LED Ground Row

[Footer]

Right now we have double hung cyc electric that covers our cyc rather well. Due to some rigging issues and the way the two pipes that the cyc fixtures hung on were married we are going to a single hung cyc electric. We have never had a ground row... and I don't have the deck circuits or the desire to get these fixtures working on the deck. So, I want to go LED. Cyc is 45' wide, 24' tall. Current fixtures cover the top half nicely. I want a scraper ground row for the bottom. Right now I am looking at Colorado 72's. Anyone used these in this configuration? How did the work? Anyone have any other low profile and rider friendly fixture out there?

 

[SteveB]

Right now we have double hung cyc electric that covers our cyc rather well. Due to some rigging issues and the way the two pipes that the cyc fixtures hung on were married we are going to a single hung cyc electric. We have never had a ground row... and I don't have the deck circuits or the desire to get these fixtures working on the deck. So, I want to go LED. Cyc is 45' wide, 24' tall. Current fixtures cover the top half nicely. I want a scraper ground row for the bottom. Right now I am looking at Colorado 72's. Anyone used these in this configuration? How did the work? Anyone have any other low profile and rider friendly fixture out there?

- 1st question is do you really have enough demand to want to invest in LED's for this application ?. I know I don't see that demand, even though I'd love to have them. And I do see that at about $750 per 4ft strip, it's not a huge cost, but wonder about quality, low end dimming, etc....

- 2nd thought is that how far DS of the cyc will the fixtures sit ?. And will the lensing options on the Colorado's - or Chroma-Q's or Seledor's - which would be my first 2 on the list, allow enough spread ?. Or would an Altman Spectra Cyc 100/200 with it's open face design, be a better choice, or any open face. Seledor probably has the best lenses available in terms of variations in vertical and horizontal options, on a pricy fixture.

 

[JohnD]

What a great time for a shoot-out! The Colorado is not quite 1 meter long, other contenders are 4 ft and 6 foot long. For the money the Philips Showline BAR 660 is close. The units from Chroma-Q, Altman and ETC are about 3 times the price. It would certainly be interesting for someone to get mfr demos of all of these just to see which is the best value.

 

[Bryson]

I've just demoed a number of these types of fixtures for a cyc wash. In terms of price/performance I couldn't find anything to top the Showline SLBar 660/640s, and although I'm not super-keen on the "white" they output, I find it difficult to recommend anything else if the budget matters at all. The Chroma-Qs were probably my second choice.

 

[Lextech]

I have 15 of the Batten 72s and use them quite often in that role (40 foot wide cyc). They are decent for the price with the following exceptions.
a) Since the connectors are on the back they stand a bit taller then I like leading to...
b) They start on the cyc higher then i would like. If you have a hard row in front of them and don't mind starting a bit off the floor, then they are fine.

On the plus side, we bought them in three batches over two years, two different firmware versions, and they all match color wise. They are bright and handle the bottom half of the cyc very well. We also have found other uses for them, as eye candy for our Electronic Music Ensemble, inside a spandex cube and some strange artsy things. For the price, I love them.

Wish list, I would love to be able to find some sort of diffusion to place between the unit and the cyc, we rear project these, to soften the bottom out and maybe get the light lower.

I am sure if you get a hold of Ford he can tell you who to talk to for a demo.

 

[Senorfish]

So far my experience with Colorados has been lots of ghosting, bumping on and off at random times, poor low percentage fades, and confused color responses.

I've used the Altman LED PAR's before and was generally happy with their control and consistancy. Also have used ETC Source 4 LED's and found those to be excellent instruments.

When going with LED's, don't go cheap!

 

[JohnD]

A great thing about having ground rows is you can do spectacular sunrise effects. An advantage of LED strips is that with most of them you can pixel map and have such things as a moving rainbow wash.

 

[Footer]

- 1st question is do you really have enough demand to want to invest in LED's for this application ?. I know I don't see that demand, even though I'd love to have them. And I do see that at about $750 per 4ft strip, it's not a huge cost, but wonder about quality, low end dimming, etc....

- 2nd thought is that how far DS of the cyc will the fixtures sit ?. And will the lensing options on the Colorado's - or Chroma-Q's or Seledor's - which would be my first 2 on the list, allow enough spread ?. Or would an Altman Spectra Cyc 100/200 with it's open face design, be a better choice, or any open face. Seledor probably has the best lenses available in terms of variations in vertical and horizontal options, on a pricy fixture.

We don't have the circuiting, dimming, or fixtures to do a proper ground row.... and then there is the real estate issue with a non "scraper" ground row. Our upstage wall is at 28', so by the time you add cyc and scrim you really lose some real estate.

I'm not sold right now on the Colorado's, just looking for options. You also have to remember how things are purchased around here... a 10-20k buy is rather easy to do especially if we can do it with the eye towards "green" anything and nothing has to be "installed" in the building.

I'm also concerned with how this system will play with the RGBA conventional up top... which I know won't be well. No matter what we do, we will go with a reflector based system up top and a scraper on the deck. Lots of options here at least with a huge price jump in any direction. Our conventionals do still have asbestos on them so that is going to be one of my push points to go LED up top.

 

[James Feenstra]

You would do well with Colorforce 72/48s, and with a 24' throw you'd only need a single row of them (top only vs a top/bottom row)

6 x CF72 and 2x CF48 would give you 44' x 25' of coverage

Happy to arrange a demo if you're interested!

 

[Footer]

You would do well with Colorforce 72/48s, and with a 24' throw you'd only need a single row of them (top only vs a top/bottom row)

6 x CF72 and 2x CF48 would give you 44' x 25' of coverage

Happy to arrange a demo if you're interested!

I might be contacting you about that. The boss is downstairs right now talking about how to spend an extra 5 billion in the state coffers... this sounds like it would be up that alley...

 

[ShaunH]

My venues just recently bought a bunch of the altman spectra cyc LEDS and they are pretty nice, four of them do a nice ground row for a 10x6m cyc,
we got 8 so we can doubly do both top and bottom. saves us so much on gel and rigging time.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Color Forces are pretty killer, they have become my wall light of choice. A ground row only would light your whole cyc fine, I have done taller drapes no problem.

 

[rsmentele]

Elation now has a better LED cyc light offering as well. Colour Chorus, offered in 12,24,48 & 72" versions

For Pics:
http://www.elationlighting.com/Prod...mber=2041&Category=34&txtSearch=Colour Chorus

For Pricing:
http://www.fullcompass.com/search.php?parent=471&search_simple=true&txtAll=Colour+Chorus

~Bob

 

[ElGusto]

I am using the Colorforce 72s right now, and I have to say, they are wonderful! Great dimming curves. and ton of punch. I've been working with them for a year now on a 25' to 28' tall (depending). I use the as border lights at times, and get a great stage wash out of them, too. My only regret is that I don't have more.

 

[petercav17]

+1 for Colorforce 72. No disrespect to Chauvet, but these things blow all the lower end LED's I've ever used out of the water.

 

[SteveB]

Pro-Adv price on a 72" Colorforce is $4200 or so. The ETC Vivid-R 63' is $5000.

The long term advantage I see for the ETC is somewhat better color options in a 7 lamp unit as well as superior lensing options.

When I tested a Lustr 21" unit against my existing MR16 strips using a R125 blue gel, the Lustr blew the MR16 out of the water, with 30% output on the Lustr being the intensity match to the MR16. So I'm not worried about not getting the punch out of a 7 color unit.

 

[Footer]

So, the colorforce with the cyc lens has won out. Might pick up the Chauvet as a ground row anyway to hold us over until funding is approved. 25k for the a full stage run of them. Not too bad really. Really like their coverage. Had an act that carried them a few weeks ago, really blown away with the amount of punch they have.

 

[abctwhite2]

So, the colorforce with the cyc lens has won out. Might pick up the Chauvet as a ground row anyway to hold us over until funding is approved. 25k for the a full stage run of them. Not too bad really. Really like their coverage. Had an act that carried them a few weeks ago, really blown away with the amount of punch they have.

We've just completed a cyc shootout and the Colorforce was the unanimous choice as well. Demo'd the Showline 640 and Altman Spectra Cyc 400 and 200 too. Both had positive reaction but overall the Colorforce is going to give us the best control and versatility I think. Haven't yet looked at the cyc lens options so can anyone tell me about using them? We tried both Tough silk and waxed paper (best!) on the ground from 30 inches away with success in eliminating the black hole at bottom of cyc. Still need to solve the small but persistent dark zone about 15' up on our 26 X 46' visible cyc.