Tungsten lighting (and fluorescent)

[willjam39]

The second hand point is a good one I had not thought about. nearly all of my kit is second hand picked up for not too much as usually the older stuff is that bit more robust in nature (betapack 1s to name an example). But LEDs having a fairly fixed lifespan before becoming uneconomic to repair will we see the drip down effect at all?

[Junior8]

Good point. Also once the vintage Strand kit is redundant it will have pretty well zero landfill implications as you could take the lamp out remove the cable and lens and the scrappy could put it all pretty well straight into the pot!

[sleah]

Good point. Also once the vintage Strand kit is redundant it will have pretty well zero landfill implications as you could take the lamp out remove the cable and lens and the scrappy could put it all pretty well straight into the pot!

I was only thinking the other day that apart from power savings (which are getting slightly less each time a new, higher power LED comes out), LED devices aren't exactly a green option compared to a halogen lamp in a metal box.

 

Similar with cars, my 51 year old Triumph Herald probably is significantly more recyclable than a modern plastic car full of electronics :unsure:

[Just Some Bloke]

Something that hasn't been mentioned much when discussing the best course to take environmentally, is that everyone who knows about this says that you should, wherever possible, use up your old stock first before changing to new. Throwing away a perfectly good piece of kit is often worse for the environment that continuing to use it. When something stops working then that's the time to replace it with a more environmentally sound alternative. We shouldn't, for instance, throw away all the CFC lamps we have at home and replace them with LED; we should use up the CFCs and buy new LEDs for when the old stock runs out.

 

It seems a shame, then, that we are having to throw away perfectly good Par 123s and, soon, Thomas Par64s just because we can't get the lamps. I suppose the best thing to do is to spray paint them, refit them with LEDs and sell them to yuppies.

[alistermorton]

I'm going to try, at some point, to do a conversion of my old knackered minims, along the lines of gyro's LED conversions of his miniscans. They're damaged, so can't be used as is, but replacing the light source with something cooler than a T18 would make repairing them quite viable

[sunray]

I'm going to try, at some point, to do a conversion of my old knackered minims, along the lines of gyro's LED conversions of his miniscans. They're damaged, so can't be used as is, but replacing the light source with something cooler than a T18 would make repairing them quite viable

I looked at this option earlier but to be honest the full cost of the conversion is quite high, that is assuming there isn't an economical DMX controller that I haven't found yet.

[david.elsbury]

I'm going to try, at some point, to do a conversion of my old knackered minims, along the lines of gyro's LED conversions of his miniscans. They're damaged, so can't be used as is, but replacing the light source with something cooler than a T18 would make repairing them quite viable

I looked at this option earlier but to be honest the full cost of the conversion is quite high, that is assuming there isn't an economical DMX controller that I haven't found yet.

I think unfortunately the biggest problem with any DIY conversion (aside from all the metalwork stuff) is that smooth led dimming at the bottom end of the curve doesn’t seem to be done well by cheap led drivers, either because the manufacturers don’t care or because architectural stuff where that’s less important is the intended application

[timsabre]

It's really difficult to do smooth dimming at the bottom. Because of the logarithmic way your eyes work they are much more sensitive to the changes in the first few steps, so those steps need to be really tiny compared to the steps at the top end. This means very narrow pwm pulses which requires fast processing and a more complicated power supply design.

[gyro_gearloose]

*cough* mechanical dimming works with all types of light sources *cough* :)

 

Edit: in all seriousness, I’ve noticed that the LED drivers, dimmable or not, seem to be by far the most expensive part of high power LED systems.

Edited January 17, 2020 by gyro_gearloose

[georgeman]

Out of interest, what lights are you all using in schools and am-dram? Do you have a mix of all types of light or generally one kind?

[Gerry]

As an am-dram practitioner who has to fund the cost of the equipment, then it is whatever I can afford to buy.

Got a mixture of tungsten and LED.

Cheers

Gerry

[kgallen]

Out of interest, what lights are you all using in schools and am-dram? Do you have a mix of all types of light or generally one kind?

 

Tungsten: ETC Source 4, Strand Prelude F/PC, Strand Quartet F, CCT Minuette F, PAR16 - for all face light, specials, gobos, anything requiring beam shaping or focus.

LED: Range of Showtec, Cameo, Stairville, LEDJ, Phillips PL RGB/RGBW/RGBWA/RGBWAUV (mostly wash, some movers) - for back and side light and pretty much all "colour" these days. I have very few (actually only one!) focusable LED fixtures.

 

This for a programme of pantomime, musicals, concerts, the odd play. If I did more plays (as was the case many years ago) I suspect I'd use less LED.

 

 

 

[vinntec]

*cough* mechanical dimming works with all types of light sources *cough* :)

I am pretty sure the Strand Sunset dimmers I used in the 1960/70s would dim white LED lamps perfectly well as they would reduce voltage without adding any harmonics (unlike electronic dimmers) - shame we can't try it for real! See http://www.theatrecrafts.com/archive/documents/1953_theatricallighting_69.pdf for the sort of dimmer I am talking about.

 

 

 

[adam2]

*cough* mechanical dimming works with all types of light sources *cough* :)

I am pretty sure the Strand Sunset dimmers I used in the 1960/70s would dim white LED lamps perfectly well as they would reduce voltage without adding any harmonics (unlike electronic dimmers) - shame we can't try it for real! See http://www.theatrecr...lighting_69.pdf for the sort of dimmer I am talking about.

 

 

 

 

I rather doubt it. Most LEDs use a switched mode power supply that gives constant current into the LED array at varying supply voltage, reducing the supply voltage will give constant light down to a critical point at which point the lamp either goes out or starts to flash on/off.

 

Many types of LED driver are multi voltage and will give full output down to about 90 volts (Japanese 100 volt nominal supply, less 10%)

 

 

 

 

 

[willjam39]

Out of interest, what lights are you all using in schools and am-dram? Do you have a mix of all types of light or generally one kind?

 

I like most run a mix of the two as the tungsten gives the right tone on the skin and then add colour wash with the LED fixtures.