New LED Instrument Opportunity

[JWigPVB]

I am the volunteer Tech Director at a non-profit community theatre, mostly straight plays and a musical or two per season. We have an opportunity to invest between $4,000 and $6,000 in some new instruments for our main stage and studio "black box".

Our current rig consists of mostly old Strand Centurys and Altman 360Q's, and a bunch of fresnels and par cans, but we do have a handful each of S4s and S4 Jr. Zooms that we use all the time and like a lot, and NSI rack and satellite pack dimmers. We also invested in a new ETC Element last summer, which works great in our space.

We're thinking we'd like to start investing in LED fixtures to start replacing our older conventionals, especially for putting various colors and washes on stage. We like the idea of saving on electricity, lamps, gels, etc. and with the Element we have a good board to take advantage of the technology.

At LDI in Orlando, we were blown away by the ETC Selador equipment, but we just don't have the budget for it. Some of the more affordable (to our budget anyway) brands (Chauvet, etc.) looked good too, and while most of the threads I've found on ControlBooth debating the relative merits of LED vs. Conventional and High-end vs. affordable have been very helpful, most are dated from 2006-2008 timeframe.

In the interval, have any of you gotten any more experience with LED instruments, especially at the sub-$1,000 price points? Any recommendations on how (or if) to begin the transition to LED? Thanks!

 

[BillESC]

LED fixtures are coming down in price while improving in performance. Your proposed application suggests the use of fixtures offering RGBAW color mixing.

You may want to look at a fixture such as the TyLED 420BI, a 40" strip containing sixty 1w diodes (12 each - red, green, blue, amber and white.) In the picture below, one is being used for front light.

 

[misterm]

yeah, we've gone almost comepletely LED, though not by choice (our 30 year old EC dimmers/board don't work.) we bought several from Bill, including the one he's mentioned and we love it. in fact, that pic is from our production of "Honk, Jr." last year for our elementary kids. we used the TYLed420 for FOH wash, around 20 LED par64 with half-watt diodes for top lighting and two smaller strips that we bought from Bill for our scrim wash. we only had to use one or two conventional fixtures, but as you can see, the space we used for that show is very small and the fixtures aren't more than 20 ft off the floor. still, that LED 420 packed a punch and was almost as good as a conventional wash.

 

[shiben]

I agree with Bill on this one in that the price point of LEDs is getting to the point where owning them is getting into the possible range for everyone, and nowdays 6000 can actually get you a decent system. One thing I prefer, and wonder if Bill or someone could fill me in on the possiblity of this, are smaller segments as opposed to long strips. A ton of the sets I work with are fairly narrow, and a lot of the other places I work have reason to use smaller segments rather than long strips. Now, obviously if your thinking light a cyc, long strips are going to be what you want. But if you need to fill a 8 walled box set, are 40" strips what you need? Bill, are there shorter strip lights, more akin to the ETC Selador 11" ones in the same RGBAW configuration of the one your picture shows? Now, this is just my personal preference, but you might be able to get a few more of the 11" guys than 40" strips, and they might be more versitile for you. Im interested to see where this heads, because our college has a similar equipment upgrade budget and are looking in a very similar direction right now.

As for the being as good as a conventional wash, I recall a LSA article a while back that discussed a U of Illinois team that did an entire show with no conventionals, using 40 or so Chauvet LEDs. I believe they had a larger budget, but they also spent a lot on seachanger NEMOS and whatnot. Might want to poke around and see what they have to say about it.

 

[BillESC]

There is a smaller unit available, about 15" but the cost works out to be more per diode. There are also 1 and 3 watt X 36 diode Par 64's available with RGBAW that might suite your needs.

 

[JWigPVB]

There is a smaller unit available, about 15" but the cost works out to be more per diode. There are also 1 and 3 watt X 36 diode Par 64's available with RGBAW that might suite your needs.

I think the Pars may be the way to go, as many of our productions are staged such that only part of the stage is lit at a time, so the long strips might be too much.

Our pipes are less than 20' over the stage, so the throws are relatively short.

What sort of beam size/angle do the Pars have?

 

[BillESC]

With a 20' trim you can probably go with the 1w X 36 units. The standard fixture has a 45 degree beam spread but 25 and 15 degree spreads are available.