Replacing Moving Head lamp with LED?

[timsabre]

This is a difficult modification - your 2 challenges are optical, as the optical system is designed for a point-source arc lamp not a larger LED array, and thermal as you must get the heat away from the LED or it will have a short life. It is not just a case of bolting an LED in place of the lamp.

 

See gyro gearloose's post at the top of this thread - he said
"The other problem with Mac 600s is that the original discharge lamp uses a huge heatsink that gets in the way of fitting the LED and it’s own heatsink. I’m not sure how you could use the existing heatsink to cool the LED as you would need to mount the LED somewhere near to the focal point of the reflector otherwise you risk losing a lot of light output. You could remove the existing reflector and use the LED/holder/reflector optics that I mentioned in my post from last year, but fitting them in the Martin heatsink might be tricky."

Edited May 23, 2023 by timsabre

[david.elsbury]

6 hours ago, sunray said:

I think it may still be a sensible place to discuss the topic, especially if @georgeman did complete the project.

Yes.

if they ever come back!

[J Pearce]

For what a MAC600 did, you'd probably do just as well to remove most of the innards inside the head, mount a RGBW LED PAR at the front where the lens used to be and use the mover shell as a cheap version of an Apollo RightArm.

Bonus points for a zoomable LED PAR.

Edited May 23, 2023 by J Pearce

[KevinE]

Interesting topic and maybe a way of invigorating that old tired moving head with the feeble MSD250 that seems to gather dust in people's sheds! I dont think its likely to be a commercially viable thing but as a DIY job these led conversions are an interesting read.

I'd be concerned with a moving head that the balance is not disturbed too much, I'm sure the maufacturers put much thought into the original centre of gravity.

 

[sunray]

17 hours ago, david.elsbury said:

Yes.

if they ever come back!

Yes of course that would be great for OP's solutions etc, however the discussions have continued and useful info is, as always on here, forthcoming.