Automated Fixtures Neo-Neon Mach 5 Moving head review

[Pie4Weebl]

With a little prodding by Gafftaper here is my quick impression of the new Neo-Neon Mach 5 Moving Spot

Run down of features:
- Lamp: 575W MSR-575/DE Discharge lamp.
- Shutter: 2 blade shutter for blackout, strobe effects from 1-7 f.p.s. and dimming
- Colours: 11 Dichroic colours plus white, with variable speed Rainbow effect
- Gobos: 6 indexable, interchangeable, bi-directionally rotating gobos plus open.
Gobo wheel can scroll at variable speeds
- Prism: 1 static 3 facet prism
- Focus: DMX controlled focus
- Zoom: DMX controlled stepped zoom 14º and 18º
- Pan: 570º movement, 8 or 16 bit control
- Tilt: 270º movement, 8 or 16 bit control
- Control: DMX512 – 12 or 14 channels
- Automatic positional self correction
- Remote fixture reset via DMX
- Lamp on/off via DMX


So this unit showed up in the shop a few weeks ago and I was told to test it and put it through its rigors. While I will not be opting for these over VL-2500's any time soon they are a great fixture.

The whole unit occupies about the same space amount of space as most 250 watt fixtures but boasts a superb output with its 575 watt lamp. Gobos are clear and crisp with two lense positions, narrow and wide, to provide some variety. The fixture has a prism but it is not rotatable.

I like having all 11 colors on one wheel for making programming easier, and the selection of colors was good. Stock gobos were excellent and not the typical crap ones I was expecting from it. A pleasant surprise was the fact that they were both indexable and rotating.

All in all I was pleased with the fixture, it did not feel like it would fall apart and it had a strong feature set. The hands down thing that sets it apart from the rest of the pack is the price, I would suggest talking to a dealer like bill to find out what they are going for.

 

[gafftaper]

Thanks Pie! How sturdy does it feel? While I'm not wanting to take them on a road tour, some of this low end stuff would make me nervous to even hang it over someone's head. Anything about it's overall construction concern you?

 

[LightStud]

Was a fixture personality readily available for any console? Was the documentation complete and accurate? Any oddities in the operation? How smooth, and accurate, were the pan and tilt movements? How fast? How many MSpeed channels? Was the lamp difficult to optimize? What was the dimming curve? Having 11 fixed dichroic colors (replaceable?) would seem to limit this fixture for theatrical use, yes/no? (All colors on one wheel may make for faster programming, but eliminates the possibility of additional colors via subtractive mixing.) What size are the gobos, and what were they? Unit weight? Type of hanging hardware? Safety cable and dedicated point?

It appears as though this unit would not compare favorably to a (for example) used Martin MAC500, possibly for around the same price.

 

[BillESC]

It seems the going street price for a Martin Mac 500 is in the high 6K range. For that kind of money you could own about four and a half of the Mech 5's

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Alright, to respond to questions:
As far as the construction goes, it felt sturdy, if there was a truss about my foh riser I would not feel uncomfortable having these hanging above my head.

Fixture personalities obviously don't exist already on light boards as this light just came out, but I am sure people will put them online pretty quickly.

I was not there for the unboxing so I am not aware of the quality or existence of documentation. The light had a dmx chart on it which I used for quick programming.

I think it had one or two mspeed channels, I never use those so I did not pay much attention.

Lamp was optimized fine when we unboxed it so I did not have to mess with it. I assume it works the same as any other ML.

Dimmer curve seemed fine, but honestly I did not pay much attention as it is not an important feature to me, same with color mixing on two wheels, I won't miss it for what I do. Personally I would not purchase any fixture that does not have cmy for theatrical use, but that is just me. I don't remember the specifics of the gobos, but there were lots of good textures and avoided tacky things like the line of dots gobo which is oh-so-popular with AMDJ. The thing weighed about 50ish pounds, pretty solid for how small the thing is.

As for comparing it to a mac 500... given the option of either, I would go for four of these any day over one 10 year old mac.

 

[SerraAva]

How about vs a Mac 550 or Mac 575 Krypton? Both of those street between 5k-6.5k.

Next question would be how is it compared to a Power Spot 575? They street for about 2k, with the IEs going for about 3k. Feature wise, it is very comparable between those two lights. A Design Spot 575, streets for 4k, has features that are more comparable to a Mac 700 for less then half the price, though less powerful lamp. So it wouldn't be a good comparison to the Mach 5.

Abuse wise, the Power Spot 575s that I have are 3 years old now and have seen quite a bit of use and tossing around. Still nothing that has failed yet on them. They also work just like they did when they were new. Looking to probably get rid of them soon though for Design Spot 575s.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Its been a long time since I have used a mac 550 and I've never seen a 575 in action. Just looking at the spec sheets they win with a motorized zoom, while the mach 5 just has two potions. If they were the same price I would go for the mac, but you got to consider the price difference in there, because it is major.... I've never used a powerspot but I assume they are comparable fixtures, the mach hedging on price.

 

[SixStylez]

NOOBish question... You say the Mach 5 has a discharge lamp? Everywhere I see it has an HMI lamp, though it describes it as discharge. I was under the impression that HMI was halogen style bulbs, and MSR/MSD were discharge. Cleary I'm incorrect. Could you please let me know where the differences lie between HMI and MSR/MSD, as far as brightness and color temp wise? I've been eyeing these puppies for a while now!!!

BTW, this is my first post on this forum and I would just like to say thank you to all of you who help out so much! I have read many of your posts on many different forums and the amount of money I have saved through A/B's and on hand experience and opinions is countless!!! THANK YOU

 

[avkid]

HMI is a discharge lamp.
The Wikipedia entry is quite detailed in fact.
Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide lamp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[SixStylez]

Alternative perhaps???

Thanks! I actually already looked at that page and did a search for MSD, but didn't realize it talked about MSR which is the same thing right? The msd's are usually the 250 vs the MSR's being 500?

I am literally a week away from purchasing these lights and now the new ADJ VIZIO R5 is coming out! What are your thoughts? I saw some shootout out on the adj forums and it looks to have a much better temp than their 575 even!
A moving head Shoot out. - Topic Powered by Social Strata
With virtually no hot spots! They are supposed to be released some time in feb and would love to be able to demo these before I buy... Seems kinda fishy that there could be such an obvious winner of the shootout, right before they were released to the public. (photoshop?) Anyway, if anyone can say any hands on exp or maybe saw them at LDI, I would love to know your thoughts!

 

[photoatdv]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

Hey Bill, what's the street for the Neo-Neon SLR-6024 and 6018? Just looking for a rough estimate.

Thanks!

 

[BillESC]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

Hey Bill, what's the street for the Neo-Neon SLR-6024 and 6018? Just looking for a rough estimate.

Thanks!

There are two SRL-6024 and three SRL-6018.

SRL-6018 - LEDBANK8:
576 .5w LED - MAP $ 519.95

SRL-6018S - LEDBANK8 PRO:
96 1w LED - MAP $ 799.95

SRL-6018S-3W
96 3w LED - MAP $ 1099.95

SRL-6024 - 216 .5w LED - MAP $ 469.95

SRL-6024S - 96 1w LED - MAP $ 949.95

All of the above are RGB with an equal distribution of the diodes.

Since you're looking at wash fixtures, the 420BI features sixty 1 or 3w diodes with twelve each RGBAW. Map on the 1w is $ 699.00 and on the 3w is $ 999.00

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

Thanks! I actually already looked at that page and did a search for MSD, but didn't realize it talked about MSR which is the same thing right? The msd's are usually the 250 vs the MSR's being 500?

I am literally a week away from purchasing these lights and now the new ADJ VIZIO R5 is coming out! What are your thoughts? I saw some shootout out on the adj forums and it looks to have a much better temp than their 575 even!
A moving head Shoot out. - Topic Powered by Social Strata
With virtually no hot spots! They are supposed to be released some time in feb and would love to be able to demo these before I buy... Seems kinda fishy that there could be such an obvious winner of the shootout, right before they were released to the public. (photoshop?) Anyway, if anyone can say any hands on exp or maybe saw them at LDI, I would love to know your thoughts!

Aww its so cute, you think ADJ shows stuff at LDI. ADJ products are toys, if you want something for your DJ rig its okay, if you want a real light, get something else.

 

[SixStylez]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

Aww its so cute, you think ADJ shows stuff at LDI. ADJ products are toys, if you want something for your DJ rig its okay, if you want a real light, get something else.

American DJ at LDI

I realize they are nothing compared to some of the higher end models, although I shutter at even spending the money on a Mac for similar output. I'm actually involved in a band that plays entirely to tracks with software controlling the light show. So some of the "pro" features are not as important to me as bright ass rotating colors cutting through my washes giving the "rock show" effect.

Without trying to hijack this thread, this thread is about an irradiant product. I've OFTEN heard them compared to adj/chauvet. I had 12 of the irradiant par 64 PRO led's and was very pleased with them. Just trying to get the most output out of a (with proper care) reliable moving head. And with all the weddings/corporate shows we do in not-so-thought-out power situations, this new R5 bulb seems to be a promising start, until LED's get there. I know it's easy to say buy bigger, but any pro advice I can get on my budget is always appreciated. Though I would like to keep the power consumption low, would you recommend spending about the same amount of money and get 4 of the irradiants over 4 of these new vizi's?

thanks guys!

 

[fx120]

MAP on the Mech 5 is $1199.95 without a case.

 

[icewolf08]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

I realize they are nothing compared to some of the higher end models, although I shutter at even spending the money on a Mac for similar output. I'm actually involved in a band that plays entirely to tracks with software controlling the light show. So some of the "pro" features are not as important to me as bright ass rotating colors cutting through my washes giving the "rock show" effect.

Just to clarify, a photo like this is hardly a fair comparison of fixture intensity:

Why? Because a camera cannot see even close to the same dynamic range as the human eye. The difference in on the order of over 1000 times narrower dynamic range for the camera. If you couple that with the fact that the image was taken with an iPhone 3G(S) (how do I know? I looked at the EXIF data embedded in the photo) which has no exposure control at all, this photo really shows a whole lot of nothing. A photographer with any decent camera could actually take the photo and make any one of those spots appear the brightest without doing anything to the image on a computer.

Also, the camera has to make a choice about white balance so it is going to pick one section of the image and call that white. In an image like this one it picked the circle second from the left. This unit obviously had a slightly warmer color temp compared to most of the others as they appear blue in the image. This is again something that may be a lot less noticeable in person to the human eye.

Then there is the comment about hot spots. Hots spots are due to bad bench focusing. I have not worked with any ADJ fixtures, but if they don't allow you bench focus the fixture then that moves them even further down my list. You should be able to get a flat field by benching the units.

As far as Neo-Neon goes, we have a few people here who use some of their fixtures and I believe that BillESC is a dealer. generally it has sounded like people are happy with them, but many of us still question how good they are with service and support. This is the biggest thing about choosing a well known manufacturer, you will be able to go almost anywhere in the world and have a Martin fixture serviced, probably not so with a Neo-Neon fixture.

 

[SixStylez]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

Gotcha. So given it's a useless pic, how would you determine to choose the head with the best output? Are the lumen measurements that come with the specs accurate or dare i say honest? My feature list that I would like only contains seperate color and gobo wheels, rotating gobos, 3 facet prism, and BRIGHTNESS. Zoom and frost would be GREAT but aren't necessary. Power can be a bit of an issue but I don't want to waste my money on something that won't have the output. I can just change the bands rider if need to demand more power. To give you an idea I'm running 8 - 36x3 watt leds, and a couple elation tri-led, back lighting and side lighting all trussed at about 10-15 ft. As this is all very new to me and I cannot get a dealer to give me a simlar wash to demo some movers in, how much power do you think I'm looking for. i.e. complete red wash and not just white cutting through but some colors too!

Also, I seem to remember when I got those irradiants, talking to someone in an american HQ in Chicago? Does anyone know (Billesc?) if that is just the sales HQ or if they may to repairs there also?

Thanks for all your advice guys!

 

[SixStylez]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

Just thought it would please all of you to know... I went ahead and got 4 Mac 250 Kryptons... Thanks for being hard asses on me, they are awesome!!!

 

[BillESC]

Re: Alternative perhaps???

I just received this picture from a client of mine who has a contract with Mc Donalds Corporation.

This is a custom gobo from Apollo fitted in an Irradiant Mech 5. The wall is 115' from the fixture.

 

[SixStylez]

Very impressive!