Lighting a cyc with lightweight LED battens

[alanbain]

I'm working in a rather basic venue which lacks any sensible flying facilities. I have a plan to hang a cyclorama cloth (7m wide by 3.6m high) from an astralite truss at the rear of the stage (there are two painted cloths on drop rollers but both are unsuitable and changing them isn't an option).

 

The lighting rig is similarly primitive. Above the stage are 1930s strand flood units with cloth insulation... which give off minimal light and the other hanging positions are a difficult to access advance bar with some LED fixtures and Ovation E910s with zoom lenses on the balcony.

 

I was wondering if there existed lightweight LED battens in the usual hire company stock which could be used to light the cyc hung on the front of the truss (with the cyc hanging on the back). The normal 4-cell incandescent units are a bit too heavy. This doesn't make it possible to get them far away and they would need to be quite wide angled.

 

Any suggestions welcome....

 

Alan

[jonathanhill]

Most hire companies will have ColorForce units, likely the 2m units and probably the cyc lenses. They are an RGBA fixture, but they and most other decent fixtures are not that light. Is putting them on a bar on manual chain blocks an option?

[emsgeorge]

with cloth insulation...

 

Asbestos ?

[AndrewE]

I've had some success lighting cycs with a line of Showline E-Strip 10s. You'll need a bit of a gap between the cyc and the units to avoid there being too much of a hotspot as their beam angle is only 20 degrees. They are however incredibly light at 7kg per unit, are RGBW so have good colour mixing, and as they are very lower power, you can easily power a long line of them from a single 16A, linking through in Powercon.

 

White Light, CEG and other suppliers carry them in large numbers and they're pretty cheap (less than £20 per week per unit in my experience).

 

(Photo of them in use on one of my shows here Clicky (though as a groundrow rather than hung)

Edited December 24, 2019 by AndrewE

[James Remo]

At only 3.6m drop colourforce would be overkill, plus they aren’t exactly lightweight. Every hire co I rent kit from stock a cheap, lightweight 1m led batten. Showline estrip 10, Chauvet colourband etc. Even a row of glp x4 bar20’s are lighter than the colourforce

[IRW]

with cloth insulation...

 

Asbestos ?

 

+ 1. Beware Will Robinson! Just seeing this sort of insulation on theatre lights should start tentative alarm bells ringing!

Edited December 25, 2019 by IRW

[alistermorton]

Could be cotton over rubber.

 

 

 

Could be ...

[alanbain]

with cloth insulation...

 

Asbestos ?

 

Suspect so - I keep well away, the wooden access ladder also encourages this course of action!

 

I've had some success lighting cycs with a line of Showline E-Strip 10s. You'll need a bit of a gap between the cyc and the units to avoid there being too much of a hotspot as their beam angle is only 20 degrees. They are however incredibly light at 7kg per unit, are RGBW so have good colour mixing, and as they are very lower power, you can easily power a long line of them from a single 16A, linking through in Powercon.

 

White Light, CEG and other suppliers carry them in large numbers and they're pretty cheap (less than £20 per week per unit in my experience).

 

(Photo of them in use on one of my shows here Clicky (though as a groundrow rather than hung)

 

This sounds ideal (as does the price...) thanks for this suggestion.