Current state of LED Pars...? Looking for suggestions

[IRW]

Hi Folks,

I'm in the process of looking for options to replace a rig of 48x Par 64's that, for most of their life, run a four colour back wash as two bars of 24 (So six of each colour from each bar) for one nighters every now and then that take place between our main programme. With CP62's, this arrangement just about achieves an even wash from (approximately) an 8 meter trim height on what is effectively a 16m wide stage (by, generally 8-10m deep for these shows) when you take masking into account. Generally speaking, these will get used with standard kind of rock'n'roll saturated colours (Blue, Red, Magenta, Amber, etc), with the occasional open white request thrown in.

In an ideal world, I think I'd be looking at something along the lines of the Chauvet Colorado 2 Solo, having had good experiences with the 1st iteration in a previous venue, but I think cost may put the stoppers on that. Realistically, I think I need to be looking for 24 units at a cost of about £300 (inc VAT) per fixture- I don't really want to drop below 12 units per bar for 'eye candy' purposes, but at the same time, ideally I'd like something with a homogenized output rather than the tacky look of individual LEDs. I don't want anything too fancy from a channel point of view, as it does need to be the sort of thing a visiting lampy can plug into and get going relatively quickly.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ian

Edited to add:
Does anyone have any experience of the Colorado 1QS?

Edited May 15, 2022 by IRW

[Big Jay]

No experience of the 1QS but have you looked at the Rush Par 2's? They are discontinued now but with the new version now released, you may find a good deal on Ex-Hire units? They are essentially the Mac Aura Standard without the Pan and Tilt and still has motorised zoom. 

Great little fixture!

[TomHoward]

We have just been round the houses with this and tested a lot of units inc the Colorados and settled on Viking Lightings own brand VK150 Parco 150W RGBW unit. It’s IP rated and not a massive sized fixture from the audience perspective but it had nice deep colours and was cost effective for us at around £320 a unit.

[gareth]

20 hours ago, Big Jay said:

No experience of the 1QS but have you looked at the Rush Par 2's? They are discontinued now but with the new version now released, you may find a good deal on Ex-Hire units? They are essentially the Mac Aura Standard without the Pan and Tilt and still has motorised zoom. 

Great little fixture!

Had some Rush Par 2s on one of the pantos I programmed last year. In all honesty, I found their output extremely disappointing, and that was from a trim height of a lot less than the 8m which Ian's looking at!

 

[Bryson]

Maybe not cheap enough, but I was impressed with the Vari*Lite VL800 EventPar.  https://www.vari-lite.com/global/products/vl800-eventpar-rgba

And even more so: the Warm White version:  https://www.vari-lite.com/global/products/vl800-eventpar which was almost indistinguishable from a "real" Par64 to my eye.  Great for things like Orchestra wash or similar.

 

[delicolor]

I have been acquiring bottom of the range mid-range fixtures for a price conscious venue. Elumen8 MP75s are RGBW fresnels that work very well at 5m trim and are in your budget but would probably lose oomph at 8m. The next one up (the TZ350) has certainly got the throw and intensity but it is big and heavy, reminiscent of a Patt. 43!

It does have DMX zoom which can be handy but it is noisy unless you inch it. (Something else to go wrong of course).

[alistermorton]

We have half a dozen MP75s and I'd agree with that. They're useful in a tight squeeze, too, as they're physically not that much bigger than a minim.

[Bryson]

Maybe more in the price ballpark, have you looked at the Chroma-Q* Color One 100s?  https://www.aclighting.com/color-one-100/

They are almost comically small looking, but you actually get a lot of light out of them, and they have a nice homogenized beam, go nicely with ColorForce etc etc.  I like them.

 

 

 

* = Buy Canadian! 😉

[delicolor]

The LEDJ Performer 200 is very bright but perhaps too wide at 120 degrees. It has a RGBW 200W COB LED source. https://cpc.farnell.com/ledj/performer-200-quad/led-par-can-rgbw-200w/dp/DP36276

(Don't try dismantling it to fit in a 23, not enough room and you now have optically a LED version of a Furse SPK.

[TomHoward]

Is the Performer 200 plastic bodied or cast? That’s quite an output for the cost, although rather wide 

[delicolor]

12 hours ago, TomHoward said:

Is the Performer 200 plastic bodied or cast? That’s quite an output for the cost, although rather wide 

I think it was an aluminium casting but I’d have to check. (It is in bits in a bag at the back of the garage).

Most of the weight is in the heatsink.

[sandall]

CPC say aluminium

[Dave m]

how noisy are the CPC ones?

[Muller_Light]

I was also wondering how noisy the fans might be, so am considering PAR-180 High Power LED PAR Light - Qtx | CPC UK (farnell.com), which appear to be fanless.

Has anybody tried one? How does it perform.  I only want it for colour, as I have tungsten for white.   In a community centre, approx 3m from the stage, so very different to what Ian W wants them for.   But cheap, so is it worth a try?

It says 60 degree beam angle.  What does that mean?  Is it to 1/2 brightness, or something else?  (-3dB points, if I were considering an antenna)

 

[timsabre]

I think that does have a fan, look at the pic showing the backside, looks like one of those whiny 40mm fans.

Beam angle is supposedly to half brightness but I think they just guess for a lot of the cheap stuff. That fixture is cob LEDs in reflectors with no lenses so the beam will be fairly undefined. 3m away should be OK though. I have found the colours to be a bit wishy washy on some of the COB LEDs but not used that particular one.