Proposed EU Regulations That Would Ban All Theatrical Fixtures - Not J

[gyro_gearloose]

Wishful thinking I’m afraid. T-class lamps are omni directional, despite the flat filament array, so may well be banned. I can’t imagine the EU saying “yes, let’s get rid of 40/60/100 Watt d0m3st1c lamps as they aren’t very efficient, but let’s leave those 1000 Watt theatrical lamps alone”. I think we as an industry need to get used to the idea that ALL filament lamps WILL eventually be banned.

[jonathanhill]

Phillips have already discontinued manufacture of their Blue Pinch 1000W GY9.5 lamps, necessitating a fairly expensive conversion to GKV lamps.

 

There are stocks held by the bigger companies, but obviously these will dwindle with time.

[adam2]

Wishful thinking I'm afraid. T-class lamps are omni directional, despite the flat filament array, so may well be banned. I can't imagine the EU saying "yes, let's get rid of 40/60/100 Watt d0m3st1c lamps as they aren't very efficient, but let's leave those 1000 Watt theatrical lamps alone". I think we as an industry need to get used to the idea that ALL filament lamps WILL eventually be banned.

 

 

 

 

I agree, most filament lamps are directional to an extent, but I doubt that T class theatre lamps are sufficiently directional to be considered exempt. I agree that PAR and other reflector lamps are exempt for now, but the writing is on the wall for ALL common types of filament lamps. Remember that even types not banned in the EU or in the UK may become unavailable because production is no longer justified by the dwindling market.

 

It may be noted, as an example, that many lamps NOT covered by the ban are ALREADY unavailable because production is no longer worthwhile. I recently tried to purchase 12 volt, 15 watt, GLS, pearl lamps, no longer available. They could be manufactured to order subject to an order for 1,000 lamps, but I only wanted 10 or 12. Replaced with LEDs.

 

65 volt 40 watt and 60 watt GLS lamps with a 3 pin bayonet base are no longer made, AFAIK.

 

5 volt 0.09 amp E10 lamps are now hard to find, I eventually found some but I suspect old stock rather than recent manufacture.

 

I suspect that a few more common types of incandescent lamp will still be made in the far east and available as grey imports via fleabay and the like. But firstly do not count on this, and secondly remember that prices may be high and quality doubtful.

 

A comparison with gas lighting may be relevant. When I was but a nipper, gas lighting was"on the way out" but still common enough that most local hardware shops still stocked gas mantles and at a lower price than light bulbs. Gas mantles are still made, but are hard to find retail, are expensive and IMHO, are of lower quality than decades ago.

[vinntec]

"This decision does not affect

• directional halogen lamps, such as popular spotlights"

So PAR64 lamps SHOULD be safe; possibly also T25, T11, T29, etc, as in sound terms these would be regarded as "figure-of-eight", not "omni". Just a thought....

Yes but the current proposals for 2020 will effectively get rid of them. Michael Hulls LD: "...theatre lighting has, until now, had an exemption from this ban. This exemption is what the EU is now proposing to end. Were that to happen, it would mean that by 2020 we would no longer be able to obtain bulbs to keep our stocks of familiar, reliable tungsten theatre lighting fixtures, from the Source Four all the way back to the Patt 23, working.”

[paulears]

when Government ban things the reduce the lifespan of products bought with a specific purpose in mind, is there any right to compensation. With Diesel cars we would presumably get some kind of scrapple allowance, and certainly with licensed radio mics, there was money to buy new ones? If new have to throw away kit because of legislation, surely there must be something?

[vinntec]

From the Save Tungsten campaign: "The proposed new regulation will effectively ban all Tungsten Halogen lamps from September 2020 with the exception of R7 linear lamps due to the extensive installed base and no practical LED lamp replacement product. There is a strange technical exemption aimed to protect short arc discharge lamps for projectors and some sports lighting, however this is based on emission area of an arc and does not cover tungsten theatre lamps." See https://www.facebook.com/SaveTungsten/

[IRW]

As much as I don't like the idea, the writing has been on the wall for tungsten fittings for a while- I can't remember exactly when the first hoo-har about not being able to buy 100w domestic light bulbs was, but it was definitely a while ago, so anyone who's had their ear close to the ground could have started implementing replacement plans a good few years ago...at this point in time, anyone who hasn't, really, really should be having some serious talks with the powers-that-be to get those wheels in motion. I've seen quite a few LED demo units recently, both profile and wash, and they are definitely at the point of now being a viable alternative to TH fixtures. One may baulk at the cost of the good ones, but you only have to look back at the Strand catalogues of old to see the comparable prices of some of our current industry workhorses (e.g a Pattern 743 in 1980 was just over £100 'ready to go' back in 1980...approximately £500 now when adjusted for inflation).

 

As was mentioned upthread, as much as we like to think of our little entertainment industry as 'the world', with many theatre techs considering themselves some sort of all-knowing deity, or obscure LD's who think their way of working is the best thing since sliced bread and they won't be able to live without a Par64...our industry is most likely just a splash in the ocean to the manufacturers of things like PAR and the T-series lamps, and the ocean is currently drying up fast...

 

Following the announcement last year about TW1 lamps being discontinued, my day-job venue bought a small stockpile of lamps for our TW1's to keep us going for the next three years- our hope is that in three years time, there will be a viable, and decent (from a subjective LD point of view), TW1 replacement, and replacement of these units features at that point in our current 5-year plan, with many other of our fixtures on the cards to have replacements in place throughout the period.

 

Don't get me wrong- I am a tungsten fan-boy as well (really, really, love those TW1's!), not least from an environmental point of view as touched on by Musht upthread, but unfortunately the old lightbulb's days appear to be currently numbered, so find something that works for you, and get those equipment replacement plans in order.

 

In the words of Max Detweiler to Captain Von Trapp..."What's going to happen is going to happen...just make sure it doesn't happen to you..."

[Jivemaster]

Currently I see lots of LED lighting in shops that have clearly failed to either patches of arrays gone out or whole lamp strobing. Clearly LEDs are far from ready for the pro theatre market.

 

Additionally lots of LEDs don't dim well and lots of fittings will need DMX where they had dimmed power.

 

It's not the cheap LEDs that dim nicely from 3200K to 1800K

[vinntec]

In my tiny amateur-owned theatre, it is simply a matter of economics. We mostly put on plays so need lanterns which behave like traditional theatre lanterns. So profiles, fresnel/PC, and cyc floods.

 

We have a mixture of Philips Selecon LED (x 14 as a mixture of cyc, profile and fresnel purchased about 4 years ago) and conventional (about 45 regularly used built up over many years). A mid-range LED which looks like and works like a conventional lantern, such as the Philips Selecon PL range OR ETC ColorSource, costs at least £1,000 each. A modest rig of 50 lanterns would therefore be in the order of £50,000! At the same time, the theatre has to be rewired for hot power + DMX operation - which has already been done to some extent but not for a complete rig of only LED so some serious additional work was also be needed, although there is plenty of power for these.

 

Our experience with the Selecon LEDs (I am not plugging them, they are just the ones we have) is nearly all positive. However, we can't get any possible colour and they are not as bright as the comparable Selecon Acclaim 650W conventionals (but very close to 500W lamped). Where they win hands down is as the colours get deeper, they get comparatively brighter with a crossover at about Lee L111. We can get hundreds of colours out of them, but not the thousands we can with gel today. But compared to "modern" conventionals such as our Strand SL profiles, they are very dim. So we use the LEDs where we need deeper colours or for colours to change. For example, this shows a ballet lit by a single Selecon LED profile which needed multiple colour changes and which could not easily have been done without using LED.

 

Our small theatre could probably convert to all LED fairly easily if we had the money as we are a small low rig theatre with short throws - provided we are willing to compromise on colours (which we could might be able to improve if we went for "Tungsten" rather than coloured LEDs everywhere). However, the electricity saving will be very small as our rig is used for short periods every couple of months. Rehearsals up to close to production week are done with house lights and workers.

 

We might expect LED lanterns to continue to improve and as bulk purchasing kicks in to go down significantly in price (?). But how long will they last? They are not something which we can maintain ourselves as a LED engine failure is a major issue requiring support from the manufacturer. We can keep the conventionals going by regular cleaning and checking of lenses and reflectors (and replacing problems where possible). If they need new lamp bases, this is easily within our capability to repair. You can get spares for P23 even today so as long as spare parts can be purchased they will still work perfectly. Until, that is, we can no longer get hold of the lamps in which case they change from being useful to being junk.

 

Compensation? In any measure, the conventionals have little or no actual value due to their age although they are working as well as they did when they left the factory. We might find some mugs if we polished them and put domestic LEDs inside... ;-)

 

What about theatres with long throws, such as the Royal Opera House?

[adam2]

when Government ban things the reduce the lifespan of products bought with a specific purpose in mind, is there any right to compensation. With Diesel cars we would presumably get some kind of scrapple allowance, and certainly with licensed radio mics, there was money to buy new ones? If new have to throw away kit because of legislation, surely there must be something?

 

I rather doubt that public money will be available to replace theatre lighting equipment. The ban on incandescent lamps has been discussed for some years so should come as no surprise. With a little stockpiling, lamps should be available for some years.

 

Also LED technology has improved to the extent that we may yet see LED lamps to retrofit into existing lanterns. Until recently this seemed improbable due to the need for cooling, but as efficiency continues to improve the amount of heat that requires removal declines. At present a 100 watt LED might replace 500 watt or 650 watt halogen, improved LED efficiency might mean that in future that a 60 watt LED could replace the halogen.

 

That roughly HALVES the heat to be removed. The 100 watt LED might produce 20 watts of light and 80 watts of heat that needs removal. The 60 watt LED would still produce 20 watts of light but only 40 watts of heat, or about half.

 

As discussed previously, LED retrofit lamps are now available to fit the well known Arri lights widely used for filming, an LED like that would have seemed most unlikely only a few years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

[timsabre]

Also LED technology has improved to the extent that we may yet see LED lamps to retrofit into existing lanterns.

I can't see that this could ever happen for 2 reasons -

1-you can't use a mains dimmer and get a smooth fade, would need some sort of external DMX driver pack and significant mods to the fixture wiring.

2-Optically it would not work for profile spots. Fresnels/PC's are easier hence the Arri replacement

 

Getting the heat out of the fixture and cool air into the fixture is still a major concern and would require a different solution for every fixture type. LED lifespan is very significantly reduced if they run hot.

[Brian]

I sense a thriving market in 'second-hand' lamps coming on.

[StuartS]

Didn’t I read that by creating a ‘greenhouse’ shield around a tungsten filament to reflect the IR and heat you can increase its efficiency manyfold ? Surely this is the way forward?

Just as an aside, theatre isn’t the only entertainment at risk, the rig for the Masters Snooker was well populated with tungsten fresnels.

[adam2]

Didn't I read that by creating a 'greenhouse' shield around a tungsten filament to reflect the IR and heat you can increase its efficiency manyfold ? Surely this is the way forward?

Just as an aside, theatre isn't the only entertainment at risk, the rig for the Masters Snooker was well populated with tungsten fresnels.

 

 

 

 

The efficiency of a tungsten halogen lamp can indeed be increased by a special coating that reflects infra red radiation back towards the filament. A great many lamps now use this technology, but the gain is in the region of 25% rather than "many fold"

 

Replacing say a 100 watt old type halogen lamp with a 70 watt "IR stop" lamp is less bad than the original halogen lamp, but cant be compared with a 25 watt CFL or a 15 watt LED.

 

The whole business of trying to get a bit more efficiency out of a dying technology, is IMHO comparable to the last gasps of the gas lighting industry two generations ago.

 

" Whilst it is true that gas lighting is now being challenged by our competitors, it is the duty of all in the gas industry to ensure that existing gas lighting remains in use, and that gas light is given due consideration for new housing schemes. Every gas light lost is an electric light gained. Every electric light gained is an opportunity for our competitors to sell electricity at grossly inflated prices for "lighting" and thereby subsidise electricity sold for cooking and heating, which as we all know is done cheaper and better by gas. Only gas is sold at the same uniform and low price for any purpose, and to anyone".

 

And the later gas lighting installations using scientifically designed regenerative burners and a high pressure gas supply were indeed impressive, and out competed labour intensive carbon arcs, but could not compete with 300 watt and 500 watt tungsten lamps, supplied from large modern power stations.

 

 

 

 

 

[musht]

In my view, requiring that most theatres replace most of their lantern stock by 2025 IS reasonable.

 

 

In commercial world, retail/office/hotel, 7 year refurb cycle used to be typical, it`s economic to bin and replace, the installed lighting load may be a substantial part of the annual energy consumption, total cost gets amortised quickly.

 

Theatre has traditionally survived on an eco system where older equipment gets a new life further down the food chain.

 

Far East manufacturing has managed to drive costs down so perhaps that is less of an issue.

 

There is still a question of light quality, unless something radical happens, LED is always going to be a phosphor conversion source with the attendant peaks and troughs right through the visible spectrum, always with a big blue peak,at moment its good, but it ain`t the total answer.