Dating a vintage Altman follow spotlight

BunnyHelp

Member
Hello! I just had a quick question for this community: what's the approximate year the Altman Altspot 902 / Dyna-spot came out? I am a highschool student who is part of our multimedia crew, and we're preparing to film our spring play. We are still using these vintage spotlights. We've been curious about the age of them, since they eat up so much electricity and look quite old. I couldn't find a year ANYWHERE online - the closest answer I've been able to find is 1960s, but i'm not sure if that's accurate, and website archives of Altman's website don't help.
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If I had to guess, I'd say yours is from around the 70's to mid-late 80's. As for when the 902/Dyna-Spot/1000Q were introduced - I'm not sure. 1960's sounds about right. When was your school built? Those ellipsoidals look to be more of a 1960's-1970's era with their off-axis lamp cap and asbestos whips. The 902's could be original to the building, or they could have been picked up from the surplus annex at any point since then.
 
If I had to guess, I'd say yours is from around the 70's to mid-late 80's. As for when the 902/Dyna-Spot/1000Q were introduced - I'm not sure. 1960's sounds about right. When was your school built? Those ellipsoidals look to be more of a 1960's-1970's era with their off-axis lamp cap and asbestos whips. The 902's could be original to the building, or they could have been picked up from the surplus annex at any point since then.
I'm not terribly sure when the school was built, but it was definitely before the 80s, so I'm also thinking that they were bought when the school was built.
 
I would agree with Les as well.
My experience and research tells me that there were a handful of tweaks and revisions to the 902/Dynaspot over the years. By the late 1980s, there were actually 3 different models of this spotlight.

At that point the 902 had a beam spread of 1.9° to 33°, used two 4.5" x 9" PC lenses, and had no cooling fan.
The 902 Jr. had the same optics, but lacked a color boomerang, which allowed it so be about 12" shorter.
The Dynaspot had a beam spread of 1.5° to 19°, used one 4.5" x 12" PC lens and one 4.5" x 6.5" lens. Presumably the cooling fan was added to prevent the thicker 4.5" x 6.5" lens from cracking.

The fact that yours has a cooling fan but is still listed as a 902 suggests that yours is likely from the early to mid 1970s.
I'm not sure exactly when production was discontinued, but I would guess sometime in the early 1990s.

These spots were once everywhere (and there are still plenty of them around). They seemed to be standard equipment for every elementary and Jr. High school in the country!
The reason they are so inefficient is because they are basically an advanced design plano convex spotlight that has an iris, guillotine shutters and a color boomerang.
The Altman 1000Q (which was Altman's response/copy of the Strong Trooperette) was a pretty major advance in that it used a 1000 watt halogen lamp mounted in an axial ellipsoidal reflector which produced more than double the output of the 902 design with a 50% reduction in wattage.

I have an early 902 in my inventory. I'll post some pictures of it the next time I get to my storage facility.

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A. Don't Date a follow spot, they chase everyone around, they cut off peoples heads and they can leave you in the dark.

B. I had that exact spot in the 6th grade in 1976-77. It was old then.
 
If I ever see a 902 Jr for sale, I'll be tempted to buy it. They're so cute. Currently I'm sitting on a pair of similar vintage Little F10 Opto followspots. Not sure what to do with them, but they'll probably make their way in to our theatre's lighting loft to be used as backups. They are based around the same 1000/1500w lamp but are actually a little brighter than our Comets, which run 410w FXL lamps.

Somewhere along the line they purchased a brand new 1000Q, but it's never used due to the blower noise. So if anyone wants a gently-used 1000Q...
 
We had an F10 Opto in college back in the late 60's. Was a pretty nice unit and surprisingly bright. Over the years several more have turned up at various schools. Little Stage Lighting was quite active in the school market in the central/south US. You can always tell their fixtures by the red knobs. The local city auditorium has a half dozen of their ellipsoidals sitting around that still work.
 

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