Are there beam-shaping lenses for LED pars to replace the conventional ETC pars?

akmit

Member
Are there beam-shaping lenses that would work on LED pars or fresnel other than ETC? Would the ETC lenses, designed for colorsource pars, work with other pars like Colorado 2 quad?

I've been reading this forum for over a month now, starting to get a headache from information overload and indecision, so I decided to post a question. I know a little bit about conventional fixtures (learned about them 12years ago from here) and new to LED stage lighting. I could not find a discussion regarding the beam-shaping lenses for LED pars.

Here is what I am trying to achieve. (I will include as much info as I can per forum policy.)
We are faced with electrical issues in our congregation. The current electrical setup for our conventional pars needs to be completely redone (need to install a new dimmer rack as well) due to fire safety. When we bought this building, previous owners had some lighting fixtures so we continued to build on it, but it was not done correctly. Comparing the cost of installation of new electrical to run current conventional fixtures or converting to using the LED setup, the leadership decided to upgrade (not sure if it is an upgrade) to LED fixtures. Our current setup is 14 ETC pars with various beam-shaping lenses and 2 ETC parnels. All fixtures have 575w lamps and on average they run at 70%. (People on stage do not like bright light or we have too many fixtures for this stage.) Also, we have 5 ellipsoidals that I use for special events like Christmas plays. We are a traditional congregation, we do not use things like moving heads, strobes, colors, and ect. (Although I would not mind adding some color to the back wall.) We do HD video recording so we prefer softer shadows.

After initial research, I decided to go with 14 Colorsource pars, and retro the 2 parnels. When I went to demo the colorsource and others (no wonder it is highly recommended here to do so before purchase) I did not like the fan noise. Our fixtures are approximate 20-22ft above the public seating area thus they would add noise. So I decided to use conventionally cooled LED fresnels with barn doors instead, but it seems like on this forum pars are recommended over fresnels for the purpose we are using them for. So I still have a dilemma. I do not mind the par with a zoom feature and would like to see if there are beam-shaping lenses that can be used to add some width to make it easier to focus points. The 14 pars are old and are not compatible with source 4wrd retro, that was my first option.

Our stage is small and congested, 37ft wide by 30ft deep. (Draft pictures attached.) Currently, the pars are hanging approximately 30ft away from the stage. Approximately 2/3 of the stage is choir seating area, approximately 70 people. We have 4 focus points in the choir, and 3 on stage. We have two-point lighting but I would love to get backlighting, maybe next year. The choir is lit up only when they are performing, front of the stage usually stays lit constantly. We use MagicQ software with mini wing to run dmx to 4ch dimmer packs. Budget wise, I kinda have permission spend up to 14k, I can attempt to convince for more but it might be difficult.

I am open for any suggestions if using the beam-shaping lens with LED pars is not a great idea. Since we have lights dimmed up to 70% only, I am thinking to get powerful LED pars but use fewer fixtures to cover the same area. I appreciate the feedback in advance. Thank you.

*Attached are layouts of our stage. These were done by our sound engineer when he upgraded speakers, sorry for all the extra lines.

Untitled1.png


Untitled2.png
 
Are there beam-shaping lenses that would work on LED pars or fresnel other than ETC? Would the ETC lenses, designed for colorsource pars, work with other pars like Colorado 2 quad?

I've been reading this forum for over a month now, starting to get a headache from information overload and indecision, so I decided to post a question. I know a little bit about conventional fixtures (learned about them 12years ago from here) and new to LED stage lighting. I could not find a discussion regarding the beam-shaping lenses for LED pars.

Here is what I am trying to achieve. (I will include as much info as I can per forum policy.)
We are faced with electrical issues in our congregation. The current electrical setup for our conventional pars needs to be completely redone (need to install a new dimmer rack as well) due to fire safety. When we bought this building, previous owners had some lighting fixtures so we continued to build on it, but it was not done correctly. Comparing the cost of installation of new electrical to run current conventional fixtures or converting to using the LED setup, the leadership decided to upgrade (not sure if it is an upgrade) to LED fixtures. Our current setup is 14 ETC pars with various beam-shaping lenses and 2 ETC parnels. All fixtures have 575w lamps and on average they run at 70%. (People on stage do not like bright light or we have too many fixtures for this stage.) Also, we have 5 ellipsoidals that I use for special events like Christmas plays. We are a traditional congregation, we do not use things like moving heads, strobes, colors, and ect. (Although I would not mind adding some color to the back wall.) We do HD video recording so we prefer softer shadows.

After initial research, I decided to go with 14 Colorsource pars, and retro the 2 parnels. When I went to demo the colorsource and others (no wonder it is highly recommended here to do so before purchase) I did not like the fan noise. Our fixtures are approximate 20-22ft above the public seating area thus they would add noise. So I decided to use conventionally cooled LED fresnels with barn doors instead, but it seems like on this forum pars are recommended over fresnels for the purpose we are using them for. So I still have a dilemma. I do not mind the par with a zoom feature and would like to see if there are beam-shaping lenses that can be used to add some width to make it easier to focus points. The 14 pars are old and are not compatible with source 4wrd retro, that was my first option.

Our stage is small and congested, 37ft wide by 30ft deep. (Draft pictures attached.) Currently, the pars are hanging approximately 30ft away from the stage. Approximately 2/3 of the stage is choir seating area, approximately 70 people. We have 4 focus points in the choir, and 3 on stage. We have two-point lighting but I would love to get backlighting, maybe next year. The choir is lit up only when they are performing, front of the stage usually stays lit constantly. We use MagicQ software with mini wing to run dmx to 4ch dimmer packs. Budget wise, I kinda have permission spend up to 14k, I can attempt to convince for more but it might be difficult.

I am open for any suggestions if using the beam-shaping lens with LED pars is not a great idea. Since we have lights dimmed up to 70% only, I am thinking to get powerful LED pars but use fewer fixtures to cover the same area. I appreciate the feedback in advance. Thank you.

*Attached are layouts of our stage. These were done by our sound engineer when he upgraded speakers, sorry for all the extra lines.

View attachment 18935

View attachment 18936
@akmit Have you experimented with any of the one-way stretching frost gels?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
Your mileage may vary, but any filter designed for LEDs will work on any LED fixture. You can also use conventional frost or silk, but your light loss will be significantly higher than filters designed for LED. We have a wide range of LED fixtures that we use ETC D40 lenses on because we already have them in stock. You can also buy sheets of the diffusion directly from the manufacturer and cut them to your own size. The biggest difficulty you'll run into is sizing. It has started to become better, but many LED fixtures do not use a standard size frame holder, nor do they all have frame holders.

Have you looked at white only LED fixtures? There's a wide variety out there, and you'll get more output for a similar amount of money than going with RGB fixtures. The fresnel lens from ETC for their spot fixtures sounds like it would be really useful for what you're asking for. They're on the higher end of price point, but they put out beautiful light, especially when paired with the series 2 spot bodies.
 
@almorton That's a very fair point. They do take up a pretty significant amount of space. Not quite as long as a standard spot with a lens tube, but a lot "fatter" front. If height is an issue you can use the higher attachment points on the yoke at the expense of available angles to focus at. But, you're playing with a couple of inches here, which isn't enough to consider it a small or low profile fixture.
 
Before replacing dimmers, be sure your not better off converting to all LED. There is a cost of dimmers and individual circuits and waning technology. I think it would be hard to justify even on economics installing new dimmers.
 
@akmit Have you experimented with any of the one-way stretching frost gels?
No, I am looking into it right now.

@microstar @derekleffew thank you as well, I am researching these options.

@cbrandt That is what I could not figure out with LED lights. There are options for color LED fixtures and then there are VW or WW. So do color fixtures give less lummins than the white fixtures? It is hard to compare lumins between manufactures because their measurments are not standard, different angles and distance. My goal is to get decent white pars or fresenls and be able to get close to even light beam and to control shape of it.

@BillConnerFASTC Sorry if i was not clear. Yes we are looking to convert to all LED fixture because cost of installing dimmer rack and new electrical work will cost about the same as converting to LED. During summer, it gets realy warm where fixtures are, our roof is not insulated, wood slate and shigle so fans will be running at max speed. The fixtures I looked into so far:
Colorsource PAR - I did not like the fan idea
Colorado 2 Quad VW tour - but seems like discontinued? could not find who sells them
ChormaQ 100 - looking at the specs they seem a little weak
Ovation f-165WW still looking into
Colorado 2 Quad RGBW
There are few others i cant remember. im at work, all my "research" is at home... Thank you for feedback.
Knowing that there options for beam shaping, it makes things a bit easier now...
 
@BillConnerFASTC Sorry if i was not clear. Yes we are looking to convert to all LED fixture because cost of installing dimmer rack and new electrical work will cost about the same as converting to LED. During summer, it gets realy warm where fixtures are, our roof is not insulated, wood slate and shigle so fans will be running at max speed.
Sorry - I misunderstood the
need to install a new dimmer rack as well
as work you were doing.

I have not noticed the CS PARfan noise in a lot of installations, and they are generally very quiet rooms otherwise. It may be high ambient temperature in your building.

Get some samples and get some good color swatches to view (an assortment of Hawaiian shirts works well) compare.

1575924857851.png
 
If you aren't interested in colors, you will get much more pleasing skin tones and crisper subject color over all (i.e. Hawaiian shirts as Bill mentions). Check out the rest of Chauvet's Ovation line, they have several ellipsoidals, a par with interchangeable lenses, and a full range of fresnels. Is there any reason you aren't considering the Source 4WRD PAR/Parnel (or even the ellipsoidal)?

Don't forget to get a some demos in your space before you commit, things have a habit of not working out as anticipated on paper.
 
@BillConnerFASTC thank you for the suggestion. I think I am going to look into the Colorsource PAR again, we do have ambient noise from HVAC so it might not be noticeable change with these. The other option that I liked is the Ovation P56, and they are fan cooled as well.

@Michael K K the PARs we currently have are the old models, so they are not compatible with the 4WRD retrofit kit. Buying new 4WRD pars and retrofit kit will be around 1k and I will need 16 of them and will end up with more light then I need. It is an option that I might have to go with. I ordered demos for Ovation P-56 VW and WW, should get them next week.

I do have a question regarding Elation quality. I used some of their products about 10-12 years ago and was not happy with the quality, few things broke after short use. Has the quality improved since then? I am interested in their DW PAR Z19, DTW PAR 300, and the Fuze Z175 as other options.

https://www.elationlighting.com/dw-par-z19-ip
https://www.elationlighting.com/dtw-par-300
https://www.elationlighting.com/fuze-par-z175

Thank you
 
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