Help me with my Lighting, New LEDs?

[travislongley]

I use this forum for lots of reference but I don't usually ask questions but have come up with issues. I am a theater tech at a high school theatre and work all performances and do pretty much everything there is to do. To give a little background, because this was a high school that was built in 2004 everything is STRAND including the ancient lighting board that will soon be replaced with an ETC(ETC Element Control EOS). My boss has asked me what lights I would like to be replaced if any(I would like to replace everything but that is not going to happen..) and he is considering upgrading to LEDs. He wanted to do my wash since that is what he just replaced at another high school in the district but I am really wanting to do the cyc lights instead. He spent $350 ea on new LED pars and a total of about $6300, which will be my budget for new lights also. My Current cyc lights are above on an electric about 4ft away from the cyc. There are 6 Double 1500w fixtures currently there and I love the intensity that they give but replacing gels every 3 hours of use gets tiring and now the mesh shields are so bad with burnt gels there are dark spots all over.

Please help me out and let me know what I could do to light up the cyc with LEDs in the budget of $6500. Pictures will come when I get time to take some.

EDIT:
Here is a picture from about a year ago where I didn't have so many issues with my cyc except that colors did NOT mix well..

 

[Brandofhawk]

How high is the lighting position?
And how wide is the cyc/how wide do you need the wash?

 

[Les]

because this was a high school that was built in 2004 everything is STRAND including the ancient lighting board

Kind of nit-picking here, but how does 2004 = Strand?

Please help me out and let me know what I could do to light up the cyc with LEDs in the budget of $6500. Pictures will come when I get time to take some.

The only fixtures that come to my mind would be the Altman Spectra CYC, ETC Selador series, and maybe some offerings from Color Kinetics (whose exact offerings I am unfamiliar with). You might be able to afford 5 Altman Spectra 100 units at $1,346.25 each from Production Advantage if you stretch the budget a bit, but we don't know the size of your cyc. If it's tiny, that might be enough. But odds are, replacing all your Cyc lights to LED will be out of the $6500 budget.

In any event, I would rather buy 4 or 5 professional quality wash fixtures and no $350 DJ cans.

 

[travislongley]

I have never measured it exactly, I will do some measuring tomorrow I want to estimate the cyc is about 40ft wide and about 20ft tall. I will get exacts soon. Sorry about the strand thing I meant to say AND BUDGET there... those $350 units I know are an ETC something.. but those are pars and will probably light my cyc horribly. I will look into getting some kind of energy saving grant to maybe increase the budget.

 

[techieman33]

$6500 is not going to light your cyc effectively. You would be better off buying more of the cyc light you have and lamping them down to 1k, and maybe adding a ground row. And I like most people here would have guessed you had sensor racks and source fours from a 2004 install date. I wouldn't call any of that ancient either, a lot of us are working with lights from the early 90's or before and would love to be in a space that new.

 

[travislongley]

Thanks I am not sure if more of the cyc lights we have now would fit on there. They take 3/4 a full sheet of gel. I believe they are altman Sky cyc lights.. I WISH I had more source fours overhead..I have 18 strand sl 36's for my white stage "wash" if you look you can see lots of circles on stage. I then have lots of source four multi pars(3) for my RGB wash.

EDIT:
Heres some more pics.

 

[techieman33]

You should be able to buy at least 20 fresnels to give you a nice down wash, or just buy some single source 4 pars so everything matches.. It looks like you could also soften up the focus on the sl's a little more, and throw some diffusion in them to even things up a little more.

 

[travislongley]

You should be able to buy at least 20 fresnels to give you a nice down wash, or just buy some single source 4 pars so everything matches.. It looks like you could also soften up the focus on the sl's a little more, and throw some diffusion in them to even things up a little more.

They are focused out as far as they go.. The diffusion I haven't tried but I do know I can get source four pars for about $100.. Maybe that or some fresnels.. I want to put all of the Stands up in the catwalks where they belong...

 

[Tex]

those $350 units I know are an ETC something..

ETC doesn't make an LED fixture that's even close to that price. The lowest price will be somewhere in the $1000 range.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk 2

 

[BillESC]

I'd suggest going with the Altman Spectra Cyc and use them in conjunction with your current lights. As money becomes available, add more until you can do away with the 1500w units.

BTW, you can do better price wise than the Production Advantage number.

 

[doctrjohn]

BTW, you can do better price wise than the Production Advantage number.

Yep; that number is Altman's MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) for that fixture. I would suggest you talk to your local/favorite Altman dealer about arranging for a demo fixture for you to check out in your venue as well as what you can expect to pay based on the number of fixtures you are ordering.

Best,
John

 

[techieman33]

I'd suggest going with the Altman Spectra Cyc and use them in conjunction with your current lights. As money becomes available, add more until you can do away with the 1500w units.

BTW, you can do better price wise than the Production Advantage number.

That sounds like a terrible idea to me. First you have to deal with trying to match the color of the 2 totally different sources. Then who knows if the spectra cyc will be available if/when more money becomes available. Then if you do find some there is the problem of the new led's not matching the old ones. If your going to make a jump like that I think you really need to do it all at once or not at all. Something else they need to do is look at some demo units to see if the fixture will even do what they want it to.

 

[travislongley]

My boss wants to only replace the Strand SLs with the LED pars and have me find a solution to keep the gels from burning on the cyc lights. He says they wouldn't have designed a light to just burn gels every 4-8 hours of use.. I keep trying to tell him that is normal for that hot of a light but he won't listen and asks me to find a solution.

 

[techieman33]

My boss wants to only replace the Strand SLs with the LED pars and have me find a solution to keep the gels from burning on the cyc lights. He says they wouldn't have designed a light to just burn gels every 4-8 hours of use.. I keep trying to tell him that is normal for that hot of a light but he won't listen and asks me to find a solution.

Lamping them down to 1k lamps will help. Are you using cyc silk? It usually lasts longer for me as well.

 

[Les]

I've had Cyc gels last multiple shows; sometimes an entire season with 1K lamps.

If you replaced the SL's with LED fixtures, would they be the primary downlight or just for color/toning? I wouldn't recommend an LED par as a primary source of white light unless it is RGBAW and very bright. Keep in mind, there are also no internal beam shaping capabilities.

 

[travislongley]

I have never heard of Cyc Silk. I go through so many gels I usually just get the cheapest I can get. I also want clarification.. the frame is two pieces one with a mesh one without, I usually put the gel between them and gel is on the inside of the light, is this correct? I have heard two different stories of which way is better. I have heard the mesh is there to keep the gel from burning up and falling on performers but then I heard it is supposed to go on the other side so that it doesn't get sucked up into the lamp and start a fire...(But then it has potential of falling..) Either way I do it it burns to that mesh and I now am needing to go to home depot and get a small roll and take the frames to a friend with a 110 welder and replace the mesh because so much gel is burnt to them, even with the new gel you get dark spots...

 

[travislongley]

I've had Cyc gels last multiple shows; sometimes an entire season with 1K lamps.

If you replaced the SL's with LED fixtures, would they be the primary downlight or just for color/toning? I wouldn't recommend an LED par as a primary source of white light unless it is RGBAW and very bright.

I might just add them in addition to the SLs I will find out exactly what LED par I would be getting if I decided to replace them... I am still not sure.

 

[techieman33]

Cyc silk is similar to regular gel. It has a diffusion side to it that runs in parallel lines that help to spread the light out and avoid scalloping at the top of a cyc.

 

[Les]

I have heard two different stories of which way is better. I have heard the mesh is there to keep the gel from burning up and falling on performers but then I heard it is supposed to go on the other side so that it doesn't get sucked up into the lamp and start a fire...(But then it has potential of falling..) Either way I do it it burns to that mesh and I now am needing to go to home depot and get a small roll and take the frames to a friend with a 110 welder and replace the mesh because so much gel is burnt to them, even with the new gel you get dark spots...

You've heard a few half-truths. The mesh is there to protect the environment (and those in the environment) from falling shards of glass in the event of a lamp rupture. The correct orientation is: Lamp --> Safety Screen (mesh) --> Gel. This won't protect the gel in any appreciable ways (the only "shielded" areas of the gel are unused), but at least it won't melt to the mesh as you have described.

 

[travislongley]

You've heard a few half-truths. The mesh is there to protect the environment (and those in the environment) from falling shards of glass in the event of a lamp rupture. The correct orientation is: Lamp --> Safety Screen (mesh) --> Gel. This won't protect the gel in any appreciable ways (the only "shielded" areas of the gel are unused), but at least it won't melt to the mesh as you have described.

Ah Thanks, I have tried it that way and it still burns to the screen that way. It crinkles and then touches the mesh and burns. I think I will try to re-lamp those down to 1000w and try with some Cyc Silk and new mesh.