color border lights

[moderately_clueless]

Okay, I have a complicated situation. So in my school, our dimmers are totally shot(only about 40 of 96 channels work) , and our whole system is 25 years old or more. So we're having trouble with our color borders, the hardwiring is shot, they ghost constantly and pose an electrocution hazard. We can't afford new dimmers or a major system update and the district has left us out in the cold.

So basically, we are looking for new border lights. We have toyed with the idea of getting some dmx controlled ones to avoid using dimmers. We considered LED, but were told that they would not give us the wash look we need. Our director wants rendells and a more traditional light but we are having issues finding any new equipment with rendells. I'm curious if anyone has ideas or suggestions as to usable borders under 6000 dollars. I've run out of ideas. Thanks!

[soundlight]

Are these for an overhead wash or a cyc/white bounce/backdrop wash? If backdrop/cyc/bounce, how wide is the white bounce/cyc that you have to illuminate?

Also, what is wrong with the LED lighting? I can't see why it would be a problem, other than prohibitive initial cost. And you could probably use a bunch of the Wiedamark LED Parcans for your situation (40 would easily fit in your budget).

Knowing the budget and that sort of thing, I'd actually recommend going with Chauvet's Stage Wash 1500 (about 20 of them) if you're going to stay incandescent. Then get a DMX controller for them, and you can address them as you wish. Then These units have an integral dimming system. for red, green, and blue channels, so you won't need to use dimmers. Whether you go for the LED or incandescent option, you'll need 3-pin DMX cable and a DMX controller.

Any units with roundels are going to cost dimmers and money. To get one 6-foot, 3-circuit border light, completely outfitted with all necessary RGB roundels and bulbs (but without plugs or hanging irons), costs about $520 (Altman R40 unit, from the Stage Lighting Store online). This will also take up valuable dimmers, cutting back on your ability to use them for other things.

[moderately_clueless]

Ah, thank you very much. These lights hung on a batten, but are not for the cyc, the director mainly wants them just for a general wash of color onstage when we need it.

Also, someone told us that LED lights would not throw light as far onstage as we would prefer. So that's where the roundel vs. LED issue came up. Please correct me if we're wrong, I would love to be able to use LED's.

I like the lights you recommended, but I'm also thinking of future issues with new techies and the complications of dmx and all the fancy stuff we don't really need. So, this already sounds like a dumb question, but do you know of any dmx controlled traditional border lights? Again, thanks.

[soundlight]

I don't know of any standard striplights (Par38 strips with roundels, which is what I think you have now) that are directly DMX controllable. It's really easy to set up the DMX adressing, run power and signal to all the fixtures, and just worry about re-lamping in the future.

With the worry about LED fixtures: how far is the throw from your lighting battens/electrics to your stage?