Find the fixture!

tdtastic

Active Member
Possibly a Lee Colortran Mini-Ellipse. No longer manufactured, Google shows this

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+1 that's the only fixture I've seen this lamp in. Horrid little fixture.
 
So....trying to help an electrician friend (commercial not theatrical) determine what mysterious fixture is hung in a church he's working on. All I have to go by is the lamp type he found inside. So far I haven't seen a pic of the fixture in the air. What in hell theatrical lighting fixture uses this lamp?! I certainly have never seen one that takes this base type. WTF yal.....

https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/1...MI55Sip-zt5wIVTZyzCh09gAqLEAQYASABEgK2nfD_BwE
@tdtastic When our larger soft-seater opened in the fall of 1973, ALL of our auditorium's overhead fixtures housed that base, style and physical size lamps; we had them in 250, 500 and 1,000 Watt versions.
250's over the second balcony seating.
500's where the lower balcony protruded from under the shadow of the upper balcony.
1,000's where the ceiling had a clear shot all the way down to our lowest (Orchestra) seating level.

Physically, at a quick glance, all three wattages appeared the same; closer examination revealed three different filament structures.
All of the fixtures were pendants. I was normally the guy in the attic latching my hand line to a given fixture, unplugging it, getting a firm grip then releasing its locks and letting gravity lower it to my waiting boss who'd remove the burnt lamp, give the deep polished reflector a wipe, replace the lamp with a new one of the correct wattage before barking at his Motorola for me to haul the fixture back up, lock it, re-plug it and wait for his confirmation before proceeding to resuscitate our next patient. @DELO72 MAY be able to elaborate on fixtures which used these lamps.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
The Mini-Ellipse might not be a fine specimen, but T4s have proven themselves in houselights. I take care of a church full of Rambusch lights with 500W T4s, and have not had one socket issue, and the lamps get good life.
Rambusch was the gold standard for auditorium and church lighting for years. They owned the 500 watt downlight market. Great fixtures.
 
I liked it for small black box spaces. Worked reasonably well for cost challenged groups.
My university had some of the first of those with a whole compliment of Lee-Colortran 6" movable lens fixtures. For a black box with a really short throw, yeah they were ok. Horrible Halation, The screw from the lens carriage lasted about a year before they had to be replaced and the lamp base housing left a lot to be desired as far as focusing went but they were innovative over the other fixtures of the times.
 
The Colortran Mini Ellipse (There should be a cut sheet PDF on CB's Wikk.) One of the worse Leko's I ever designed with! Lenses were green, lamps were inefficient and other than high output. Only benefit was that the lenses could be swapped out for various focal lengths. Also Home Depot used to sell both the 500w and 250w lamps so at the last minute if you needed one, you could get one.

One of these days I'll work on getting one in the museum. Not on my rush to get list.

Yes, the last catalogue version of the Altman 3.5Q was Mini-Can, but you could still special order it with a G-9.5 base. Moot point, discontinued fixture which is a shame.
 
The houselights in my auditorium use the EVR lamp and have been going 25 years strong. Well, not the lamps of course. But the fixtures have been very reliable. Funny - the fixture cut sheet specified frosted 500w lamps, but we've been using clear all these years. Maybe I will look in to the EYW next time I place a lamp order -- for now I have the houselight stations and console submasters capped at 90% to increase lamp life.

But yeah, common-enough lamp (coming from a theatre that also retired its last functioning mini-ellipses in the last few years). I think some worklights might have even used a mini-can lamp like this but none that I have ever worked with.

@ship knows this, but I have a group of Altman 3.5's that I have considered retrofitting with a mini-can socket. Primarily so that I can run them at lower wattages (and cheaply) and eventually retire them to LED residential service. Still undecided.
 
Wow! thanks... didn't know that. GLG/H Mark??? Suppose we wold probably yell at you if you did CB to introduce lamps for your brand though. New catalogue with new products listed on the other hand... probably fair game in news as other brands have also fair opportunity.
 
Hi everyone. I made the GLG (375W 115V G9.5 C13-D coil, 300 hrs.) and GLH (long-life version) at the request of Selecon and L&E "back in the day" because they needed a lamp to compete on quotes against ETC Source Fours w/ 375W HPLs spec'd in them. They hated the HX400 (which was the only option at the time) as it had the CC8 Coil, and didn't collect as well in their reflectors (or so they said- don't shoot the messenger- I'm just repeating what they told me). They wanted something similar to the GLC/GLA GLD/GLE lamp with a C13D coil that more closely matched up against an HPL's coil configuration. I'm not trying to trash talk the HX400- I used them for years-- but they requested a new solution, so I came up with the GLG & GLH for them. GLD= 750W 115V G9.5. GLC = 575W G9.5 115V. GLG = 375W 115V G9.5 So this gave everyone not using HPLs (Strand, Selecon, L&E, Altman, etc.) a G9.5 lamp at 375W to compete against the HPL 375W lamps.

Hope that helps. Yes- the Colortran fixture, the smaller Altman 3.5" Ellipsoidals, etc. all can use this lamp.
 
Thanks Mark, you the Best! And glad your company is still making lamps for the industry needs, even if so small a market margin others have gone away from.

Spent most of yesterday going between Feit and Bulbrite in LED large/unusual/stylish filament lamps for a large pendant request for a tour. Lots of styles available.... "pick one"... Urr no! designer's job if wanting one as quoted for a lot of them in style/shape/color temp. "Want them tour safe but not a cage around them" - that's a challenge in could do polycarbonite jugs around the lamp again - much more expensive.

That said, there was once the smooth dim/color changing of the Osram LED RGB color changing lamp. Forget if it was a G-25/30/40, boss took it home in keeping it. If Osram still owns that part... and while cell phone control is all the thing... that smooth color changing RGB lamps from Osram even still nobody has reproduced yet I'm aware of. Something of intrest I would put into prop or display lights especially if more output. Again small market.

Did my 5Kw to 2Kw Fresnel lamp socket adapters in ready for the next tour needing such a prop light lamped down.
 
I think the RBG lamps you are talking about are the Lightify lamps. Similar to the Philips HUE and I think a company called KETRA (former Color Kinetics folk) do some good ones as well.
 
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