-built and offer much better colour mixing options. However these are around £850 each! So maybe out of your budget this time. But next time... :)

[Ynot]

I have 14 Chauvet Colorado Tri Tours working as side lights on our 25 ft wide stage, and 10 LEDJ Omni Tri as top lights. You MAY be able to scrape 4 Colorados for 1000 plus vat, or maybe half dozen LEDJs. Dimmer curve on the latter is typical led at lower levs but Chauvets very smooth.

[dmxtothemax]

Most of the budget type led pars, are not very punchy !

As front washs, not much chop, when compared to an HPL575 or a par 64.

On the back line as an effect, they can work, or at close range,

if you have enough of them.

The brighter LED pars are only just equivelent to a 500w incandesant.

But the down side is they are still expensive !

so if funds are limited you wont get many good ones for 1000 pounds.

[mark_s]

The brighter LED pars are only just equivelent to a 500w incandesant.

 

I disagree. Maybe if you compare both in open white, but in saturated colours you'll probably find that they vastly outperform your 500w incandescent source.

[dbuckley]

Ok, lets take the quiz.

 

http://davidbuckley.name/pix/ledvs_cyan.jpg

 

Which side is Chinese 24x1W tricolour LED (which are some way from "the brightest LEDs"), and which is a Selecon 650W Acclaim Fresnel (which is a very bright fixture, that'll give most 1Ks a damned fine run for their money)

 

http://davidbuckley.name/pix/ledvs_red.jpg

 

 

When you've made your mind up, scroll down...

 

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Lets make it easy

 

http://davidbuckley.name/pix/ledvs_white.jpg

 

"Open white"

[adam2]

I would go for a few reasonable qaulity LED fixtures, even if funds will only allow the purchase of a few.

They will far outperform halogen on deep saturated colours, and without gell to purchase and change.

The performance on open white or pastel shades is less impressive, but it sounds as though there are plenty of conventional lanterns for this.

 

How much power is available ? LED lanterns will add only very slightly to the load, but more halogens might push a marginal installation over the edge.

 

Is the £1,000 a "one off" or are you hopfull of receiving a similar amount in future years ?, if so definatly go for qaulity LEDs, and buy a couple more next year.

Even if power supply is sufficient at present, you will soon run out if adding more halogen lanterns every year.

[Nicktaylor]

Okay this discussion is just that not everyone can payout the thousands a top end LED unit will cost, the same as they wont be buying a varilite or top end Martin mover. The fact is that cheaper leds do provide an effect and the more modern ones certainly are providing a huge amount more light.

I started with some Showtec par64s a few years ago, then I got some Eurolite 10mm Par 64s and last year some 10mm battens. Yesterday I got some Lanta Tri LED par 64s. Of course I had to try one in the lounge to see the effect and it is quantum leap better than I have seen before at my level of budget. I can only compare with Chauvets of a similar style I hasten to add that a friend has in his venue. Part of the problem is the beam angle of the LED seem s a lot tighter than a wide par. So you rig in the same place an get a spotty effect of colour and to be honest you dont have surplus power tp but some frost in front.

Anyway we will see. I suspect within a few years we will have LEDS producing comparable power to a regular parcan, without the noise of a gel string!Though I note that the cooling fans are getting bigger as the leds get more powerful!

[Ashley R]

So far in the Chinese stuff, anything with TRI LED's (Or 3in1 LED's) has got to have some of the best results. you can get some very very nice LED PAR's with 18x 3w Tri LED's for about $200ea.

 

I only just 2 days ago had a poke around Thomann, and some of the stuff there looked amazing for the price! I can't testify for Thomann units in particular, but so far all the Tri LED stuff ive seen has been excellent. Oh and you don't get any colour fringing.

[Just Some Bloke]

Sorry, but I just had to ask about this:

 

Led's are suitable for musicals as you can select any colour from the LEE swatch book but cannot do skin tones

 

 

...er .... the Lee swatch book is jam packed with skin tones! :unsure: