Wash

[yanksrule0422]

Quick Question:

 

Where can I find some cheap wash lights? I need them to light up a stage, without the bulbs dying after 200 hrs.

 

Basically an inexpensive light with REALLY long bulb life

 

Thanks

[maeterlinck]

Tungston / HMI / Sodium / CFL / LED ??

 

Tungston is cheapest. In the UK we have Sunfloods which cost around £10 and use K1 500W linear lamps.

 

After that (following the list) running costs get less but generally the unit cost goes up. LED is often rated between 30000-50000 hours.

 

Maybe you need to expand your question?

[david.elsbury]

Welcome to the forum....

 

Have you heard the saying "good, cheap, quick - pick one" ? It sort of applies here also.

The sources with longer life tend to cost more, because of this fact. I'd suggest you look at discharge lamps - metal halide, as used in retail stores, maybe 80w MH? Or LED - but cheap LED (off Aliexpress and DealExtreme, etc etc) might have a short life. Single colour (white) LED is increasingly used for exterior lighting of buildings.

 

Finally, what size stage and how much is "cheap" to you? And what is the application? Church stage?

 

David

[alistermorton]

Another quesion - do you need to dim the wash?

[yanksrule0422]

Welcome to the forum....

 

Have you heard the saying "good, cheap, quick - pick one" ? It sort of applies here also.

The sources with longer life tend to cost more, because of this fact. I'd suggest you look at discharge lamps - metal halide, as used in retail stores, maybe 80w MH? Or LED - but cheap LED (off Aliexpress and DealExtreme, etc etc) might have a short life. Single colour (white) LED is increasingly used for exterior lighting of buildings.

 

Finally, what size stage and how much is "cheap" to you? And what is the application? Church stage?

 

David

 

 

Another quesion - do you need to dim the wash?

 

Its a church stage, about 50 ft wide, 20 ft deep. I just want to have them as a wash that will light of the stage visible enough so that people can see what they're doing when there are no shows or services, simply because everyone uses my source 4s as light when there are nothing is going on and that just kills them. Instead of being on 10 hrs a week their on 75 hrs a week. The washes aren't going to be used in a service and don't need to be dimmed at all.

 

Thanks again,

Justin

[niclights]

If it's practical in terms of space to fit them & wiring I would look at standard fluorescent tubes. The tubes and fittings are both very cheap and commonly available. The tubes can last forever, don't waste much energy as heat and are low power.

 

Simple tungsten-halogen floods as already suggested are also cheap but lamp life can be unpredictable.

 

Avoid the cheap LED floods. In my experience the drivers fail prematurely.

[david.elsbury]

For my old church, I had exactly the same issues. People running a couple of dozen PAR64 lamps for light onstage (as we had decided not to get fluros installed over the stage).

 

We just ended up rigging 3x 500w floods (cheap and cheerful outdoor style ones) over the stage and all were happy.

[djw1981]

we recently fitted some dimmable flourescent lowbays similar to item 3 or 4 on http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_Menu_Index/Low_Bay/ with the warm white tubes.

[yanksrule0422]

My boss fears that fluorescents will not light up the stage well enough. Personally I think they'd be fine. What do you all think?

 

The stage is about 50' x 20' like I said before

There are only two trusses, one that runs along the back and another that is about 8 ft off the front of the stage and 15 ft up.

 

My priority is power, followed by bulb life, and to be honest I would like to spend no more than $100 per light

 

Thanks,

Justin

[Don Allen]

My suggestion using your criteria are for three floodlights on each truss, using Energy Saving Halogen 230W linear lamps instead of the normal 300W lamps supplied with the generic outdoor 500W flood lights.

 

If you do your maths it will be cheaper in the long run to purchase 30W led floods from a local supplier that you can return any faulty ones to for exchange.

[Tomo]

In general:

Discharge lamps are by far the most efficaciousm, with huge lifetimes. (CDM/CMH lamps are incredible)

 

The downside is that they aren't dimmable at all, and they take quite a while to strike and most cannot be restruck once hot.

- In other words, when you turn them it takes a few minutes before they reach full brightness, and if you turn it off by mistake you've got to wait five to ten minutes before you can turn it back on again.

 

Fluorescents are the next ones down.

More efficacious than most cheap LED, less efficacious than the mid-top end of LED.

Some dimming is possible, down to around 15-20% output is common.

With electronic ballasts, they are near-instant-on and have no cooldown period.

Decent tubes last 10-15,000 hours or so, decent ballasts many times that.

 

LED vary.

The good ones are very good (and quite expensive), the bad ones are very bad.

The cheaper end are often not as efficacious as decent florry, while the decent LED fixtures are considerably more expensive than the equivalent florry - but generally offer features fluorescent simply cannot.

 

What I'm basically saying is:

Given your budget and the purpose, you should probably get fluorescent.

They will be much brighter than the LED you can afford.

 

Almost every theatre uses fluorescent working lights. They're cheap, reliable and near-instant-on.

Many have a few discharge as well for 'cleaning light' that gets turned on in the morning and turned off in the evening.

 

Look for fittings that have reflectors, and do the maths to determine the right tubes and number of fittings.

- I generally prefer dual-tube fittings, if only because it means you're not completely in the dark when one tube fails.

[stevep]

agree with Tomo - dual tube fittings are a good call if that's the option you choose.

 

CPC do a dual lamp cfl floodlight which takes up to 2x 18watt CFL's (check their special offer brochures, it regularly appears in them) - you'd need a fair few to light your stage but they're cheap and lamp life is very good with CFLs

[alistermorton]

Although CPC might not be the cheapest option for delivery in the states :-)