LED Pars versus Fresnels or Standard Pars

[soundlight]

OK - Here's the deal. My old high school has alot of asbestos in their lighting fixtures, and we're going to try to push the county school system to get the high school a full lighting replacement. To help push the budget through, we're going to try to sell them on the idea of LED lighting for some of it, so that the power consumption is cut, and bulb costs are cut. My question is this: how are 16 LED Parcans (the Wiedamark ones) going to compare to the lumen output of (6) 6" fresnels (which is what is up there now)? Would it be better just to use conventionals (PARs or Fresnels) to do RGB mixing, or should we push for the LED cans? I've already decided to push for LED strips (Colorblazes) in the Cyc Wash department, since I've heard that those have worked well in other situations, but I'm wondering about the overhead lighting. We wouldn't have enough budget to allow for Colorblazes overhead, or I'd do that, but we would probably have enough money for the Wiedamark cans. I was also thinking that I would get 16 of the AMDJ White LED pars and gel them with some R02 or R16 to get that amber/warm white color that alot of the theater productions require.

Big, long paragraph...the basic question is, will 16 RGB pars rival the light output of 6 sets of 500W RGB fresnels or conventional PARs (6 green, 6 red, 6 blue) with saturated gels?

[len]

Originally Posted by soundlight

Big, long paragraph...the basic question is, will 16 RGB pars rival the light output of 6 sets of 500W RGB fresnels or conventional PARs (6 green, 6 red, 6 blue) with saturated gels?

Little, short answer: I doubt it. LED technology just isn't there yet. I've seen a few different brands of led, and they still just don't have the punch of a traditional lamp.

[digitaltec]

What is the trim on where the LED fixtures will be located? Thats really the main factor is if LED will work. If your trim is 40' then LED is out of the question. There are other LED options out there that may work for you. Most LED technology your seeing is mostly for the WOW factor. Although there are products like a Pixel Par that might work for your application and for sure the MAC 300 LED could be used to light a stage and is done all the time.

Honestly, for a HS I doubt LED's for stage lighting is cost effective.

But give a little more info on about the distance away from the stage and we could rule out LED or look into some options.

[soundlight]

Trim for the whole deal is about 20' or slightly less. It's not that high up. It's 3 fixed onstage electrics. Since we have only 32 dimmers, this would also make lighting designs more flexible, because we could do patches that had fewer fixtures per circuit and have greater flexibility with lighting different stage areas.

EDIT: Here's the Wiedamark model that I'm looking at. I was looking at the LED Parcan shootout over at the prosoundweb forums, and these got pretty good ratings. And they're also priced right at $130/ea.

Wiedamark LED Parcan

[BillESC]

The Wiedamark LED Pars are about as bright as a 150w flood light. Not going to work for your application.

The Altman Spectra Pars are closely equal to a standard 1000w Par64 fixture. In the long run even though the Altman Spectra's cost in the neighborhood of $ 1300.00 each they will save you money.

Look at the numbers.

For RBG mixing you'll need 3 fresnels vs. one Spectra. The normal 6" fresnel is lamped with a 500w BTL. The rated life of a BTL is 500 hours and they cost around $ 20.00 whereas the Spectra Par has a rated life of 60,000 hours. Therefore, you'd need to purchase 360 BTL lamps for 60,000 hours of operation. At $ 20.00 each your cost is $ 7,200.00 and we haven't begun to talk about gel, electrical consumption or air conditioning costs if used during summer.

[soundlight]

We also usually don't run the fresnels at full. So: this is SIXTEEN Wiedamark cans vs. 6 500W fresnels. From the looks of it, the wiedamark cans are getting close to the output. They really wouldn't be used much for theater, but for dance, because we would be able to make any color overhead wash. Since we only have 32 dimmers, this would make perfect sense, because we could do what we've never been able to do before: divide the toplighting in to eight areas and light them each up individually, chases and emphasis. I might actually maintain a warm/cool fresnel toplight wash just for the theater productions, and use the LED's for the dance stuff and some musicals. And in the dance concerts, the 6 500W fresnels are never run over 70 percent. And 16 wiedamark cans are less than the price of 2 spectra par's.

[PhantomD]

It's ultimately your choice; if the LEDPARs give you more flexibility and do exactly what you want.

However, myself personally, I would steer clear of them just now as most brands aren't there yet at all.

[len]

Originally Posted by digitaltec

... for sure the MAC 300 LED could be used to light a stage and is done all the time.
Honestly, for a HS I doubt LED's for stage lighting is cost effective.
But give a little more info on about the distance away from the stage and we could rule out LED or look into some options.

I thot the Mac 300 was just something McCartney's people had made. Martin's website doesn't list it (or any Mac 300) as a product.

Edit: The Mac 300 LED, not the discharge lamp version.

[SHARYNF]

I would suggest that people should test the LED PARS for them selves. A lot of the comments being made are based on somewhat out dated information.

If you are looking at pars, and if you are mainly looking for washes, with the current prices of reasonable quality LED pars in the sub 150 dollar range, I think the bear looking into especially in situations where you might have a limited number of dimmer channels. For colors especially saturated ones, LED's do a good job, currently the mixing colors ones are not very good for white, but all white led's with gel frames make a good alternative.

Sharyn

[digitaltec]

The Mac 300 has been replaced with the MAC 250 Wash. So Martin no longer lists it on their site and it's now an "old" fixture.

I swear at one point in time I did see the MAC 300 LED listed on Martin's website. I'll have to ask tommorow if it's a custom fixture. But Coemar has the iWash LED which I have seen.