How to turn a $20 PAR into a $300 PAR

[ship]

Back 30 or so years ago my trim height was 14'. Lots of experience with crappy Leko's with green lenses and making the best I can. Design wise, I didn't have 6x9 in either form (Radial or axial), only crappy Colortran 4.5" adjustable Mini Ellipse, and 6" Fresnel, and the 3.5Q5 Leko with 3" Fresnel Inkies for primary lighting. Where I could not get enough of them for design, a few each WFL 500w PAR 64, 300w WFL PAR 56 and down thru PAR 46 and etc. down to R-30 lamped fixtures in what you can get. The two 10" scoops and 6-cell strip lights were also useful. Been there, done that in winning the battle at times or not. Some awards or good reviews in Chicago back than for store front theater design. One year even was announced as one of the top ten up and coming designers in Chicago. This in working with what I had and to the best of my ability to fix, which back than was armature level. (Early 90's.)

Again, advice is to fix what you have - there is a wealth of info on doing this on the forum or PM me on a fixture and I will go thru the steps to restore it back to factory spec. I and many suppliers have replacement parts - though the goal is in not buying any replacement parts, only tooling up to fix. If magic was made in the past with what you have to work with, and you are comfortable with the gear you have,... magic can still be made as long as the gear is functional and safe to use. Budget for upgrade, but not crap upgrade, quality for what will really design wise fit your needs. Seen way too many theaters buy something Americain DJ type LED say PAR fixture, and it inefficient. But the upgraded to it...

If looking for more fixtures to supplement the inventory, or ready to go fixtures... I have a Altman 360Q6x9, three Century Strand 6x9 radial that will get the halogen upgrade (which should be as good given the Strand optics as the 360Q), and two 6" Fresnels that can be made ready. (Might be short one lens.) I also have a Shakesphere with a 20 degree lens train I can donate to you also in PM reply. Obviously it's 20 degree so you would have to buy your own say 50 degree lens train. All will be in factory spec condition as long as you pay shipping from Northern Illinois or pick them up. There is the major problem in donations.

You could also ship to me your bad or questionable fixtures for me to work on for free given that labor for work tax donation went away. I would still work on a reasionable amount of lights for free.

More expensive in shipping than piling up a few say two or four of each type in your car in a visit, and me giving a free class in teaching how to fix each type of light. Available option in free teaching how to fix them adventure road trip option available. For the most part, replacement parts provided by me. I have a lot of spare parts in stock, especially Altman parts.

A concept in bringing your inventory back to factory spec. or better, and than saving and investing into LED future.

 

[ACTSTech]

I'm pretty sure I still have the crappy instruments you described in stock ready to hang here @ship . Except we call them state of the art.

I appreciate the info and offer. I have been working at restoring what we have and what I can, some things are just beyond hope. I'm considering making some fixtures to retrofit with some 100 watt bulbs (or whatever they have in LED now) and hang in the lobby.

It's never a question of reusing for me, it's a question of reusing wisely. We still have 14" focusing scoops in the inventory, but finding the lamps is getting harder. Also, what are their purposes now? I used them in the production of Oklahoma that got moved to a different venue last minute and then closed after two shows because of COVID because they were easy to drop in. Would I invest a lot of money in them now? Absolutely not. The same goes to the par cans. If you said, "This upgrade makes them the same as the old lamp," I'd upgrade today. If you said, "This upgrade will be almost as good," I'd have to see it in action. "This upgrade will make them LED" doesn't make me excited at all. In fact, it makes me want to put more money into keeping the instrument as is, because if it was worth the money, everyone would be jumping at it.

I'll DM you and be in touch when we get closer to hanging the lights and I can test and see what's working and what's not. Thanks!

 

[ship]

PAR 64 lamps still completely available - now thru the lighting fixture manufacturers. No reason for now to change.

I totally get what you mean about the 14" focusing scoop, though over a year since I have searched for usable lamps, I believe all avaiable. Altman #160 14"Scoop: EGK, EGE, EGG, EGJ reccomended. Are your fixtures using that extended lamp P-28s based lamp? I thought the ones we have at work were RSC based using say the 1Kw frosted RSC based FFT lamp. Think two versions and my notes are lacking that detail.

What ever the case the scoop is a great wash light, be it work light or in your case useful to put a wash of light...say a tint of sun coming from one direction in blending with other designed lighting. Can also provide the fill of a blue night lighting coverage while the designed lights do what's needed for talent lighting. In a short height space, I would not give up a scoop for the broad brush such lights could paint over my set. Was in a car today with another designer, and we both remembered using scoops at one point or another as cyc lights during our college years. They also with photo flash lamps, make excellent lightning projectors.

"It's never a question of reusing for me, it's a question of reusing wisely" That is so wise of a statement!

Take photo's of what you want to convert to A-19 100w before hand.

I certainly have converted a bunch of L&E to that in just getting rid of them for what in donation I could get out of them. Frosted 100w or LED equivolent lamp certainly if you modify for LCL of the clear lamp version and bench focus... has a decent output more than just prop light output. A note is you will probably have to enlarge the reflector hole on the reflector some if a halogen reflector. But you can do it.

Last year I took a dozen 50's thru early 70's Lekos or 8" thru 4.5" size and made them TMB brand RGBW LED DMX controllabable G-16.5" marquee lamp fixtures. Also converted all the chandeliers to this system. It's only about an equivolent of 25 watts in incandescent light output though. Noted that replacing the lenses in the lens train with sanded poly carbonate lenses worked much better for being a prop light.

On the photos, what you propose to lobby light/prop light might be more valuable in trade or upgrade. Before you modify to lobby light... say you might have something orthers or I would trade for, for instance. Post photos' of what you are doing and working with.

Finally, if you have the 4.5" Colortan Mini Ellipse I described with the E-11 Mini-Can Lamp type.... (On my collection list for museum I don't have) That fixture would be an engineering project to make them efficient in any way. There is a formula I could find to figure out what size lens it used in perhaps finding a more pure - not green lens for it. That would cost money of course to polish the turd. Than there is figuring out some lamp to bench focus properly. Probably the G9.5 seriese in following the discontinued Altman 1KAL series of Leko's. Could be done, but I can totally see if you have this light... lobby prop light otherwise. If you do a A-Lamp version, make sure to do the color correcting similiar to GE Reveal type lamps or something to counteract in color temperature the crappy green lenses. Something 5K in color temperature would make them much less depressing in output, 6,5K almost inspring.

 

[almorton]

I hope your market doesn't go the way ours has. Some PAR lamps are only available from "non-premium" manufacturers, and have greatly reduced life. Once the mainstream lamp manufacturers stop making domestic stuff, the niche theatre stuff is going to dry up too, I'd say.

 

[ship]

The PAR's are not dead. Your points are valid and mostly accurate. With time lamps get better no matter who makes them or people stop buying them. Corning that used to make most PAR lamp bubbles is either making them for others thru new ownership, or sold off the design. Takes time to get up to speed in manufacturing. Could Also mention Usho or Eiko that have become premium brands which years ago were a hard sell. Lots of other brands that are acceptable now that were startups or "off brand". Yes I consider, Eiko as a "premium brand now for quality."

Could also mention GE sold off their lamps division including stage and studio (which caused the problem when they also sold off Corning which made GE/Philips/Osram PAR lamps), and ... I don't really remember what's going on with Philips other than the above.

On the other hand, buying lamps thru the PAR can makers and some distributers is not a long term planning thing. LED's are getting both cheaper and better quality. I buy lamps for a major account using rock and roll PAR 64 cans and have advised them. They no doubt see also the end of the lamps, but for now... I'm sure they have in plans the "upgrade" to LED, but for now have time as with everyone, you should plan to replace but do not have to rush into it.

 

[almorton]

In the UK we have the problem that Europe has banned sale of incandescent lamps from September this year, and fluorescent will be next. Even though the UK is no longer part of the EU it will still have a knock on effect - even if the UK unilaterally went against that ruling, why would a manufacturer make lamps only for the UK market now that their much larger European market has gone?

We used to be able to buy PAR38 lamps for our houselights (for example) from the usual lighting suppliers, they were manufactured by the likes of Sylvania, and lasted a couple of years. Now we have to search around for whatever thin pickings we can find (manufacturer names we've never heard of) and typically in the same application they last a couple of months if we're lucky, and we've had some catastrophic failures which we never had before.