Corroding S4 bases

[derekleffew]

Thank you, [user]Sean[/user], for that "opposing viewpoint." I see the practicality in your situation, as a professional who's being raped on shipping. (I'd buy my own cube van if I were you!)

But in my market, where pickup/delivery is $35-50; or for a high-school which doesn't have the skills/resources to maintain movers; I stand by my point. YMMV, too.

 

[icewolf08]

(I'd buy my own cube van if I were you!)

With today's gas prices, it would cost the the same if not more to drive the fixtures yourself as opposed to having them delivered. It is probably cheaper to send them via UPS or FedEx.

 

[Sean]

With today's gas prices, it would cost the the same if not more to drive the fixtures yourself as opposed to having them delivered. It is probably cheaper to send them via UPS or FedEx.

For one or two, yes. But when you're regularly using 5-8 fixtures, the economy of scale balances out.

--Sean

 

[Sean]

Thank you, Sean, for that "opposing viewpoint." I see the practicality in your situation, as a professional who's being raped on shipping. (I'd buy my own cube van if I were you!)
But in my market, where pickup/delivery is $35-50; or for a high-school which doesn't have the skills/resources to maintain movers; I stand by my point. YMMV, too.

Oh, we have vehicles. I'm in DC, and sadly none of the local shops can usually support our rentals. Pretty much anything I rent comes out of NJ/NY.

If you send someone to get the gear you're paying them 8-10 hours of pay, plus gas/tolls/food. And the hassle of losing that person for the whole day.

But, forget the shipping costs for a minute. It's still cheaper to own the light for two years than to rent it.

Of course, having the resources to care for the gear is important. The financial stability to know you'll be doing the same scale shows a year or two out is also important. In general it's "cheaper" for me to buy gear than to rent it.

OK, your turn....

--Sean

 

[TimMiller]

I just sent a company a repair bill for 8k dollars for 12 lights. So just so you have an idea of what a more expensive light repair costs..... Most of them average in the 500-1000 dollar range. Now if its just a fan that has gone out your looking closer to 150. If a ignitor goes out your looking closer to 200-1200+ based on the fixture. If a power supply goes out your looking between 400-2000 also based on fixture. These are all the common things that do go out. Also look at all the big touring bands. Most of them do not own their own lights. They get them on lease/rental. The cool thing about this is they do not have to pay for lamps or parts and there are usually 2-4 spares thrown into the deal, while others pay for the spares.

 

[derekleffew]

And, since the concert, and Broadway to a large extent, designers demand the "latest and greatest," the user doesn't have to worry about the "planned obsolescence" of the fixtures. OTOH, some poor theatres still use Intellabeams. And some theatres would give their Right Arm (no pun intended, Kelite ) to have I-Beams. Reference Phil000 and his excitement over the 1993 VL5.

Mike Callahan wrote a very good piece on this topic, link here.

Sorry for the hi-jack. (Note to self: must learn how that "pruning" feature works.)

 

[Lightingguy32]

Sorry if you have to repeat your self, but what version of the socket assembly do you have, also what is the date code on the fixture? I have noticed that with the older 4 piece TP22 Ni-Gold sockets that they tend to corrode and cause arcs/ shorts with the lamps more often than any other TP22 socket that is in a source four fixture that our venue owns. That is the case with our source four Par house lights (purchased back in Dec.1999/ Jan 2000). The newer socket is a single piece riveted assembly that ditches the gold contact cylinder like cup conductors and goes with two Nickel-Gold(?) contact plates that are spring loaded and actually require that a lamp pin seats into them in order to have electric flow (these work really well and were standard from I assume 2003-late 2006). The final version of the TP22 commonly known as the Osram TP-22H socket is literally a single piece socket that has a special floating point contact pin (the two contacts look like fuse holder type contacts for small automotive fuses just to give you a visual) and are near impossible to kill from a short circuit or arced out pin because the pin really seats almost perfectly with the socket contacts. The TP22H is now the factory standard @ ETC and I believe the late November 2006 and on ward all use that socket assembly. Also (maybe already mentioned) if you happen to come across a lamp with contact pins that have carbon deposits or is corroded, has that lamp found itself back in a fresh new socket? If so that would destroy a good socket. Bad lamp pins destroy good sockets just as well as bad sockets destroy good lamp pins.


On another note: have any of your fixtures failed suddenly and you haven't been able to trace the problem of the failure? If any of your fixtures were purchased from the August through November-October 2006 lots, they may have a bad weld connection inside the socket where one of the lead wires was not correctly welded to the base of the socket contact (believe me I found out the hard way after going through all of the standard continuity tests, I just opened up the end cap to find one of the contact wires floating around inside the end cap (of course the fixture was unplugged). I called ETC on the matter and to remedy this problem (even if it has been more than the year on the warranty), they will send an entire end cap assembly out to you w/ bare leads, so you just transfer the connector to the new endcap and disassemble the old one for spare parts. NOTE: this is only for the listed units, last time I called they told me that they had a bunch of these units floating around in venues and that they haven't tracked them all down yet. This notice applies only for the lots of fixtures mentioned above, (Aug 2006, Nov 2006, Oct 2006). These were the older single piece TP22 sockets. All current sockets are TP22H.

 

[ship]

...Sort of like I've had programmers tell me VL3000 lamps hold their color as they age better than the MAC2000 lamps, little do they know it's the exact same lamp!

Not persay the exact same lamp these days. The programmer was correct in a way without knowing it.

Remember Martin now recommends the Phillips “Gold” MSR 1200SA/SE lamp and the VL3K uses the Osram HMI 1200w/S lamp.

In a month or two I should have enough concrete datta on my study and tracking into the two lamp brands to be more specific but for the most part I have found the Phillips lamp while a few have gotten up to 1,200 hours, normally this lamp gets rejected as dim or brown somewhere between 650 and 750 hours if not before. The Osram lamp gets rejected as dim normally somewhere between 700 and 1,200 hours with a maximum confirmed life of around 3,000 hours in one instance.

This if on tour normal lasting of the Osram lamp is between like 1,000 and 1,500 hours as opposed to on the Phillips lamp between 700 and 1,200 hours.

I can say that what the programmer notes is possibly an accurate observation by way of color and luminous output and lamp life.

On not noticing this, remember that it takes a while for a lamp to burn in. One should notice it and or balance with other fixtures which doesn’t explain how it could be done in the shop while prepping a show but on a jobsite hanging 40' up in the air up side down installing the lamp two minutes before the house opens.... I can kind of see it possible. In the dark or if you don’t change the lamp every day one might not notice the smaller globe or clear instead of frosted pinch. In the shop, one could explain it as lack of experience, training and supervision.

After an hour, the various tech people using the fixture should note it being very blue this given it does not have various patterns and or colors coming out of it and at a bad angle to see it. That’s what they fill out the tag in saying why they rejected the lamp when such a lamp is caught. The 75K lamp operating over voltage does look a lot more blue than the 60K lamp.

 

[ship]

The lamps in the mac 550 and 700's have different bases. I dont know about the lamp in a 2K, i figured it would be a different base also. I dont know why they would make the all the same base. I figured a mac 2k would take a regular MSR1200 or a MSR1200sa.

HTI 400w/D3/75 Osram #54241 8/04 400w/49v T-18mm MOL 135mm SFc 10-4


HTI 575w/D4/75 Osram #FO5162 575w/90-95v T-18mm MOL 135mm SFc 10-4


HTI 700w/D4/75 Osram #54242 700w/70-73v T-18mm MOL 135mm SFc 10-4


HMI 1200w/S Osram #54088 1.2Kw/100v T-21mm MOL 135mm SFc 10-4


Nope, other than voltage and wattage, all else is the same. Ignition voltage on the Mac 700 and Mac 2K lamps is 207v meaning it will strike the arc and potentially maintain it while burning up lamp life really fast if design operating voltage is lower. The Mac 550 lamp (400w) should theoretically operate in a Mac 700 fixture without exploding right away but would probably explode in a Mac 2K fixture given the sustained voltage. Don't know what the HTI 575w/D4/75 is for yet but theoretically it would operate just fine in a Mac 2K fixture without any problems. This given the MSR 575SA/2DE by Phillips has a 207v ignition and is the same basic lamp could mean a lamp as if a 375w lamp in a S-4 fixture as opposed to 575w lamp. Very close in operating voltage, perhaps a bit less expected lamp life should theoretically work in a Mac 2K or VL-3K fixture amongst many types similar. Should have higher color temperature, etc. see the differences in operating over voltage below. Highly not recommended to do this unless Martin says so but theoretically possible.

Note also the HTI 1200w/D3/60 is the same basic lamp as the HMI 1200w/S as with the MSR 1200w/S, MSI 1200w/S, MSR 1200SA/DE and many other similar Phillips/Osram/GE/Eiko/Koto/Ushio/Amglo/Wolfram etc. brands of lamp with the same operating and size specifications.


Here is some related info:
Dimming of HMI Metal Halide Lamps: Dimming = operation of the lamp at less than rated power with reduced light output. In this age of flexibility, there is an increasing demand for light which can be individually dosed according to the particular application. The ideal solution would be the “rubber lamp” which could “stretch” across a wide range of wattages with no loss of photometric quality. It is this loss of quality which is the prime concern when we consider dimming metal halide lamps. You may recall the rule of thumb from tungsten-halogen lamps that a 5% drop in voltage will double the life and reduce the color temper as power decreases: discharge lamps behave in a similar way, initially at least.
As you would expect, dimming causes a drop in luminous flux - as is the case with tungsten halogen lamps. The color temperature however, increases (i.e. the lamp appears more “blueish”), while color rendering (CRI) deteriorates as power input decreases. The metals, which are responsible for the red component in the spectrum, are the last of the filter components to vaporize during startup and the first to condense out again when the lamp is dimmed. They are therefore no longer available for generating light. The result is that the light appears more “blueish.” The loss of the red component also means poorer color rendering. The reason why the filter components start to condense again is the drop of the bulb temperature at lower wattages.
These effects can be avoided by regulating the amount of light which grey scale filters or mechanical shutters. The lamp continues to operate at full load, so its photometric properties remain more or less unaffected at every stage. If the lamp is dimmed by electric means it will not reach its optimum operating state and, unlike tungsten-halogen lamps, will not last longer. The best possible operating mode for a metal halide lamp is when it is operated at rated wattage.
Dimming is certainly useful for mobile news reporting teams who are reliant on batteries and will want to operate the lamps at full load only for actual shoots and otherwise stay in standby mode to save energy and reduce the startup time to a minimum.
The temperature of the bulb wall falls more rapidly on a lamp without an outer bulb than on a lamp with an outer in which the discharge tube can only be influenced by the temperature surrounding the lamp indirectly or at least with a long lag time. In terms of dimming, outer bulb lamps are therefore not as sensitive and react more favorably to reductions in wattage with respect to changes in their color quality.
Forced cooling can attenuate temperature-related problems but it cannot eliminate them.
(Osram Photo-Optic Lighting Products Catalog - 1999)
Boosting Power to HMP lamps: Boosting = operation of the lamp at more than the rated power with increased light output. We strongly advise you do not consider boosting metal halide lamps (i.e. operating them at overloads) unless the lamps are expressly approved for this purpose. From the photometric point of view, the effects of boosting are virtually the opposite of the effects of dimming: color rendering is improved and the color temperature drops. The increased load on the electrodes and the higher temperatures at the molybdenum foils and on the bulb walls will most probably lead to premature failure of the lamp.
With regard to boosting, the HMP range of lamps is currently an exception. They have been developed and approved specifically for “boosting operation”. Depending on the particular model, the lamps can be operated up to 1.5 times their rated wattage. At these high wattages, a reduction of up to 50% in lamp life can be expected. What we said about dimming also applies to boosting: metal halide lamps operate best at rated wattage. Users in the (overhead) projection sector readily accept this shorter lamp life in view of overwhelming advantages of boosted operation. At presentations which make use of LCD panels and traditional transparencies the ability to regulate the output of HMP lamps is of considerable value: reduced (dimmed) output (down to 50%) for the transparencies with reduced glare for the presenter and increased (boosted) output (up to 150%) for the LCD panels which because of their poor efficiency require as much light as possible.
Since the two forms are often used alternately during actual presentations, the problem of shorter lamp life is unlikely toarise, particularly considering the fact that HMP lamps naturally have a service life which is around 33% longer than comparable HMI models. With the introduction of HMP technology. Osram has succeeded in presenting a range of lamps which has been optimised for projection applications.
(Osram Photo-Optic Lighting Products Catalog - 1999)

 

[derekleffew]

Not persay the exact same lamp these days. The programmer was correct in a way without knowing it.

Remember Martin now recommends the Phillips “Gold” MSR 1200SA/SE lamp and the VL3K uses the Osram HMI 1200w/S lamp...

I just rented M2Ks and VL3Ks from <name deleted> and they sent me only Osram lamps and told me both used the same lamp. So if needed, I relamped as necessary. One had a bad ignitor, another had something else wrong, can't remember what. The company did not provide "lamp tags," but I did reset the lamp meter, but who's to say if the next person will. I ended up using all the spare lamps provided.

 

[ship]

Re: Corroding S4 bases & moving light lamps

Man a lot of those lamps still look good. We usually run the 1200's till they explode or are to dim to do anything with, which ever happens first. (we only allow lamps to blow up in instruments that have metal reflectors, NOT GLASS) I know the msr700sa's will run till they get really big and turn green and keep on running...

There in lies the bench focus against other fixtures on a white screen to color match or detect what’s dim, brown, blue or green in how it looks as compared to other fixtures.

Lamps that explode can also take out a very expensive reflector - though fairly rare a lamp explodes sufficiently to take out the reflector. But on the other hand and theoretically it is possible for a “snow ball” lamp since light is not persay escaping from it, that it is overheating and destroying the fixture lamp base and internal components due to the extra heat the lamp is retaining. This is not evidenced to be happening a lot but is possible theoretically. I have for instance today in fact seen a VL-3K fixture that had it’s original lamp removed after about 1,200 hours and the lamp base to the fixture was toast.

Beyond lamp output, there is the fixture repair and time down costs, much less when a lamp does blow, what bad stuff such as concentrations of mercury and KR-85 is now coating the inside of the light fixture and you are touching plus breathing it in.

 

[ship]

I just rented M2Ks and VL3Ks from <name deleted> and they sent me only Osram lamps and told me both used the same lamp. So if needed, I relamped as necessary. One had a bad ignitor, another had something else wrong, can't remember what. The company did not provide "lamp tags," but I did reset the lamp meter, but who's to say if the next person will. I ended up using all the spare lamps provided.

All the following (some discontinued) lamps will work in the fixtures including what I don't have noted a Wolfram and Eiko versions of the lamp. All a question of what brand is used and reliability or house brand. This plus what the manufacturer specifies. Martin still does specify both Osram and Philips.

HTI 1200w/D7/60 Osram #FO5166 9/03
HMI 1200w/S Osram #54088
MSI 1200w/S Philips #13091-4
MSR 1200SA/DE Philips #13965-5
MSR 1200SA/2DE Philips #14847-8
UMI 1200/HB Ushio #5000235
CSR1200S/DE G.E. #48452
DI-12/S Koto #HB-1200 (Disc.)
AHMI-1200w/S Amglo


You get what you pay for in who you rent from. I'm told there is a difference between as much as turning the fixture on while still inside the road case and saying all works, than sending it immediately out the door verses bench focusing testing and color matching all gear no matter who it is for. You will note I deleted your not specific but specific brand reference in who from my also noting I am told is how they prep their gear by someone that would not lie or mislead about what he has observed.

 

[Lightingguy32]

Hey, what happened to talking about source four lamp bases? I thought the thread is on Source fours, not moving lights and thier lamps?

 

[ship]

sorry... Tried to edit the title of the post to reflect this as more simple than dividing it. Think the other type of lamp question part is over or should be put elsewhere now as a new post if wanted to continue with it. Game on back to the regular scheduled program... sorry.

 

[Einarin]

I am at CynicWhisper's theatre, and we do indeed have the older retaining clips on our source fours, as well as the older contacts. We just ordered a bunch of new contacts, which are the newer single-piece design. I'll have to look into the the lamp retainer upgrade.

Thanks a ton for the help. Hopefully we can resolve this issue now.