SLE - Week 4

On day one of Lighting Concepts and Design, our lecture instructor said point-blank, “ Let’s be honest; you guys just want to make the lights wiggle.  But you have to know the basics before you can get to that point.”  This is absolutely correct which is why we were introduced to lighting with conventionals rather than automated lights.  You have to learn to crawl before you can walk.  I feel that this same approach is often over looked, though, even when you get to an advanced level of lighting design and system building.

My background, and passion, is in the theatre – it’s how I got started in this industry.  One of the most annoying things that I’ve faced in a permanently installed building, though, is nothing on my rig, but something still under my control: house lights.  Even when it comes to a lot of corporate events that take place in conference rooms, and small tours that hop to smaller venues, very seldom is direct, dimmable control of the house lights achievable.

Enter: LDI2011’s Best Green Product, the ArcSystem House Light.  First off, it’s “green” because it’s all LED – 25W per cell, in fact.  The units are available as sleek, single-cell recessed lights, to 2, 3, 5, and 8-celled fixtures.  The 8-cell is capable of outputting up to 9,600 lumens, and all of the units offer smooth electronic dimming and can produce 2700 K, 3000 K, and 4100 K color temperatures.  The fixtures use a low-glare reflector system to create a soft beam pattern and can produce beam angles of 19º, 24º, and 37º.

Lastly, and most importantly, since these lights are LED’s and have lower heat output to begin with, the entire fixture is cooled by convection only.  No fans means a quieter house and will allow your guests to actually hear your walk-in music rather than the ceaseless drone of fans.

The interesting thing about the ArcSystem House Light, though, is its means of control.  The fixtures use the Arc Mesh Control Protocol instead of plain DMX.  In conjunction with an ArcNode, this allows the fixtures to be controlled via either DMX, ArtNet, or other Network control; monitor faults and temperatures; set patching, power fail auto recovery options, minimum light levels, and preset recalls.  The fixtures even offer convenient webserver configuration.

Original Article

Additional Manufacturer Specifications

SLE - Week 3

Whether they are Strand or ETC, we generally just call them “lekos”.  I personally was introduced into the lighting business with a plethora of Strand fixtures which were exact matches to the Source 4 series except for the fact that the Strand ERS’ could actually rotate inside the yoke collar; which was perfect for orienting gobos instead of having to burn yourself to adjust it inside the gobo frame. And thus I digress.

So we all know the two most popular brands of the typical ERS, but there was always one company that was always trying to be like everyone else: Altman.  They started off with the 360Q but it was heavy, clunky, and didn’t meet up to the expectations as the other ellipsoidals on the market.  So they made some improvements and introduced the 3.5Q.  Closer, but still not quite the same.

And now finally, years much later than it should have been, Altman has introduced its latest series; the “Phoenix”.   It’s pretty much all that you would expect to see from any ellipsoidal spotlight.  And really, the fixture even looks the same as Strand’s.

So while I’m a little dumbfounded as to why Altman would waste their time seemingly just trying to copy the competition, I will give them some, albeit very small, props as to their choice of lamp.  They did stick to the good ol’ conventional pattern and made the Phoenix compatible with both GLA and HPL lamps in 375w, 575w, and 750w choices.  Not to turn around and bash the props I just gave, but I still can’t understand why they didn’t directly compete with the LED ERS race that is currently going on.  But that’s just my own perspective.

Like I mentioned earlier about my favorite Strand feature, the Phoenix takes the form more from a Source 4 and allows just the barrel to rotate a full 360 degrees for gobo alignment instead of the entire luminere.  The lenses are also standard with the choices of  5º, 10º, 19º, 26º, 36º, and 50º.

Oh and one more thing, what would an Altman fixture be without it’s DUAL LOCKING HANDLES?

http://livedesignonline.com/gear/lighting/altman_phoenix_111109/

SLE - Week 2

This week’s blog post is a highlight of a sneak peak review of the newly released Best Boy 4000 Spotlight by PRG.  While browsing Live Design Online, my eye was caught by quite the unusual looking intelligent fixture in the articles summary blurb.  But of course, with a name like “Best Boy”, you can’t help but read a bit more.

So why should anyone turn their head to this new fixture?  Well there are several reasons why this new toy deserves the high reviews but first and foremost, this is one of the first fixtures on the market to take full advantage of the new servomotor technology and implement them in every mechanism.  The trending theme of this fixture of “smooth, fast, and quiet” starts with its motors and their ability to move the fixture smoothly without the jitter like that of micro stepping motors, and quickly without becoming obscenely loud.

But what is a light without a lamp? Exactly, so the next impressive thing on the list is the lamp and optic train.  Best Boy uses an MSR-700 short arc lamp but it is electronically overdriven to 800 watts which provides 21,000 lumens of output.  Even with all the motors active at full speed simultaneously, the fixture only pulls 5 amperes at 208 volts.  The auto-sensing power supply can accept input voltages anywhere from 90 to 264 volts.

The optics system, driven by servomotors, provides an 8:1 zoom/focus track allowing the beam angle to range from 8º to 64º which is exceptionally versatile.  The typical hotspot formed by all fixtures, though, is not something that is produced by Best Boy; the pool of light is completely even field.  By default, a tracking auto-focus feature is enabled which will keep gobos in focus and will transition quickly and smoothly.

Speaking of gobos, Best Boy has two wheels of 6 gobos each, all rotatable, and include two “moiré” effects – a kaleidoscopic and animation type of effect.  In a third wheel, several choice of multiplying and faceted prisms are offered.  The two gobo wheels have enough space between them to offer the ability to focus shift between the patterns.

Finally, color.  Best Boy offers CMY color mixing, driven by (again) servomotors which can snap between colors at opposite ends of the spectrum as fast as adjacent dichroics in a color wheel – which Best Boy has a dichroic wheel too.  The most fascinating thing, though, is the dimmer and color temperature correction wheels.  Both of these are dichroic gradients to offer smooth and continuous shifts which makes a very even dimmer curve and offers many options in color temperature.  More impressive, though, is yet another wheel which offers a minus-green gradient so you can mock the apparent lamp age of other fixtures in the rig.  This is especially handy when using the Best Boy in a rig full of conventionals as the CT wheel offers matching to a Source 4.

I must admit that I am a bit sad that I missed this great product from PRG at LDI last week.  I hope for an opportunity to become personally acquainted with such an amazing and useful fixture.  This really is something you have to see to believe.  Why not check out a video of Best Boy in action?