Automated Fixtures - Neo-Neon Mach 5 Moving head review

[Pie4Weebl]

With a little prodding by Gafftaper here is my quick impression of the new Neo-Neon Mach 5 Moving Spot

Run down of features:
- Lamp: 575W MSR-575/DE Discharge lamp.
- Shutter: 2 blade shutter for blackout, strobe effects from 1-7 f.p.s. and dimming
- Colours: 11 Dichroic colours plus white, with variable speed Rainbow effect
- Gobos: 6 indexable, interchangeable, bi-directionally rotating gobos plus open.
Gobo wheel can scroll at variable speeds
- Prism: 1 static 3 facet prism
- Focus: DMX controlled focus
- Zoom: DMX controlled stepped zoom 14º and 18º
- Pan: 570º movement, 8 or 16 bit control
- Tilt: 270º movement, 8 or 16 bit control
- Control: DMX512 – 12 or 14 channels
- Automatic positional self correction
- Remote fixture reset via DMX
- Lamp on/off via DMX


So this unit showed up in the shop a few weeks ago and I was told to test it and put it through its rigors. While I will not be opting for these over VL-2500's any time soon they are a great fixture.

The whole unit occupies about the same space amount of space as most 250 watt fixtures but boasts a superb output with its 575 watt lamp. Gobos are clear and crisp with two lense positions, narrow and wide, to provide some variety. The fixture has a prism but it is not rotatable.

I like having all 11 colors on one wheel for making programming easier, and the selection of colors was good. Stock gobos were excellent and not the typical crap ones I was expecting from it. A pleasant surprise was the fact that they were both indexable and rotating.

All in all I was pleased with the fixture, it did not feel like it would fall apart and it had a strong feature set. The hands down thing that sets it apart from the rest of the pack is the price, I would suggest talking to a dealer like bill to find out what they are going for.

[gafftaper]

Thanks Pie! How sturdy does it feel? While I'm not wanting to take them on a road tour, some of this low end stuff would make me nervous to even hang it over someone's head. Anything about it's overall construction concern you?

[LightStud]

Was a fixture personality readily available for any console? Was the documentation complete and accurate? Any oddities in the operation? How smooth, and accurate, were the pan and tilt movements? How fast? How many MSpeed channels? Was the lamp difficult to optimize? What was the dimming curve? Having 11 fixed dichroic colors (replaceable?) would seem to limit this fixture for theatrical use, yes/no? (All colors on one wheel may make for faster programming, but eliminates the possibility of additional colors via subtractive mixing.) What size are the gobos, and what were they? Unit weight? Type of hanging hardware? Safety cable and dedicated point?

It appears as though this unit would not compare favorably to a (for example) used Martin MAC500, possibly for around the same price.

[BillESC]

It seems the going street price for a Martin Mac 500 is in the high 6K range. For that kind of money you could own about four and a half of the Mech 5's

[Pie4Weebl]

Alright, to respond to questions:
As far as the construction goes, it felt sturdy, if there was a truss about my foh riser I would not feel uncomfortable having these hanging above my head.

Fixture personalities obviously don't exist already on light boards as this light just came out, but I am sure people will put them online pretty quickly.

I was not there for the unboxing so I am not aware of the quality or existence of documentation. The light had a dmx chart on it which I used for quick programming.

I think it had one or two mspeed channels, I never use those so I did not pay much attention.

Lamp was optimized fine when we unboxed it so I did not have to mess with it. I assume it works the same as any other ML.

Dimmer curve seemed fine, but honestly I did not pay much attention as it is not an important feature to me, same with color mixing on two wheels, I won't miss it for what I do. Personally I would not purchase any fixture that does not have cmy for theatrical use, but that is just me. I don't remember the specifics of the gobos, but there were lots of good textures and avoided tacky things like the line of dots gobo which is oh-so-popular with AMDJ. The thing weighed about 50ish pounds, pretty solid for how small the thing is.

As for comparing it to a mac 500... given the option of either, I would go for four of these any day over one 10 year old mac.

[SerraAva]

How about vs a Mac 550 or Mac 575 Krypton? Both of those street between 5k-6.5k.

Next question would be how is it compared to a Power Spot 575? They street for about 2k, with the IEs going for about 3k. Feature wise, it is very comparable between those two lights. A Design Spot 575, streets for 4k, has features that are more comparable to a Mac 700 for less then half the price, though less powerful lamp. So it wouldn't be a good comparison to the Mach 5.

Abuse wise, the Power Spot 575s that I have are 3 years old now and have seen quite a bit of use and tossing around. Still nothing that has failed yet on them. They also work just like they did when they were new. Looking to probably get rid of them soon though for Design Spot 575s.

[Pie4Weebl]

Its been a long time since I have used a mac 550 and I've never seen a 575 in action. Just looking at the spec sheets they win with a motorized zoom, while the mach 5 just has two potions. If they were the same price I would go for the mac, but you got to consider the price difference in there, because it is major.... I've never used a powerspot but I assume they are comparable fixtures, the mach hedging on price.