Replacement for Scrollers

[fatoxious]

Howdy folks,

 

I work at a medium sized dance company that owns about 20 Colorset II scrollers, 2 4chan PSU's and a 2ch PSU. I'm not enamoured with them and they're becoming very difficult to find parts for here in Australia. so I'm looking to swap them out with something and just want to see what's out there.

 

The brief

Tour ready: we spend most of the year on the road. so ideally they don't leave our booms.

they want to fit inside the booms which means <550mm Wide and <500mm from yoke to base of lamp. the length can be about the same as a S4 26º. so ~300mm from yoke to lens or around 510mm total length.

easy to find people to service and easy to find additional units from hire companies (so, no odd name import stuff from china. happy to spend the money to get name brand kit that'll last)

ideally, they can do the same job as a MFL PAR64. so, oblong beam filter OR usable barn doors strongly considered.

ideally full colour mixing. RGBAW at a minimum.

current front runner:

ETC D60 with full lens kit. seems to tick all the box's, will mix with Lustre's which we hire regularly. only drawback is someone suggested that Lustre 3 is slated to come out later this year, so may be worth holding out until that happens (but, I didn't hear it from a super credible source).

happy to hear all suggestions. but really, not interested in cheap Chinese knock-offs.

what've you got? what's the dream? what do you hate?

TIA

Chris.

[paulears]

Intrigued = Chinese Knock off's? On fixed LED lighting, you had the Chinese products first for once?

 

The ETC is a fine product - but at the price it really should be a truly excellent one.

 

If you look at the rental stock of the big lighting companies, you see the usual Martins and Robe kit, not quite so much ETC here in the UK, but using PRG, as I'm familiar with their hire stock, you also see increasing amounts of Chinese product - ExpoLite for example. Over Christmas I spent a while waving my hand in front of the kit we were using, and for LED floods, the only real things I could find were that different was the distance before the individual LEDs blended properly, the shadow a finger could produce, and the range of the zooms were subtly different. We know the prices now of the common LED source devices - I'm interested in what makes that ETC worth 2 grand? If I had budget to spend, I'm wondering what I'd put on my budget proposal to justify needing such expensive lights for touring, where it's probable most faults are due to mechanical damage, rather than natural ageing.

 

With plenty of available budget - those ETCs would be nice to have, but I would wonder if it was money well spent. Martin and Robe, for example have very little in this product category, perhaps because the lack of real features and benefits make it difficult to justify the higher price. The ETC needs additional lenses? Really? I thought they'd have dumped that after the Parnel. Wasn't;t there a survey ages ago where most users didn't ever change them because they'd been lost shortly after purchase?

[J Pearce]

Having 3 venues full of D40s, you want the D60s. The D40s lack a bit of punch.

 

They’re softer edged than a PAR, but have a good CRI, and dim very nicely. Still not a tungsten curve, so if you have a mixed rig you’ll want to play with curves in your patch.

[fatoxious]

Intrigued = Chinese Knock off's? On fixed LED lighting, you had the Chinese products first for once?

 

The ETC is a fine product - but at the price it really should be a truly excellent one.

 

If you look at the rental stock of the big lighting companies, you see the usual Martins and Robe kit, not quite so much ETC here in the UK, but using PRG, as I'm familiar with their hire stock, you also see increasing amounts of Chinese product - ExpoLite for example. Over Christmas I spent a while waving my hand in front of the kit we were using, and for LED floods, the only real things I could find were that different was the distance before the individual LEDs blended properly, the shadow a finger could produce, and the range of the zooms were subtly different. We know the prices now of the common LED source devices - I'm interested in what makes that ETC worth 2 grand? If I had budget to spend, I'm wondering what I'd put on my budget proposal to justify needing such expensive lights for touring, where it's probable most faults are due to mechanical damage, rather than natural ageing.

 

With plenty of available budget - those ETCs would be nice to have, but I would wonder if it was money well spent. Martin and Robe, for example have very little in this product category, perhaps because the lack of real features and benefits make it difficult to justify the higher price. The ETC needs additional lenses? Really? I thought they'd have dumped that after the Parnel. Wasn't;t there a survey ages ago where most users didn't ever change them because they'd been lost shortly after purchase?

 

Hey Paul,

 

not really sure what you're saying. ignoring expense for a bit I'm just chasing referrals. the Lens kits look like 3mm plastic sheets that slot In behind the gel frame, not particularly cumbersome for the versatility (particularly the oblong beam)

 

how do you find the PRG kit? got a product I should be looking at?

 

 

Having 3 venues full of D40s, you want the D60s. The D40s lack a bit of punch.

 

They're softer edged than a PAR, but have a good CRI, and dim very nicely. Still not a tungsten curve, so if you have a mixed rig you'll want to play with curves in your patch.

 

I'd head this was the case. thanks for the tip. have you had them long? how do they go for wear and tear? can they handle a knock ok?

 

 

Thanks guys!

 

 

[J Pearce]

Having 3 venues full of D40s, you want the D60s. The D40s lack a bit of punch.

 

They're softer edged than a PAR, but have a good CRI, and dim very nicely. Still not a tungsten curve, so if you have a mixed rig you'll want to play with curves in your patch.

 

I'd head this was the case. thanks for the tip. have you had them long? how do they go for wear and tear? can they handle a knock ok?

 

 

Thanks guys!

 

 

 

We've had them 6 months, but they live rigged in a fixed rig (concert halls) so hard to say on wear and tear. They're well built, S4 PAR type body, metal reinforced XLR connectors. Plastic lens want to be handled carefully. Like any modern kit it wants to travel flightcased - I think the days of slinging loose lamps in the back of a van are coming to an end.