Small theatre house lighting update - suggestions anyone?

[pmiller056]

Hi

I'm looking for suggestions to update the existing incandescent dimmable house lighting in a local communtity theatre and multi-use hall. The hall is managed by a charitable organisation, so materals cost is a significant consideration, installation labour can be 'arranged' 🙂

At present there are 3 switched groups of house lights with a 2.5kW (SCR) common master dimmer. Each bank of lights is about 4.5m above floor level, illuminating an area approximately 5m x 5m. 2 groups of lights are each an array of 10x GU10 50W downlighters, and there is 1 group of 6x 80/100W reflector lamps.

The dimmer is controlled by a 0-10V signal from either the lighting desk (via a DMX demux) or from a wall mounted pot. Suitable replacement lamps are becoming hard to get and energy efficiency is dreadful. The simple solution would be to replace the GU10's with dimmable LED equivalents, but they don't dim 'nicely' at lower levels. I'm not sure what a good replacement for the reflector lamps would be. I'm aware that the existing dimmer may not work correctly with a low power all-LED lamp load.

Are there any suggestions and experiences from the Blue Room community to guide us to a suitable upgraded system?

Thanks

Peter

[sandall]

We've been using Philips LEDs with an old Strand Environ dimmer with no problems. Unfortunately a botched roofing job has just destroyed the Environ, so we've bought an Anytronics CB 4-channel pack. Anytronics (nice people to deal with) are convinced it will cope with an all-LED load, but we haven't installed it yet, so can't give a definite confirmation.

E2A: I've been using Philips LED GU10s at home for several years with no failures. I haven't touched the dimmer bottom-set, so they only dim to about 10% - not sure what would happen if I tried to make them dim to zero.

Edited December 14, 2022 by sandall

[pmiller056]

Thank you for your suggestion. I'll get some of the suggested lamps and see how they work. The existing dimmer is an old Anytronics one, so I'll talk to them when I need to.

[sandall]

I think these are the ones I'm using (twice the price of the rest, but you get what you pay for)

https://www.screwfix.com/p/philips-gu10-led-light-bulb-345lm-3-8w-6-pack/250fh

[pmiller056]

We got some of the lamps suggested by @sandall. They work well, dimming smoothly to off. The old Anytronics houselight dimmer works correctly with these lamps without a tungsten lamp 'ballast' to help it. We'll be buying more. The colour temperature is supposed to get warmer as they dim, which is a nice touch.

For reference, the Philips product number is 9290020657. EAN13 Barcode for a box of 6 is 8718696721674.

Thanks for your suggestions.