ACL’s as a general term are normally
PAR 64 fixtures with #4552 250w/28v lamps installed in series as a group of four of them on a lamp bar
fixture - it is in all fixtures permanently attached to the bar one
fixture. As opposed to normal
PAR 64 cans with GX-16d bases, these have it removed and ring terminals to the screw terminals on the lamp. Not as worried about matching the lamp hours of the lamps
etc. they work or not, would be great if a
passive resistor system were made for them such as on low
voltage cyc lights but they are what they are and popular. In the past worked on some something like 8'x8' walls of them having 6 bars per wall and like eight walls for a tour. Yep effective. Don’t try to make one, on the other
hand beyond say Thomas and TMB, perhaps Technilux and Creative
Stage Lighting and a few others even perhaps Kupo if even them, I’m not sure there is anyone making such a thing. Most rock and
roll touring companies have them and would if not sold on the market either offer them used if asked for them or make them for you. I know where I work we have lots of them but they are also ancient and those bars pre my upgrades to them - including grounding the lamp bar itself, are suspect or just plain wearing out. What you buy used potentially might be a horse past its useful life. Wires wear out, rubber gets rotted or dry
etc. Short of total re-working of used gear or at least total inspection I would not buy used persay. On the other
hand, such companies have lots of experience with them in what works if not even in study advancing the technology. An alternate source to the manufacturers would be those that tour with the gear making such stuff new for you.
Otherwise as a more or less
broad concept, the employeer might have been asking for
ACL by the way of SBL instead. Both low
voltage and often confused in term and definition. Is it one
fixture that does low
voltage high
intensity beam projector beams of light wished for all
in one or two separate types of lighting equipment? The SBL commonly used in a
PAR 36
audience blinder would be the #4596 250w/28v
PAR 36 lamp which is also wired in series but within a bank of
audience blinder lighting or as also called Molefays. Slight difference also in that a Mole Fay could also be a
PAR 64 multi-light
fixture or as normally known a
PAR 36
fixture that uses a 120v/650w
ANSI FAY lamp amongst others - most common the FCX in it. This lamp is a
ferrule based lamp as similar to the screw based DWE lamp and the exact same lamp only one has the screw
terminal brackets and the other doesn’t. Exact same lamp only the Mole Richardson studio based light is very expensive, the screw based lamp not as much so and a
bit more flexible in doing series lighting.
Moles would take a lot of work to
wire in series, the normal
audience blinder that’s not a
MoleFAY fixture will not work out as well as a
audience blinder by normal terms.
Moles also are one, three, six and nine lights, audience blinders are two, four and eight light fixtures which work better in working with
line voltage on
dimmer loading or series
voltage. Really hard to
wire a nine light for series. Mole Fay’s are still in use and very rugged fixtures but not these days the main norm for
audience blinder lighting equipment.
My question being if
ACL did the employer looking for the lights mean two different light fixtures, a
PAR 64 and
audience blinder or mean a one in the same
fixture that with a change of wiring could do both this given smaller lamps and less the
effect?
Not sure what you mean by “usually white.” There is different color temperatures available for the audience blinders / molefays one
daylight and one
halogen in
color temperature, some lamps discontinued as with some beam spreads not available but for the most part I’m yet to note a white Mole Fay
fixture. Mole Richardson’s color is Mole Mauve, and otherwise such fixtures get painted black.
Ground or hung... all a question of how you mount such a thing. The
audience blinder fixture is more
C-Clamp or better yet ½ cheseborough, the Mole Richardson
fixture is spud mounted and while you can adapt, doing spud to floor
base is a
bit difficult in such fixtures also being built like a tank designed like 60 years ago. Do believe I have never yet seen a Mole Fay
fixture mounted on a floor
base. For such a thing while perhaps overkill I would probably figure out how to do so on a 40#
boom base for stability. Think it is perhaps a eight light
audience blinder you are more looking for. Set of eight 120v/650w lamps on three circuits, and an easy change to make it into a SBL
fixture for
PAR 36 ray lights.