Conventional Fixtures - Altman 1000Q

[midgetgreen11]

I opened up the lid on our old 1000Q, which is the only followspot we own. The knob on the back for beam size adjustment, and the focus knob have always been really loud, jerky, and difficult to work with. I looked at the Iris inside, and the leaves are almost rippled, I'm assuming from heat damage.

Do you think buying This

Or is this something that I should not try to repair on my own? I'm worried to send it to our local dealer because the only followspots they deal with are Comets, and their quality is sub-par.

[jklak]

I had to do a repair on an old Altman Dynaspot and I needed a part that is way out of production. I called Altman and accidentally ended up talking to a really helpful guy in their rental department. Their rental department is continually repairing old Altman spots for their rental stock and I got the impression that they have lots of spare parts from the left-overs when the lights go out of production. The guy sent me the exact part I needed plus an extra one for when the part breaks on our other Dynaspot plus he didn't want to deal with the money so he didn't charge me a cent. I don't know that they want to get swamped with repair requests but if the replacement iris is out of production he can probably help you. <edit: PM jklak for more info-DL> This guy was a huge help to me. Maybe he can help you out too.

[waynehoskins]

I'd try to get a better spot. The 1000Q sucks. Lycian's Clubspot has the same specs on paper, but it's visibly brighter by a fair margin. Even the Comet's better. Comet's cheaper too, strange thing...

In fairness, though, the 1000Q is significantly uber-better than the Model 902 (or is it 920?), the old 1500-watt incandescent spot.

Iris replacement kit is probably not a bad thing to do if you can't get a better unit. Goodness, for only a hundred bucks, it's a good way to refurb that 1000Q for use as a standby.

[Brilliant2007]

Hey Ben! What part of the country are you in? You mentioned that you weren't happy with your local dealer? I might be able to suggest another shop for you! Check out the Altman website to find a list of dealers and where they are located!!

BRANDON

[midgetgreen11]

I live in Rhode Island? The local dealer is known as ATR Treehouse, and is based out of Providence.

[midgetgreen11]

I'd try to get a better spot. The 1000Q sucks. Lycian's Clubspot has the same specs on paper, but it's visibly brighter by a fair margin. Even the Comet's better. Comet's cheaper too, strange thing...

The spotlight is from our old high school, which was knocked down eight years ago, and we will not be getting a new one under the schools funding anytime soon.

As easy as you make that sound, we need a new lightboard before we make any spotlight investments of the type. We usually rent comets for productions, but the spotlight still works, and I'd like to utilize it to spend money on more important things, like replacing our 20-year-old two-scene board that has loose strings inside.

[Les]

Here I go again defending Altman. The 1,000Q doesn't actually "suck". It's just older, and hasn't been redesigned in a while. The things are tanks and will probably be here 'till the next ice age. Go for the iris - you shouldn't have too much of a problem replacing it yourself as long as your school will allow it. AFAIK, you can remove the iris from its holder by taking out three screws and disconnecting the linkages. It's been years since I've seen one of these things inside so my memory is a little foggy. Altman spots are designed to be very serviceable unlike much of their other equipment and this will be a big help. And to clear the air about the Comet; it is inferior--for a spot in it's size class. It's actually perfect for smaller theatres and is pretty well built and reliable. Unfortunately people try to use an instrument beyond the means for which it was designed and when it doesn't perform as expected they put a 'sucks' label on it.

[waynehoskins]

It's entirely possible that merely the 1000Q I've worked with sucks. It could have been way out of bench focus, I hadn't thought about that before. (It's at the high school, borrowed from the junior high, but I did relamp the thing and have the kiddos clean the lenses). The Comet they bought outperforms this 1000Q by a night-and-day margin.

Given the budget constraints, go for the iris kit.

What's the 20-year-old board with strings loose inside? You might be able to get a board that's only 10 or 15 years old for reasonably cheap...

(And for what it's worth, I'm not anti-Altman, I love the 360Q and 65Q and so on, but not the 1KL, it's a mechanical nightmare to fix)

[Les]

Heh. Yeah I guess every manufacturer has their bad apples... And for what it's worth, you probably have more experience with the 1,000Q than myself. Just from what I've seen, they seem pretty good (for the price range). I just noticed you're in Arlington, and I'm in Denton. Small world! Since you said kiddos, I'm guessing you're a teacher?

[ship]

Altman, went up and down the chain of command with them over the years including when of interest to the rental department and overall, good opinion - really good opinion if you stick with it for an answer. Even these days getting two or three calls a day about a pending order for parts that got confused but not wanted to be so in its end.

Hard to find good help, if it seems to you that the locals don’t have the quality, it’s possible they don’t, this or it’s that for the price - though not common with a follow spot, that it is not worth the price for them to service. Still think of a PAR 56 once I gave a quote for. Needed much work including me adding a safety screen to it before I would consider releasing it to the customer. Unfortunate how it was to not service the gear - often at a profit loss for such gear in doing it well but not paying my time spent on it, but in this case I couldn’t touch it short of making it compliant to minimum standards before I addressed why it was sent in.

This not saying that the local company had skilled labor as cited and potentially was not worse for your gear than worth investing in caring for it. Hard question and over time often only something answered. Can remember my first few repairs to 1000Q’s, lots of time and I did my best but I loved working on them and did my best, how much another person loves time spent in giving them true service is another question. Often another question in a fairly simple fixture one with a brain towards the goals can fix and make whole again without much experience. Care and love in the 9:5 world on the other hand can be another question.

As I remember of the last time I was inside a 1000Q, mark the rails with a metal scribe on where stuff is located before loosening and moving them. Makes the bench focus later easier. Perhaps even pre-bench focus than scribe. As to Iris kit, them do wear out and while standardized parts and somewhat if detail orientated easy enough to work on or replace leafs to, probably easier in the end to replace the assembly. Can do is often not easier to do.

In the same sense, I once in a while don’t want to deal with the retail cost either thus expect that further sales will take care of some part or care on my part and it mostly does. Good doing but as opposed to posting a single contact on-line, one should leave it in’general and not bug your contact amongst a few good people there, much less not link him and phone number to offering free gear. Just a kind of PR thing in that being the way amongst many companies in helping yet it more a company effort type thing and not something to bug a specific person about.

[waynehoskins]

Heh. Yeah I guess every manufacturer has their bad apples... And for what it's worth, you probably have more experience with the 1,000Q than myself. Just from what I've seen, they seem pretty good (for the price range). I just noticed you're in Arlington, and I'm in Denton. Small world! Since you said kiddos, I'm guessing you're a teacher?

No, just freelance LD sometimes. I've lit a bunch if stuff at Lamar HS in Arlington (the old alma mater) over the years. The place has a phenomenally crappy but surprisingly usable space, and unfortunately some 1KLs too. The day job is in Colleyville doing computer programming stuff.