Done With Inexpensive Moving Lights, Especially Platinum Spot 5R

[bishopthomas]

I've had so many problems with moving lights lately. They're showing up to me broken, units I've sold are not 100% functional. It's getting extremely old. The Elation Platinum Spot 5R is a complete piece of crap, do not buy it! At one point 3 out of 4 of my units had issues, including bad chips and a frozen pan motor. I ended up swapping parts around and sending Elation a box full of pieces to repair/replace. They did, it arrived in working condition (after 4 weeks of renting) and I swore I'd get rid of them. It was hard to do only because every time I used them I was reminded how nice they actually are (when they work), but one went out the other day and I just got an email stating that the gobo wheel "makes a noise and doesn't turn."

I shipped it in the original box/packaging, so no issues there. I can't wait to be rid of these things. I ordered some Chinese LED movers. If they break I'll throw them in a ditch (not really). They won't be any worse build quality than the Elations (which I bought new, btw). I'll be doing a review with pictures and video as soon as they arrive.

So that it's not a complete bash Elation thread, I had a MAC250 arrive with a twisted chassis and another one with all kinds of errors. I'm done with inexpensive moving lights. Cheap shows will get Chinese and anything requiring more will get rented Varilites.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

I do love my alpha spot 300 HPEs!

 

[bishopthomas]

I'm sure they're great fixtures but it's so hard to justify double the price of a new MAC250 Krypton. For the money I could get used MAC2000's. I think there's a huge price gap that the Platinum series filled. If they were reliable then we'd actually have a great product...

I am planning on renting 4 Sharpies in March, looking forward to trying Clay Paky for the first time.

 

[TimMiller]

I first have to say this.... It does not matter what moving light you buy; elation, clay paky, Highend, Martin, Coemar, vari light, etc. motors and driver chips will go out. I keeps all brands on the shelf at all times though some are interchangable. Clay pakys are incredible lights and you will love them but you get what you pay for and I consider clay paky the Ferrari of the industry. They have started making them a little cheaper thankfully. It was hard to explain an EPROM will run 500 to almost 1000 bucks and a logic board would run close to 1200 and doesn't include the EPROM. Though they fail rarely and clay paky can repair them but in the few instances where they fried beyond repair. Also part of why clay pakys work so well is their million dollar lube (yes call for it and they will know what you are talking about) its around 80 bucks for 4 oz I believe. Clay pakys motors do last much longer than any others. In my opinion Highend fixtures are the easiest to repair. Elation and all of the others do stand behind their product. I suggest you keep some parts on hand to keep the stress level down.

 

[bishopthomas]

I understand that things go wrong. But to have a 100% failure rate is unacceptable. It worked perfectly when I shipped it (in the original box) and now the gobo wheel isn't working? Unacceptable for a unit that is supposed to be built for life on the road.

I now have lots of parts on hand for Mac250's, 2 broken units worth of parts.

 

[hobbsies]

When I worked at a rental shop in chicago, elation demo lights would be shipped to us via ups and would come broken ALL THE TIME. I think in the 5 months I was there, 3 of their demo fixtures came broken. I'm willing to bet it's the delivery service throwing boxes around, more than it's elation failing.

I've personally used Elation Designspot 250's for the last 3 years now at a local theatre in chicago where I'm the ME, and I have yet to have any problems with them. If anyone ever asks me what mover brand is good, I usually tell them Martin or Elation, simply because I've never had any issues with any of their units, other than the demo units that the shipping company destroyed.

 

[LDwiggs30]

Be careful about just going with the highest-price fixture to ensure you won't have any issues. I've run Elation 250's for 5 years with little issues, and own a number of 5R Pro's that I prefer over Mac 7's. For the money, High End and Varilite are the best deal IMO. However, I have run Clay Paky and Martin and had issues with those as well. It's just a matter of happenstance most of the time. Sometimes you get a unit at the end of it's motor life or chip life. Nothing you can do. For me, the cost of a fixture is usually a good indicator of the optics, lamp, and motor quality. Low-cost lights have unresponsive steppers, higher-end lights have advanced optics. Be careful with the Chinese knockoffs, I've had to re-wire a few items in the past where I was trying to save money.

 

[FMEng]

I first have to say this.... It does not matter what moving light you buy; elation, clay paky, Highend, Martin, Coemar, vari light, etc. motors and driver chips will go out. I keeps all brands on the shelf at all times though some are interchangable. Clay pakys are incredible lights and you will love them but you get what you pay for and I consider clay paky the Ferrari of the industry. They have started making them a little cheaper thankfully. It was hard to explain an EPROM will run 500 to almost 1000 bucks and a logic board would run close to 1200 and doesn't include the EPROM. Though they fail rarely and clay paky can repair them but in the few instances where they fried beyond repair. Also part of why clay pakys work so well is their million dollar lube (yes call for it and they will know what you are talking about) its around 80 bucks for 4 oz I believe. Clay pakys motors do last much longer than any others. In my opinion Highend fixtures are the easiest to repair. Elation and all of the others do stand behind their product. I suggest you keep some parts on hand to keep the stress level down.

As an electronics engineer, losing chips and EPROMs regularly doesn't sound right. There are only two reasons that should be happening: insufficient cooling or bad power. I would be investing in some serious spike and surge protection for all power feeds to those units. Checking fans on them should be a daily exercise.

Dying fans will usually drop hints that the end is near with bearing noises. I change more fans on expensive broadcast equipment than any other component, but it prevents more costly failures of other items.

Paying $500 for a chip that costs them at most $50 to produce is robbery. They got paid for writing the code when you bought the light and they shouldn't get paid twice for it. If you regularly lose EPROM chips, it would be worth your money to by the hardware/software to copy and burn it yourself.

 

[len]

Sometimes there's just a bad batch. The guy I rent movers from got a new shipment. Not one of them had a single fuse in the fixture. How does that happen?

When I worked at one shop, they had a number of Mac 550. Every time they came back, at least 1 was broken, and more often, 2 or 3. Same with a batch of Clay Paky fixtures they bought. Yet everyone else in Chicago who had Mac 550 or those CP 575 (I forgot the exact model #) said they were the most dependable products in the shop.

At that company, the Entours (I think they had like 36 of them) NEVER failed. Except for one unit, which we never sent out because it would often have some error message on site. Sometimes the error didn't matter, but we tried not to send it whenever possible. Never happened at the shop, just on site.

I don't know why some units fail when others that came off the same line are relatively bulletproof, but it seems to be a semi-universal issue in the industry.

 

[TimMiller]

As an electronics engineer, losing chips and EPROMs regularly doesn't sound right. There are only two reasons that should be happening: insufficient cooling or bad power. I would be investing in some serious spike and surge protection for all power feeds to those units. Checking fans on them should be a daily exercise.

Dying fans will usually drop hints that the end is near with bearing noises. I change more fans on expensive broadcast equipment than any other component, but it prevents more costly failures of other items.

Paying $500 for a chip that costs them at most $50 to produce is robbery. They got paid for writing the code when you bought the light and they shouldn't get paid twice for it. If you regularly lose EPROM chips, it would be worth your money to by the hardware/software to copy and burn it yourself.

Tried copying it and they locked it. The units had over 10 hard years of life on the road. Also a color blind union electrician who swapped the blue and green legs on the distro didn't help anything either.

 

[lightingguy1]

Also a color blind union electrician who swapped the blue and green legs on the distro didn't help anything either.

Ouch. That is almost as bad as hiring a color blind LD for a nationally touring production!

 

[porkchop]

As an electronics engineer, losing chips and EPROMs regularly doesn't sound right. There are only two reasons that should be happening: insufficient cooling or bad power. I would be investing in some serious spike and surge protection for all power feeds to those units. Checking fans on them should be a daily exercise.

Dying fans will usually drop hints that the end is near with bearing noises. I change more fans on expensive broadcast equipment than any other component, but it prevents more costly failures of other items.

Paying $500 for a chip that costs them at most $50 to produce is robbery. They got paid for writing the code when you bought the light and they shouldn't get paid twice for it. If you regularly lose EPROM chips, it would be worth your money to by the hardware/software to copy and burn it yourself.

Parts are where the money is at, it's the same in any industry. Moving lights, cars, home appliances, etc... all of them have huge profit margins on parts so that the initial product can be sold at a more "reasonable" price. $500 is highway robbery, but that's what they're charging because they're the only one that sells them. I don't see any high end manufacture selling the necessary information to make your own chips or cards.

Also I'm not sure of your moving light experience, but daily checking of fans would be difficult and in many situations impossible to do reasonably. Even some 575W units can have 8 or more fans in them. Many of which are either tiny or just plain hard to get to without the unit out of service and on a work bench. Add to that the fact that moving lights are becoming more and more common and are used in larger numbers all the time. And it becomes impossible to check all the fans in every unit daily, or at least impossible to do without a much large staff and/or time commitment to pay for. I was on a show with over 100 units. There where 6 of us and with all of our other responsibilities it was a huge task to just keep all of the units operational. I'll agree with you that heat is a killer, but that's why you need to look for fixtures that are made to run dirty and with components that aren't running at 100%. That's what I think Clay Paky's do and that's why I'm really happy the company I work for keeps buying them.

Also to throw another pitch out for CP that's relative to shipping the fixtures. We just finished an international tour where the roads in the area where so bad they wouldn't let us travel by bus for our own safety. Our props, work boxes, and even truss had tons of damage to them and we sent a lot of stuff back to the manufactures for repair. The worst that happened to our lights (that traveled in the supplied foam inserts in their cases) was some broken outer plastics and cracked lamps. Even when double stacked cases fell over the lights would come out still operational. When you're in this kind of situation where your units are being shipped and moved around constantly reliable design is really important.

 

[bishopthomas]

When you're in this kind of situation where your units are being shipped and moved around constantly reliable design is really important.

This sentence really sums up the entire reason I started this thread.

 

[RandallCook]

Well, this thread makes me think twice... again!

I just received four used HES SS 575 CMY fixtures. Two CMY models and two CMY Zoom models. All four are model year 2000. I was expecting the two Zoom models to be 2004 models. Granted, they are all old and are used, BUT they were sold to me as being in good working order. Upon arrival, none of them were in good working order. I had to spend considerable time with them just to get two of them to function enough to "get by" at a show. All four will be returned. They require entirely too much work and repairs to trust taking out almost every weekend. I had such high hopes of them being road worthy. Maybe I just got a raw deal.
I started considering getting new Elation PS-5RPros in their place since I paid nearly the same for them! Now I'm reading this thread and I do not know which fixture I should even consider at this point.
I need the Zoom feature. I need comparable lighting of a 575. I need to plug it in a standard edison socket. I need it road worthy without a repair bill out of the box/case. I need them in dual or quad road cases.

 

[SteveB]

Well, this thread makes me think twice... again!

I just received four used HES SS 575 CMY fixtures. Two CMY models and two CMY Zoom models. All four are model year 2000. I was expecting the two Zoom models to be 2004 models. Granted, they are all old and are used, BUT they were sold to me as being in good working order. Upon arrival, none of them were in good working order. I had to spend considerable time with them just to get two of them to function enough to "get by" at a show. All four will be returned. They require entirely too much work and repairs to trust taking out almost every weekend. I had such high hopes of them being road worthy. Maybe I just got a raw deal.
I started considering getting new Elation PS-5RPros in their place since I paid nearly the same for them! Now I'm reading this thread and I do not know which fixture I should even consider at this point.
I need the Zoom feature. I need comparable lighting of a 575. I need to plug it in a standard edison socket. I need it road worthy without a repair bill out of the box/case. I need them in dual or quad road cases.

MAC 700 or a VL2500.

Both work horses of the industry. 120v.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

or a VL 440, if you want to buy something more current that will last!

 

[soundlight]

I second the suggestion for VL440s. We had them in the shop for a demo recently and they're great fixtures. Nice and compact, too.

 

[shiben]

I second the suggestion for VL440s. We had them in the shop for a demo recently and they're great fixtures. Nice and compact, too.

Shop I was at recently had a couple of these guys out, really nice looking units.

 

[ejsandstrom]

I bought 4 P5Rs just under a year ago.
With in 6 months they all had an issue of one sort or another. Fan Noise, wandering gobo wheels, loud screeching noise.

The last straw was when one started freaking out during a Christmas service.

I sent them in for service. They came back several weeks later, worse than I sent them out.

I was dreading the fight that would ensue. I was put in contact with Elation and they immediately sent out new replacements. I was floored.

Everyone's equipment WILL fail but its how they make it right that makes the difference. I will continue to buy Elation products because they took care of me.

Now don't even get me started on Chauvet, and how they didn't ship replacements for 6 months.

 

[Esoteric]

I have probably 150-200 in clients hands at the moment between all the Platinum Series and I have had exactly 2 bad units. Both with the same client (the original unit was bad, and then the replacement was bad, the replacement for the replacement worked great though with no problems since). To me that is an acceptable failure rate. In fact Bishops units were the first ones that I had heard of having significant problems.

I love Varilite but they are not immune to problems. I shipped an order of 12 VL1500 and all 12 arrived non-functioning.

Not comparing Elation to Varilite by any means. Just saying.

Mike