Finally getting some MLs. Asking for some mechanical insight.

[MYX]

Hey all, as a long time lurker here, I have read lots of threads 'please tell me what to buy' threads. This is not that.
We have a small budget next year for adding some moving bits to our system (20k ish). This is a live corporate theater which does television (web broadcast). We have a weekly live show in which we have everything from talking head, awards (en mass like 300 people), interviews, and a 200-500 person audience. As this is a corporate facility, the last minute changes, and the 'oh can you justs' are abundant. While we need area lighting, we also need weeehaw! as well.

I am trying to kill many birds with as many stones as 20k will buy. Clearly, 20k will not buy a lot of new MLs, so I am pretty set on picking up some used gear. As I have been reading, MLs require quite a bit of maintenance, used gear requires probably even more. By nature I am a tweaker, so getting my hands dirty inside a light does not scare me. We currently have both standard and LED fixtures and enough addressing that I do not have to go into a 3rd universe (yet). This will be my first real experience with movers. I have dabbled here and there, but nothing I could call usable knowledge and while not trying to get too cliché on you, but I don't know what I don't know.

What I am looking for is sort of a heads up as to what kinds of failures you experience the most with various fixtures.
My plan is to buy a few extra of each so I can , replace as needed, and or canibalize the dead ones to keep the live ones going. What is the actual lamp life vs what the specs state? When I get them and I get my (cough) 48 hour warranty, what would be the things I would want to test it out on to make sure that I did not get a dud? What kind of parts would you say to buy ahead of time to have on hand?

Our throw to target is roughly between 20 to 35 ft.
Mainly I am looking at Mac 500, 550, 575 as I am worried that the 250 range will not have enough kick, and a 2000s would be way overkill.

I am thinking that I do not really need dedicated washes as I could defocus and use at a wash (yes?).

For extra beams I was looking at the Mac 101s. We had a bajillion of em at our last convention and they seemed quite fast and intense given the size and price point.

Fortunately, this will not be a high impact situation for the fixtures as they will not be moving on tour, outdoors, or rented... So... call it an old folks home for kind old MLs.

Thanks for your time and input on this!!!

 

[Footer]

Eh. What I would do first is call your local rental house, buy their used fixtures, and work out a maitence deal w/ them. Keeping movers going is not easy... and the mac range you are looking at will be very well loved. Encoders, stepper motors, lamp ballast, ignitors, whole PCB's, belts, and whatever else is in that shell can and will go bad. Without have a bench of parts it is really hard (and expensive) to fix these things. Most do it yourself moving light techs play the "swap it till it works" game. Which is fine if you have 50 of those fixtures and enough spare parts. It gets to be a real pain though when you have to pull two units out of the sky to fix one.

 

[JD]

Since they are not touring, you may not have as many mechanical problems as you might think. Cog belts fail, motors do fail, but most failures are due to the vibration of travel compounded by the dings of being flipped from case to truss to case again. As for lamp life, this has more to do with how tolerant you are of off-color or dim lamps. Unlike filament lamps which tend to fail in a flash-out, most discharge lamps die a slow, lingering death like old florescent lamps, lasting way beyond the rated hours, but making you wish they would give it up so you would have reason to put a nice, bright white one in its place!

General maintenance on ML's has more to do with keeping the optics cleaned and making sure you mechanically adjust the lamp correctly on replacement so you have good output and a smooth even field.

 

[soundlight]

All of the fixtures you mentioned - MAC500, MAC550, and MAC575 - are not fixtures I'd buy used. The MAC500 is an ancient fixture. The MAC550 was error-prone from the start, not a very reliable fixture. And the MAC575 was discontinued quickly because no one wants a magnetic ballast fixture these days. Getting parts would be a bear because Martin has very few left because of how short the production run on those was.

If I were you I would pick up some Chauvet Q-Spot 560 LED units new. Great units. I've seen them put in to a bunch of installs along with their smaller brothers the 260s and 360s and they're great. Very few failures for fixtures that get used as much as they do.

As far as defocusing a spot to get a wash, the benefit of washes in the midrange mover market is often color mixing. Spots have color wheels whereas washes have CMY (for halogen & discharge sources) or RGB (for LED sources). Also, with a wash you'll generally get some kind of zoom and it'll often go much wider than a spot, even defocused. If you're interested in wash fixtures, Chauvet has a new unit coming out soon that looks good. It's called the Q-Wash 419Z and it's got 19 RGBW LEDs and zoom.

You should be able to get a demo of the Q-Spot 560 LED easily, and within the next month or so you should be able to get a demo on the 419Z.

Whatever you do, stay away from Elation's Platinum Spots - the optical train in those, specifically the focus and zoom and how they (don't) work, will drive you up a wall. That is, if your fixtures work out of the box to begin with.

As far as beamage goes - I work in a rental house with a bunch of MAC101s, and I also programmed this light show with them. Having used them for a bunch of shows and seen what the competition has to offer, I'd go with something like the Chauvet Legend 412 or the Elation Rayzor Q7 or Q12. I've seen both of them in person, and the RGBW color mixing and zone chase control is a marked improvement over the 101s. I especially like the Rayzor Q12s - good pixel layout, fat beam, and great color. And I don't normally speak highly of Elation movers after many bad experiences, but these only have 2 motors - pan and tilt. I've got some Rayzor Q7s on demo for the light show that I'm doing right now, and I quite like them. The 101s definitely still have a little edge brightness-wise, but not having the face of the fixture look like a zoomed-in lite-brite is definitely good. I can't recommend the Martin Rush Wash however because I saw that and the beam is horrible - huge red hotspot in the center, even visible in haze. And I don't think it was just the demo unit we had.

 

[MYX]

Thanks for the feedback. And I will take more if anyone wants to chime in.
Footer, great idea with the rental house purchase with maintenance. I do want to understand the lights too. So, is this something that I would deal with minor issues and they would take the heavy stuff?

JD, To your comment about wishing they would just die... Is this because of the cost of replacement, or the hassel of replacement? When the color shifts due to age, what direction does it go? How often should I go through and clean them all? I am sure we will be using some haze, but this will be in limited usage situations (again it is a corporate thing and smoke/haze freaks out folks wearing ties).

Soundlight, Great insight. I appreciate that. I was looking at the 500s as I could pick them up for roughly a grand a piece. When I was initially talking to some of our management, they started to turn colors when I was speaking about 6-12k a piece. I know that this stuff is expensive. Are the Q-Spot 560s bright enough for key lighting? Do you have any others you could also recommend like this?
Also, being that this will be used for TV how loud are they compared to the 500s? This is not so much an issue during awards as there will be all sorts of thumpin music to cover it, but when things quiet down, if I need to move something, I don't want the audience looking up to see what's going on. I know that there will be some noise, plus fan noise. As to the show you programed, I had actually showed that to our production manager about a month back. Cool stuff. I am curious how long that took to program and on what board? I was avoiding the Elation stuff due to folks saying similar things and was avoiding the Chauvet stuff as I had some lukewarm feelings about some stuff we used. But I have been checking them out this morning based on your comments. As to color mixing, while I love my LEDs (Seladors and Desires), the current need / want ratio is movement / color mix. Gobos and prisms can add a while lot of crazy into a room quickly.

 

[JD]

JD, To your comment about wishing they would just die... Is this because of the cost of replacement, or the hassel of replacement? When the color shifts due to age, what direction does it go? How often should I go through and clean them all? I am sure we will be using some haze, but this will be in limited usage situations (again it is a corporate thing and smoke/haze freaks out folks wearing ties).

Both! Often, you may have one that you know is older, but you know the only one that notices it is you. It becomes a combination of money, procrastination, labor, and location. You don't get that option when an incandescent lamp blows!

As for color shift, usually blue. Some of the salts that provide better spectrum get entrapped in either the ends, or the envelope itself and the full spectrum starts to fall apart. Also, most HID (such as MH/HMI) start out as a clear envelope that gradually gets milky white, frosty, and then downright opaque as the lamp ages. As this happens, the lamp no longer is a "point source" and the output of the fixture gradually drops.

As for cleaning, depends on how much dust or haze juice is in the air, and how long the fans run. When you look in the front lens (from a side angle) when it is running, it will never look perfectly clean, but when the lenses start looking frosted or there is excessive diffused spill outside of where the lamp is aimed, then it is time to clean. Just like with the lamp, it will depend on your tolerance. There is one other problem- A dirty fixture will run hotter, so don't let it get too dirty. Start by cleaning them when you get them and use that as a benchmark. After a month of use, pull them apart again. Depending on what things look like, you may enter a one month, six month, or even once-a-year cleaning cycle.

 

[MYX]

Cool. Thanks.