rckrll Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 looking for led conversions for my par 64 lights. found a company in china that does make them, but are out right now. looking for a different source or the ability to make them myself. thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peza2010 Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 I cant help with current suppliers but I priced this up a few months back and it was barely financially sensible before taking into account the support you would get from a supplier amongst other things. (e2a unless you are looking to make them just a white led source and still use gels - I never looked into that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 The end user price of LED cans is so low as to make this uneconomic, isn't it. The actual aluminium content with no lamp seems to cost around ten quid - so the UK labour cost (even if notional) means the LED conversion parts would need to very, very cheap.I can see the idea, but in real terms - is it worth doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 The end user price of LED cans is so low as to make this uneconomic, isn't it. The actual aluminium content with no lamp seems to cost around ten quid - so the UK labour cost (even if notional) means the LED conversion parts would need to very, very cheap.I can see the idea, but in real terms - is it worth doing?But is it? I would think it depends if there is a market for a straight drop-in replacement for the PAR lamp, i.e. exact same dimentions, attaches to a ceramic or PAR safe and is fully dimmable from it's power supply.If the industry wishes to continue down the separate dimmer route for generics and static lighting then I'd say it's worth it! Dimmers could certainly be much smaller and very low power.PAR is one of the few lamps that can take a direct swapout, assuming a nicely dimmable (at supply) LED can be made, after all, existing LED PAR lightsources are near enough the same dimensions and beam angle as a halogen PAR.It's the smaller lamps that will be a challenge! Edit: In fact, I rather like the idea of swapping our 8 PAR64 lamps with a LED lamp from the top of the ladder without having to swap the entire lantern (effectively scrapping a good lantern) and running DMX cables and needing a complex desk just to get some light out of them (The 2 preset 18ch desk just won't cut it...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 I'm still not sure if we are talking white or colour, but there's no way you'd get a white LED replacement for a par-64 lamp which would be anything like as bright. LED technology just isn't there yet. And even if you could, such a product ignores all the advantages of LEDs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenalien Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Maybe something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100W-White-High-Power-LED-Panel-9000LM-100-Watt-Lamp-Light-/380482963113 would do the trick - add a suitable heat sink and PSU http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/85V-265V-Water-Proof-Power-Supply-LED-Driver-For-10w-20w-30w-50w-100w-LED-Light-/271078945597 - but I don't know what other optics would be needed. Even higher-power LEDs are available - for a price - such as http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HIGH-POWER-200W-6000K-7000K-White-LED-18000LM-120Deg-30VDC-36VDC-6A-/390444129349 - no doubt prices will continue to fall as time goes by! As PAR-64 lamps are rated at between 8000 and 14000 lumens, these LED units are certainly approaching suitable output levels. Colour temperature? That's a different matter altogether! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Even higher-power LEDs are available - for a price - such as http://www.ebay.co.u...A-/390444129349 - no doubt prices will continue to fall as time goes by! Holy moly, imagine the size of heatsink you'd need to keep that thing running at an acceptable temperature. You wouldn't fit it in a par can, that's for sure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Perhaps, then, something of similar size to a Par 64 bubble, which can be powered via the parsafe, and has wireless DMX to control what it does? This could be an advantage for many legacy installations where the cost would be offset by eliminating the need to run additional cabling. Dimmers could be bypassed and original mains cabling up to the lanterns left in place. From the point of view of light output, colour-changing LED means that you can get all the fixtures producing red to do you red wash, whereas previously you might only have had one or two pairs of cans gelled up with 106. Taking this into account, you could get away with LED that outputs less than a 1000w CP62. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Perhaps, then, something of similar size to a Par 64 bubble, which can be powered via the parsafe, and has wireless DMX to control what it does? This could be an advantage for many legacy installations where the cost would be offset by eliminating the need to run additional cabling. The cost of adding (reliable) wireless DMX would be large though compared to running a bit of cable. You can't beat the reliability of a bit of wire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jexjexjex Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 LED Fixture in white and dimming from the mains... OK, it's not a PAR can, but Spotlight are already doing this and other similar products, although I haven't actually looked at the light outputs. If you think about it, there are loads of venues out there that have, and will still have dimmers fitted so if someone can crack the "dimming from mains" issue in a compact format with comparible light output, they may have got it made... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 If you think about it, there are loads of venues out there that have, and will still have dimmers fitted so if someone can crack the "dimming from mains" issue in a compact format with comparible light output, they may have got it made... Theatrical quality LED dimming from dimmed mains cannot be done and I don't think it ever will be. The problem is when the dimmer starts from zero there is no power to run the processing electronics. At a certain point it starts to work, but this causes a "snap" on.As a channel is faded out, the electronics remain working for longer, so the "off" point is lower than the "on" point.This means that if you store a channel at say 20%, it won't come on from blackout unless you first take it to 40%. There's no way to fix this apart from providing some auxiliary power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Is it as high as 40% to get them started? Sound rather high to me. Smooth dimming should be possible, just over a smaller part of the range. If you could power the electronics from, say, a DMX value of 20, then dimming can go from from 25 up to 255 with any curve you want it to have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Is it as high as 40% to get them started? Sound rather high to me. Smooth dimming should be possible, just over a smaller part of the range. If you could power the electronics from, say, a DMX value of 20, then dimming can go from from 25 up to 255 with any curve you want it to have. No it isn't as high as 40%, that was a random number out of my head. I did some experiments using a Lightprocessor dimmer rack and NXP's LED mains driver chipset, and the minimum usable level where you could get reliable on/off was about DMX 50. So as you suggest, you could scale the dimming range, but it leaves a large dead area at the bottom of the fader. Some cheaper DMX dimmers we tested didn't react well to this usage either, though you would hope that professional stage lighting dimmers would be OK. The Spotlight fixtures linked to earlier have a mains-dim version, I'd be interested to know what they have done there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 ...but I don't know what other optics would be needed. Quite a lot. Those LEDs have a radiation angle of 140 degrees. Without some serious optics to turn that into a beam close to, for example a PAR64 MFL, you'll get somewhat less than 20% of the light going in a useful direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 But doesn't a tungsten filament radiate 360 degrees? I'd have thought you just point the LEDs at a curved reflector. If the reflector was parabolic and made of aluminium you could call it a .............. :o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.