rossmck Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Slightly off the OP's topic, but I'm still looking for some high output yet not-breaking-the-bank type low energy switchable working light floods for lighting our auditorium as cleaning lights. Tried most of what CPC has to offer in LED - none have turned out bright enough... Thinking outside the LED box for a moment - what about florries ? Cheap and cheerful and fairly low energy... the quality of the light is horrible but if it's just for cleaning might be ok ? You could get the philips LEDtube replacement lamps if you really wanted LED, they fit in standard T5 or T8 fittings and have a similar level of output Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 For cleaning lights the best solutions are generally either florry tubes or HID hi-bay style fittings, depending on whether you can live with the warm-up time of the HID and the throw distances involved. Neither are suitable as house lights! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 florry tubes ... [not] suitable as house lights! Only because no-one bothers using the right control gear; florrys will dim 0 - 100% smoothly all the way with dimmable fluorescent done right. They certainly have a better dim on them then el cheapo Chinese LED pars, and particulaly at the bottom few percent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Sadly, florry tubes won't be an option - our ceiling is only a couple of feet tops above the LX grid, and access to the lanterns is by ladder - I wouldn't put money on fragile type fixtures lasting too long up there! And yes, I know you can get more sturdy options, but the other consideration is that they're VERY much in eyeline for the punters, so I'd prefer something less obtrusive. At present we have some HID fixtures, but the problems are indeed that we could do with instant light AND something that will come back on immediately if they get turned off in error - waiting for a cool-down period before they will even strike is annoying. I'm not fixated on LED - looking for ANY alternate low energy solutions - just haven't found one I like yet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamtastic3 Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Ynot, can you not put the fluories around the perimeter of the the room (depending on what the layout is like) or along opposing sides on the room along the ceiling edge? You could paint the fitting black.... An example of what I mean.... http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=fluorescents+edge+of+ceiling&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&biw=1366&bih=601&tbm=isch&tbnid=R_HaxkwjfV2tSM:&imgrefurl=http://www.archlighting.com/industry-news-print.asp%3FsectionID%3D0%26articleID%3D587486&docid=P88R4TYl3P3F9M&imgurl=http://imgs.ebuild.com/cms/ARCHITECTURAL_LIGHTING_Magazine/2007/September/44423/AL070901070L5.jpg&w=480&h=387&ei=gsRkT4mFCKfI0QWjkJ2lCA&zoom=1 edit: Sorry I didn't realise that you needed them to be dimmable! You can get dimmable ones though. I thought we were talking about working lights.... *don't think I'm awake at all today* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 What you want is instant start, instant restrike HID. Don't think they are commercially available yet though, even though you see them on cars all the time. Given that LED efficacy is on trajectory to outdo HID I suspect we'll have better LEDs, and better HID will just not happen, as the efficiency of the two under ideal conditions is comparable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Could you perhaps use some LED or tungsten to provide instant light and cover the warm-up of the HID, and then HID comes in over a few minutes?David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono9691 Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Could you perhaps use some LED or tungsten to provide instant light and cover the warm-up of the HID, and then HID comes in over a few minutes?David That's not a bad idea, I've seen a few venues that have highbay's with built in tungsten floods patched to dimmers. Just need a bit of color correction on each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Could you perhaps use some LED or tungsten to provide instant light and cover the warm-up of the HID, and then HID comes in over a few minutes? Although this is a useful idea in many scenarios, the OP doesn't want to be hiring the generator capability for tungstans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 florry tubes ... [not] suitable as house lights!Only because no-one bothers using the right control gear; florrys will dim 0 - 100% smoothly all the way with dimmable fluorescent done right. They certainly have a better dim on them then el cheapo Chinese LED pars, and particulaly at the bottom few percent.While this is true, the trouble is that 2-wire won't do it and DALI is "dimmable done wrong*". Yet almost everybody picks one of those. There are some very nice DMX-controlled dimmable florries (I've seen some amazing florry tube softlights), and the VIP90 3-wire dimmable ballast is quite good. 1-10v is an odd one - in theory there's nothing to stop it being really good, in practice I've yet to see a single 1-10v dimmable florry that goes below ~10% apparent output. *The DALI standard specifies a dimming curve that I find quite horrible, making even DALI tungsten look bad. I will never understand why they did that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 Tomo, I believe you get it when I say "the right control gear". Sadly, many do not, and thus there is a perception that fluros are effectively undimmable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Edwards Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 The last lot of Hui/Lui's I purchased had 'do not use as house lights' all over the place. Even the name of the item on the invoice... Apologies for temporarily diverting the topic but why would that be? Dave Something about not being designed for extended continuous use or straight down focus. Selecon do another light for pointing straight down which has a different airflow design IIRC. Edit: Notice said do not use as house or working lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 I looked at the cygnus lights from wybron at plasa, they seemed like one of the best potential house lights, I am sure adding some frost would add a bit of a wider spread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrV Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 The last lot of Hui/Lui's I purchased had 'do not use as house lights' all over the place. Even the name of the item on the invoice... Apologies for temporarily diverting the topic but why would that be? Dave Something about not being designed for extended continuous use or straight down focus. Selecon do another light for pointing straight down which has a different airflow design IIRC. Edit: Notice said do not use as house or working lights. Thanks Andrew. I was just curious.Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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