What are your best Chinese fixtures, and where to find them?

[Eriksrocks]

Let me start by saying that I don't want to re-open the can of worms that was started in this thread. I know there is a lot of well, shall we say tension around the use of no-name Chinese fixtures but that's not what this thread is about.

I want to buy a small number of LED fixtures for use in a college apartment, to basically make the most awesome party room to have ever existed. My requirements:

1. Photons come out of the front of the fixture.
2. Cheap.

OK, not really, but my point is that I really want to buy some cheap LED's straight from China that aren't ETC Seledor or Color Kinetics or [insert favorite professional brand here], but work decently well (for a college apartment and similar flash and trash uses) and provide a high bang for my buck. I'm not taking them on tour. I'm not passing them off to clients as the real deal. I'm not expecting to use them as key light for a lead on Broadway. I have a reasonable expectation that at some point they will break; that's cool, I'm an EE and will enjoy attempting to repair them. I just want dirt. cheap. light.

I am mainly looking for a couple of tiny moving head LED washes and a couple bar/strip LED fixtures that are preferably RGBW(A) and can do pixel-mapping (offer individual RGW(A) control over each LED module). I would prefer knock-offs/OEM but would also be fine with well-designed original equipment.

I figured there are probably a few people here that have experience ordering directly from China and can separate the wheat from the chaff, so let's have it:

What are your favorite Chinese LED fixtures/suppliers (please provide links if possible)?

One decent-looking option I've found is a tiny RGBW mover for about $125/piece that seems to be identical to the Blizzard Flurry 5, and I've heard decently good things about Blizzard for what they are (but even Blizzard is 4x the price on this fixture!).

Still looking for something decent in the RGBW bar/strip area, but I would be curious to see what other Chinese gems others have found, including higher-end fixtures.

Thanks guys!

 

[Bubby4j]

Personally I've used the Blizzard HotBox (there's 2 versions, RGBA and RGBW). I've never had any issues with them and have had 2 for at least 6 months now. They have a metal case.

For simply putting out colored light, I've found that it's the best deal from blizzard price-to-lumen wise (at least from the specs they post on their website, if they're correct).

You can find them for quite a bit less than MAP ($200) if you shop around.

Mover wise, and these are most likely too expensive for you, the Blizzard Blade RGBWs are nice. They're fairly fast and would be plenty bright for a regular room. You can find them for a ton less than MAP ($422 on amazon at the moment, wow, is amazon actually an authorized dealer?). 1 out of the 2 I've used had to be sent back for some issues, but I'm guessing it just happened to be a lemon. Warranty fixed them for only shipping cost. They certainly aren't durable though, plastic case.

Blizzard also has other lights which aren't as bright, but are cheaper. There's a spreadsheet with some pricing and brightness specs that I made up.

Just my input on blizzard.

 

[Vega]

At the school, we've got some ADJ type LED pars, I think they're branded Ecolabs, and they work alright, they're fairly light on the photons, and they're just RGB. We also have some Daisy (Daiseya) RGBAW LED pars, and they work pretty well, the low end of the dimming curve isn't fantastic, but for ~300 apiece, what do you expect. We bought them through our dealer. I understand that normally they come as 3-pin DMX (ugh!), but our dealer always orders them as 5-pin (yay!). I don't know how much difference that makes to you.

 

[Eriksrocks]

There are tons of cheap (and probably decent) LED pars out there, but I would really like something with similar functionality in a bar form factor. Unfortunately these seem to be really hard to find directly from a manufacturer. How hard can it be to just take those LED's and put them in a line instead of a circle? I also want to stay away from any fixtures with 10mm el cheapo LED's - I at least want something that uses a decent LED source and lens assembly.

Still interested in getting some more brand names/suppliers that others have used before with success...

Edit: I should add that ideally I wouldn't even want to order from someone like Blizzard - I would like to order directly from China through something like AliExpress if possible. See the example above, where Blizzard appears to be charging 4x the actual cost of the fixture straight from China.

 

[techieman33]

There are tons of cheap (and probably decent) LED pars out there, but I would really like something with similar functionality in a bar form factor. Unfortunately these seem to be really hard to find directly from a manufacturer. How hard can it be to just take those LED's and put them in a line instead of a circle? I also want to stay away from any fixtures with 10mm el cheapo LED's - I at least want something that uses a decent LED source and lens assembly.

Still interested in getting some more brand names/suppliers that others have used before with success...

Edit: I should add that ideally I wouldn't even want to order from someone like Blizzard - I would like to order directly from China through something like AliExpress if possible. See the example above, where Blizzard appears to be charging 4x the actual cost of the fixture straight from China.

The 10mm stuff would be fine for an apartment, maybe even better since the light is spread out more and you won't have a really bright single point in someones face.

 

[jstroming]

I just bought 12x blizzard hot boxes and they are AWESOME. Using them as truss toner in a trade-show tour.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[len]

The direct mfg. prefer to sell in case prices. Some actually have minimums. I'd just go to ebay.

 

[Eriksrocks]

The 10mm stuff would be fine for an apartment, maybe even better since the light is spread out more and you won't have a really bright single point in someones face.

Yeah, but I just prefer the look of higher-wattage sources and lenses. I know I'm asking for cheap stuff, but the 10mm gear looks like I just bought a bunch of LED's at RadioShack and soldered them onto a board. I just don't like the look.

 

[n1ist]

You can get some really cheap ones on eBay or MCM, but you get what you payed for. I picked up 5 7-LED RGB flat "PAR"s from MCM a year ago, and three have developed an annoying habit of having a channel stick full on after they have warmed up. I'll just toss together a replacement logic board, so they aren't a total loss, but that's an extra step I'd rather skip...

/mike

 

[tyler.martin]

I've had luck with a company called MS Lighting. I bought an LED Moving wash fixture to tear apart and find the problems. Then one of my co-workers bought some to use as rental items. There were no big problems off the line other than some bad solder joints and a terrible DMX channel chart. Before we got into movers I had ordered two dozen light bars for a show. They performed admirably for a color wash on moving set pieces, except for the terrible low end fade.

I'd give them a shot. My next purchase from them will be some of their "IP67" LED Pars to light up some trees of my deck.

 

[Mondo]

As an EE, check out the parts at http://www.holidaycoro.com It's the Xmas lights crowd, but you can make some cool dmx wall washers for less than $50 each. Look for the "dumb"rgb controller board.

 

[JohnD]

How much of a hassle is customs when you import direct from China? I remember when I ordered some flashlights from China they were labeled "gift".

 

[pmolsonmus]

I have had decent luck - 3yrs - no problem with some LEDs (not movers) from Longman. No promises or guarantees YMMV, but I think this is what you are looking for.

http://www.longmanlight.com/en/index.aspx

Good Luck and Send Pics

Phil

 

[Fountain Of Euph]

At my high school we used some elation/ADJ RHB pars. They are surprisingly reliable and have a sound activated mode.

Sent from Taptalk for Android, this was.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Might be over your budget/not quite what you are going for, but I own some phillips hue stuff and LOVE it for my apartment, use a program on my phone to run it all. 3 lites and the gateway costs $200, no new cabling at all!

 

[Lightec]

Hi folks

as i am pretty new to this forum i have been spending a lot of time reading posts in here. This is my first post for a very long time and i hope toi find some help. Sourcing lights in china seems very interesting to me also. I am looking for something like this.

http://www.chauvetlighting.com/freedom-par-quad-4.html

Does anybody know who does the OEM for Chauvet for these? As i might need some hundred of these buying in China is absolutely an option

Thanks

 

[Allan]

That is proprietary information so I don't think you will find your answer on this forum. Why not buy it from Chauvet?

 

[Lightec]

I am not looking for exactly that fixture but for a manufacturer who would OEM something like this with some changes. As we are talking 800-1000 fixtures i will need it does not make too much sense to buy it from chauvet.

 

[Eriksrocks]

I would look at some of the bigger names (Longman, Irradiant, Neo-neon). I don't think you would have any problem finding a Chinese manufacturer that could make a similar fixture, but it will be difficult to find one who is reputable and you can communicate with easily.

You could try contacting a few of the members on this forum who resell fixtures from China and ask if they would be willing to share their OEM.

If you go through with it, it would be great if you could share your experience and the process with us in case anyone else is thinking of doing something similar.

 

[Eriksrocks]

Might be over your budget/not quite what you are going for, but I own some phillips hue stuff and LOVE it for my apartment, use a program on my phone to run it all. 3 lites and the gateway costs $200, no new cabling at all!

I do have Phillips Hue bulbs in nearly every light in my apartment!

They are awesome, but they aren't too bright and can't be controlled very quickly. They are more suitable for mood lighting rather than serious stuff.

As an update to this thread, I have ordered two 90W, RGBAW+UV small moving heads at $168 each with shipping from AliExpress. They should be getting here next week, and I'll post my impressions and hopefully do a teardown to see what they look like inside.

It's certainly been an interesting experience. As long as you are aware of how the game is played with these suppliers and know what you're getting, there seems to be huge potential in sourcing cheap fixtures directly from China. From what I can tell, in my case buying the equivalent fixture from a US distributor (even one known for budget options like Blizzard) would have cost $600+ per fixture. That's a pretty huge difference.