norty303 Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Ok, so SGM are still quite spendy. The technology has been around for a bit so you'd expect prices to be coming down. What is out there and how does it perform in your experience?Litecraft have the zx.6 about half the price of the SGM and look quite handy. There's a few SMD ones at the lower end packing 400-600 odd chips from Showtec, Equinox, Futurelight, etc. how do these fair in your experience?Anything else? YouTube doesn't give much away unfortunately and I can't find any side by side comparisons with the 'standard unit' Atomic for brightness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Remo Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Hi Adam,The sgm units are still not quie there, we use them in a different way to our atomics and will often have both in a rig. The clay paky stormys on the other hand are another step forward, still not perfected but getting closer. We still buy atomics by the pallet, did not think that when we bought our first batch that over 15 years later we would not have a better replacement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigG Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 As James has said, the SGMs are alright for eye candy effects, but still really not there as a powerful strobe. Along those lines are also the Philips Nitro Strobes - a bit brighter, and nice chase effects and the colours, but nothing like a traditional 3k. The Stormy strobes however are much brighter than SGM and Nitros, and designed to look like the traditionals with their reflector. There's also the Solaris Flares; a grid of LEDs again, but very bright - in deeper colours these two are probably pretty close to an atomic + colour. That said, the Flares are still quite power hungry at 1kw, and these and Stormy still cost some serious money, you could buy several old strobes for one of them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norty303 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 I've been tempted to pick up a few of the Atomics on Gearsource actually, particularly keenly priced. I would like to get some LED units though for my low power rig, I have more and more talks each year about small solar stages at festivals and the strobes are the last big power consumer. Even if it means taking a trade off. I've also been looking at some of the 30W COB matrix units to see how they might work for blinders but it's hard to get a feel for how they perform. I might just buy some single cell units just to audition the hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
top-cat Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 I've also been looking at some of the 30W COB matrix units to see how they might work for blinders but it's hard to get a feel for how they perform. I might just buy some single cell units just to audition the hardware. It's off topic but I used to have some of the 8-cell battens with the 30W COB LEDs. (Pic below). Very good for eye candy, also really good as lower-power sunstrips - their tungsten look is very authentic. But as strobes, utter pump. No use at all. They simply can't go fast enough. http://prolight.co.uk/images/media/ELUM080/ELUM080-we2.JPG The Atomic seems to be one of those things which is perfectly good as it is so nobody has really bothered competing with or upgrading it. Although the scrollers can be a bit hostile so I think when a decent RGBW LED strobe becomes available I will take interest. Maybe it will turn out to be the case that the strobe 'look' can only be achieved with the Xenon lamp way of doing things and if we want to go LED we will need to adapt the look that we go for a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigG Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 That 'Xenon look' point is a very valid one, the latest firmware for the Stormys has introduced a xenon mode (suggesting that's definitely a thing people are still looking for) which is designed to make the colour and flash type like that of a traditional xenon, and that combined with the parabolic reflector suggests to me it's as close to a xenon strobe we can replicate with current tech... and it isn't there yet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norty303 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Thanks for all the advice, particularly about the COB units. I've bought a test led strobe unit, one of the ones that uses arrays of SMD like the SGM but less densely packed. It'll give me a feel for what I can achieve and if it's worth pursuing some other units. The price was so keen it can be considered a write off. Nothing ventured and all that. Currently I can get 6 MSD250/2 equivalent LED moving spot, 6 LED beam movers, pars, 8x 8 cell battens for eye candy, Tour hazer, Chamsys desk and about 16W of RGB lasers and Pangolin setup on under 13A of power. It'd be nice to see if I could add some strobe to it and keep it on a single 16A. Still not sure what to do about alternatives to the UV cannons when they're required though.... Out of interest how much does the LED 'dazzle' add to a strobe/blinder effect? I know they fall behind in the outright lux stakes but we've all stood in front of a very dim led par and still been dazzled. How much can this make up for deficits?I watched the Prolight video from Plasa (iirc) and the floor standing matrix units appear to go very bright at one point only. I wonder how much of that is camera saturation and how much is genuine brightness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
top-cat Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Currently I can get 6 MSD250/2 equivalent LED moving spot, 6 LED beam movers, pars, 8x 8 cell battens for eye candy, Tour hazer, Chamsys desk and about 16W of RGB lasers and Pangolin setup on under 13A of power. It'd be nice to see if I could add some strobe to it and keep it on a single 16A. Still not sure what to do about alternatives to the UV cannons when they're required though.... It might, on paper, draw under 13A. However, owing to the earthing on LED units - particularly the cheap ones; you will probably not get all of that on a single 13A socket without tripping the RCD (assuming there is one). Out of interest how much does the LED 'dazzle' add to a strobe/blinder effect? I know they fall behind in the outright lux stakes but we've all stood in front of a very dim led par and still been dazzled. How much can this make up for deficits?I watched the Prolight video from Plasa (iirc) and the floor standing matrix units appear to go very bright at one point only. I wonder how much of that is camera saturation and how much is genuine brightness In terms of brightness, the myth that LEDs are not as bright is subjective... the 8-cells I referred to, which use the same LEDs as the matrix units, are obnoxiously bright at 100%... too bright for me and we were in a 1500 capacity concert hall. I had to run them at 50%. So output is not the issue. For strobing, they just can't hit the same frequencies as xenon strobes, and where they are cheap mass-made chinese LED chips, they do not all flash at the same rate either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norty303 Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 Not on paper, I've been running the gear for a year or two in that form. Ok, nice to hear the cob can go bright. I was thinking of the matrix more as eye candy backlight and blinder more than strobe anyway. So a 25 cell unit would have quite a big impact then? Edit: Sorry, and I should qualify the power statement too. That would be off a 16a ceeform anyway rather than a 13A plug top Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
top-cat Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Not on paper, I've been running the gear for a year or two in that form. Ok, nice to hear the cob can go bright. I was thinking of the matrix more as eye candy backlight and blinder more than strobe anyway. So a 25 cell unit would have quite a big impact then? I used 11 of the 8-cells and they were great eye candy. If you can get more of the 8-cells for the money I would really consider it as you can cover more space and have them spaced out. I have used Jarags in the past and on big stages they're great but on smaller stages they take up too much room and are a bit too busy really. Edit: Sorry, and I should qualify the power statement too. That would be off a 16a ceeform anyway rather than a 13A plug top Problem would be the same with 16A Cee. The issue is in the earth leakage - so you could improve the situation with a higher rating of RCD (IE 100mA rather than the common 30mA) or of course no RCD at all but your risk assessment might be more awkward. But some jobs with loads of LED have been known to take in isolation transformers to save the need for RCDs because with them they will cut out constantly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathanhill Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Problem would be the same with 16A Cee. The issue is in the earth leakage - so you could improve the situation with a higher rating of RCD (IE 100mA rather than the common 30mA) or of course no RCD at all but your risk assessment might be more awkward. This could be tricky within BS7671 as I believe it to be the case that final circuits should be protected by a 30mA 30ms RCD. A 16A outlet would fall into the category of a final circuit. I may be confusing final circuits between BS7671 and BS7909. Drink has been taken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Could always class it as a special location,know were did that reel of 10mm earth cable go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.