the differences between S-4 Lekos and Altman Lekos
In addition to a loose wire shorting between pins or contacting or not contacting it’s proper terminal, it could also be from a screw that is not tight on either the male or female - what you are plugging into connector.
“Altman Zooms are pieces of shit” Decorum here please, my virgin ears are burning. Altman Zooms are not #@%^, they are just earlier technology and slightly less efficient because of it. Much of the ETC fixture in concept and design is based upon both the 360Q and Zoom fixture.
Given a EHG, FLK, HX-754, GLC or FEL lamp in the Zoom fixture, it’s output will be only slightly less and beam slightly less refined than that of a S-4 with a similar HPL lamp. Bonus is that this Zoom fixture is rated for a lot of higher wattage line of lamps which goes a long way in making up for inefficiencies and cool beams from the dichroic reflectors on the newer lights. Unless your S-4 fixture is of the new style and rated for 750w, you cannot install a 750w lamp in it to compete with either the FEL or HX-754 lamp. It will only be more powerful than a fixture with FLK, GLC and EHG lamps due to either older lamp technology or better optics, and only slightly brighter at the cost of lamp life in the case of the EHG given it’s higher wattage in exchange.
Before you go trashing your Zoom fixtures or using them as door stops, you might look into putting better lamps into them. They are the best quality fixtures of their era and to date still not bad fixtures. When I ran a theater, I could only have wished for such quality. Our best/only medium range fixture was the Colortran Mini Ellipse. Now that’s a bad fixture.
A FLK lamp is the same as a HPL lamp, and the GLC is superior to it. Yes I have said that the GLA/GLC line of lamp is superior to the HPL line of lamps. Same would be true with the HX-754 and the HPL 750w lamp - same basic bulb, no heat sink in the non HPL lamp.
Since the Altman Zoom is rated for 1,000 watts, and the Altman 360Q is rated for 750w, it’s easy to correct for fixture inefficiencies by simply putting a higher wattage lamp in them.
Thus with the proper lamp, the Zoom will have better output than the ETC S-4 575w fixture found most commonly in theaters. Output is better in general with a higher wattage lamp and that makes up for a lot of inefficiency in the reflector. Only real difference is color temperature or apparent look of the beam of light.
The HPL operates at a higher color temperature and over voltage thus it looks brighter but does not put out more light than an Altman fixture with 1,000w FEL or 750w HX-754. The HPL 575wC/FLK-HX-600 lamp only puts out about 800w worth of actual light. Install a FLK lamp in a Altman fixture and it is the same color temperature (given other than green lenses in the fixture) thus the only difference in the beam is the losses of efficiency in the older fixture itself. Otherwise it’s the same beam of light. Install a 750w HX-754 lamp in the Altman fixture, and not only will it have that higher color temperature as found on S-4 fixtures, but since the Altman fixture can easily handle the extra wattage, it’s going to put out much more light - I expect in the range of 1,000 watts to 1,200w of light though it’s yet to be published. Thus the Altman fixtures can be more powerful and have more punch than even the normal S-4 fixture. If your theater has the new line of ETC S-4 750w fixture, with a similar lamp to the HX-754, than the S-4 will of course be able to eek out a bit more light, but not much more. You won’t be able to tell much of a difference.
A side note is that the 1,000 w FEL lamp puts out a lot of light but has a comparatively huge filament. It thus is not the most efficient of lamps for any fixture.
In general, if you are comparing a 500w EHD lamp in a Altman fixture to that of a 575w HPL lamp in a S-4 fixture, of course it’s not going to match up even before you compare color temperature or voltage the S-4 operates at. If you compare the same lamps however fixture to fixture, the older technology isn’t that bad in comparison. Consider how much longer a EHD lamp is rated for when you balance output to operating costs also. Zooms are not that bad of fixtures at all, they put out a lot of light when you need them to and are very reliable. More importantly, such fixtures because of a it being a Zoom with a wide range of focuses, it in many circumstances can be much more useful than any single ETC S-4 fixture - you can put it in any number of places as opposed to being limited by beam spread.
Lighting on the stage has been done well for a hundreds of years with even the most barbaric of technology. Just because a fixture isn’t the current most modern of technology doesn’t mean it won’t preform it’s task when used by a designer that can use it to the fullest of it’s capabilities and not belittle it because it’s probably older than they are. If your stage does not have S-4 fixtures competing with older Altman lights, you will not know the difference. Compare the Zoom in output to an incandescent Altman 360 fixture or a Kliegl light. It will be a major improvement. Doesn’t mean the 360 radial won’t put out light, just means it will be a little more dim and you might in getting the same output need to put a larger lamp in it or cover the area by more fixtures. Color correction film also goes a long way in making fixtures seem brighter/more white.
If you have so many fixtures that you can use some as door stops, or to be used to throw around, why not give it away to others that could only wish for such good lights?
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March 3rd, 2003, 05:52 PM
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