Best LED for high school down wash

[JHWelch]

I am the technical director for a high school production of Les Mis. We have limited dimmers, and I believe the best way to quickly free up dimmers as well as fixtures would be replacing the downlight wash with LED fixtures.

We normally will use three twofered sets of ETC PARs with wide flood lense on two electrics for one color of downlight. Once we have three colors of downlight we have used 18 dimmers and 36 fixtures!

I was wondering what the best LED fixture for this application would be. It's a high school, so the more bang for my buck is better, but we also have a rather large budget, so if the only way of doing this is a selador I'd like to hear it.

Thanks!

 

[thematthewman]

Chauvet has some pretty good LED PAR cans for a good price.

http://www.chauvetlighting.com/wash-lights.html

 

[Tex]

I'm a fan of both the Selador Vivid-R and Desire fixtures. I use them for wash and cyc light. The intensity and color saturation are great and the lenses make them very versatile. They're pricey, though...

 

[BillESC]

Blizzard's RockLite RGBAW is available with installed 45 degree optics and smoooth 32 bit dimming. MAP is only $ 399

 

[Bubby4j]

If you wanna compare all of blizzard's fixtures, I have a spreadsheet.
http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/list-of-blizzard-fixtures-and-cost-efficiency.32509/

 

[JohnD]

A few things to consider, do you have a way to get non dimmed power to the electrics? Do you have dmx distribution taken care of? I would think that you would want a very versatile fixture, in which the Desire with the many lens options and the 7 color mixing comes to mind. Granted, they cost much more but you also have batch to batch consistency, something you might not get with DJ class fixtures. You might also consider the LED updates to the classic borderlight for color toning. The Chroma-Q ColorForce comes to mind along with Altmans Spectra Strip and Phillips Showline Bar 640 and 660. If time is an issue, have you considered renting for this production with an eye to purchasing at a later date when you have time to make the right decision.

 

[DuckJordan]

Anyone seen the etc fire and ice? I remember seeing ads all over the place for them but never saw them in person.

 

[lwinters630]

I am using the Vivid R for our CYC and Elation Par zooms for the over stage wash lights. We replaced the old strip RGB strip lights with 28 par zooms using the Edison relay for the work lights on the electrics. I have the Par zooms in 4 other venues and have been very happy with them.

We did Les Miserable Spring of '13 (Part 1, 2, 3)using these, however I did add 5 Mac 750's.

Here are some other Pic's of some of our shows

 

[JHWelch]

A few things to consider, do you have a way to get non dimmed power to the electrics? Do you have dmx distribution taken care of? I would think that you would want a very versatile fixture, in which the Desire with the many lens options and the 7 color mixing comes to mind. Granted, they cost much more but you also have batch to batch consistency, something you might not get with DJ class fixtures. You might also consider the LED updates to the classic borderlight for color toning. The Chroma-Q ColorForce comes to mind along with Altmans Spectra Strip and Phillips Showline Bar 640 and 660. If time is an issue, have you considered renting for this production with an eye to purchasing at a later date when you have time to make the right decision.

I am not worried about DMX or non dim power, we don't have an elegant solution as of yet, but it works. As for rental, do you know of any good place in MA to either rent or try out some fixtures?

 

[JHWelch]

I'm a fan of both the Selador Vivid-R and Desire fixtures. I use them for wash and cyc light. The intensity and color saturation are great and the lenses make them very versatile. They're pricey, though...

For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.

For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.

 

[BillESC]

Here's the Rocklite RGBAW from about 20'.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.

For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.

We find if a down or back light wash has maybe 6 - S4 Pars across and electric we try to get 9 or 10 of the Desires. Of course the 6 quartz is one color so we would normally plan at least for two color washes in an inventory, so could say 9 LEDs for 12 or 18 quartz, depending on your spin.

 

[MNicolai]

We find if a down or back light wash has maybe 6 - S4 Pars across and electric we try to get 9 or 10 of the Desires. Of course the 6 quartz is one color so we would normally plan at least for two color washes in an inventory, so could say 9 LEDs for 12 or 18 quartz, depending on your spin.

Adding to this, both the Vivid-R's and Desires have a wide variety of lensing options for whichever throw distance you may be working with.

IIRC, an unlensed Vivid-R is roughly the beam size of a 19° instrument. I imagine a Desire is about the same. You can check the datasheets to confirm.

 

[Tex]

For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.

For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.

I have the 63" Vivid R strips. I think the equivalent number of 11" strips would be more useful. I have 14 and use 8 on the cyc, 2 on the 2nd electric, 2 on the 1st electric and 2 on the first cat (without lenses). It's a long throw, but I really needed color on our very large apron. I don't remember the exact combination of horizontal and vertical lenses I used to make it cover; it was a lot of trial and error but it works beautifully.
The D40's are used in various situations, but mostly in the black box as a color wash and occasionally for a small cyc. The grid is at 18' and the rep plot is 15 areas at about 12' across and overlapping. I use one D40 with a 45 degree lens for each area. The coverage, intensity and saturation are unbelievable. I also like the feature that emulates the fade time of an HPL.

 

[Tex]

For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.

For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.

I have the 63" Vivid R strips. I think the equivalent number of 11" strips would be more useful. I have 14 and use 8 on the cyc, 2 on the 2nd electric, 2 on the 1st electric and 2 on the first cat (without lenses). It's a long throw, but I really needed color on our very large apron. I don't remember the exact combination of horizontal and vertical lenses I used to make it cover; it was a lot of trial and error but it works beautifully.
The D40's are used in various situations, but mostly in the black box as a color wash and occasionally for a small cyc. The grid is at 18' and the rep plot is 15 areas at about 12' across and overlapping. I use one D40 with a 45 degree lens for each area. The coverage, intensity and saturation are unbelievable. I also like the feature that emulates the fade time of an HPL.

 

[RickR]

The main thing to remember is the color/white usage makes a huge difference.

LEDs in deep colors with out perform conventionals. However in white the LEDs look very dim and just don't have the punch. I've done down/wash strip replacement mostly with Vivid-R 11. This holds true with the others I've used as well. Right now the numbers say you get more light for the dollar with a Desire 40.

 

[BillESC]

Here's the ToughPar RGBAW making white.

 

[lwinters630]

Other features to consider are strobe and zoom. Vivid R will not do either.

 

[jwolfkill]

I am the technical director for a high school production of Les Mis. We have limited dimmers, and I believe the best way to quickly free up dimmers as well as fixtures would be replacing the downlight wash with LED fixtures.

We normally will use three twofered sets of ETC PARs with wide flood lense on two electrics for one color of downlight. Once we have three colors of downlight we have used 18 dimmers and 36 fixtures!

I was wondering what the best LED fixture for this application would be. It's a high school, so the more bang for my buck is better, but we also have a rather large budget, so if the only way of doing this is a selador I'd like to hear it.

Thanks!

Do you really, really want LEDs? Have you considered other options, like color scrollers? LED technology is still evolving, and even a large budget for purchasing LEDs will buy less now that it would a year from now. Color scrollers, with all their well-known disadvantages (noise, cost of gel strings, maintenance, etc.) have some advantages, too. They're ubiquitous and not as expensive as high-quality LED pars, plus you can use the scrollers on other instruments, too. Just a thought!

 

[MNicolai]

Other features to consider are strobe and zoom. Vivid R will not do either.

Why can't you strobe an LED fixture? Any LED fixture?