Conventional Fixtures - Strong Trouper Followspot

[JD]

I think the Carbons seem brighter due to the fullness of the spectrum. To use a musical equivalent, it is like a full chord as compared to two or three notes from that chord. The human brain has an uncanny ability to notice gaps! (Especially in A/B comparisons.)

I still miss them despite all the disadvantages! It was like a right of passage when you reached a level where you could competently run a carbon arc spot!

[gordonmcleod]

Unlike common thought the actual source of light in a carbon arc is not the flame but the crater of the positive carbon
In the crater a gassious ball of incandescent carbon and rare earths go through sublimation going from a solid to gaseous state without being in a liquid state
The spectrum is a continous line and depending on the rare earth mixture with either a crest in the low or high end of the spectrum
Carbons for film production have always been available in different colour temperatures
A discharge lamp such as xenon or HMI work on the energy of the excited electrons changing orbits emitting light
The gas and its fill pressure determine the lines of the spectrum that they emit on
As such some like a low pressure sodium lamp emit one and only one line of emmision at 590 which is what causes the bright yellow light and its accuracy and single line output allowed it to be the basis of one of the popular traveling matte processess in the 60 used mainly by disney
High pressure xenon or HighPressure mercury with other halides added produce a wide range of lines that are so close togather they appear almost continous but are not In some cases it can be compared to a low resolution digital audio sample
During the conversion of screening rooms from carbon to xenon many of the film lab technicians who would spend 10-12 hours at a time colour grading and timing split screen reels of film would complain of eye fatique in the xenon equipped booths compared to the carbon ones
There were also what were called flame carbons that allowed a portion of the flame between the carbons to produce light

[mstaylor]

I don't know the costs for carbon arcs pre 1980 but we bought four Xenons supers lamped for $5000.00 a piece in 1979. In the super range Strong was the industry standard and is still named as the default request in most riders. When you moved down to the trouper and Trouperette range there was a fair amount of competition.
Running a carbon as noted in other posts required a fair amount of skill to keep the rods running properly. You also have to be able read how long you had left before a change was needed so you could time when to be off for a little bit. The third part of the special skills was being able to quickly change rods. It was the mark of a good op to being the fastest to change and get back up and running.

[JD]

Originally Posted by mstaylor

The third part of the special skills was being able to quickly change rods. It was the mark of a good op to being the fastest to change and get back up and running.

Ah yes, the "Chop-Stick" method was good for re-trims in under 60 seconds. Using the new trim (carbons) you would open the holders, remove the stubs with the new trims as chop-sticks, Put the positive (Superex) in, close the holder with the negative (Orotip), put the negative in, lick your finger and flip the negative holder leaver closed before the spit boiled off, open the douser and rack the holders in so that both tips were on either side of the bead, close the door, close the douser, and strike! (Run on sentence was used to illustrate stress level.)

$5k? seems cheap. I thought that's what the xenon troupers were going for, not the supers, but I may be confused.

[mstaylor]

We got a good deal for buying four at once. I believe they were running about $6000.00 unlamped. I put the original lamps in them in 1979 and am the only person to ever put replacements in. We bought a 2k a couple of years ago and had to lamp that one too. Our original four were 1k/1.6k Xenon. We lamped them with 1k lamps.
To me the biggest difference between running a carbon and a xenon, besides the rod handling, was the carbons had all their controls in the center and you ran from the rear so you watch the rods. The xenon has their douser, chop and iris in the center but their gels in the front so you run it front loaded.

[Techman411]

I found this on Wikipedia...it's a treasure of a spotlight!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Trouper_(spotlight)

[JD]

I'd usually run the carbon supers from the center. With a trim of nice fresh and dry carbons, they didn't take too much adjusting. An occasional trip of the left hand to the back to tweak the arc center offset when things were slow. It was also a neat trick for getting a bit more light on a long throw, moving the offset for a hot center. The troupers had the boom on the front, the supers had them in the middle. When the xenons came out, they moved to the front to stay. (Except the Glads.) The original xenon trouper used the same exact boom as the carbon troupers.

What I remember most is that each Super had it's own personality as far as carbon feed!