Opinions on Cheap LED Lights, Please.

I have 16 of the cheap Chinese eyourlites from amazon. they are cheap Chinese crap. that said I have used them on some 20 shows. the low end of the dimming curve sucks. 1% to 0 % is a snap off. not pretty but functional. failure rates are much higher then name brand. I help a school by 32 units and had to have 4 replaced. Now they have 32 working lights, been working for 3 years for $1400 including c clamps dmx and safety cables. You can spend $30,000 on a ETC rig. now the ETC rig will give you better dimming, more consistent color mixing and much better reliability. If you have 30k to spend. the cheap lights do not travel well.
I have repaired mime several times they are cheap plastic Chinese lights that cost 40 ea.

It depends on your comfort level, but the amazon lights can get you thru if needed.

most are 25 deg lights I have taped white tshirt bags a diffusion for short throw standard frost does not help much
 
After following your posts, I wish to nominate you for sainthood. Why you haven't run away from this school is a testament...
Heh, thanks. I actually love dealing with the challenges these shows tend to present, but this is more like being asked to change a tire with a broken jack. We're all going to tough it out to the end of the run, but all three of us on the lighting crew have already told each other we'll decline any future requests to work in this particular school. Heck, if they'll listen to us, we're going to encourage the company never to ask to use this school again.

The big problem is that the middle schools have no one on staff who uses this equipment in their teaching, so no one has any incentive to maintain it. But, I heard a rumor that one middle school in the county does have a drama teacher. If I were to bet, I'd bet the lights in that school work. That's a lead I'm going to pursue just as soon as this show wraps.
 
We looked into that, but then it dawned on us that we have to plug these packs into ordinary wall outlets, and those only have 20A breakers. I'm guessing that 15A per-pack limit is about it, as some of that 20A is getting lost as heat in the pack. Shopping on Amazon fails to find me one that will do more than 15A total, 5A per channel.

The packs capable of higher wattage have two AC cords for getting power from two separate circuits:
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The packs capable of higher wattage have two AC cords for getting power from two separate circuits:
View attachment 15481
Hey, thanks for the link! I didn't know about that one. (But, yeesh, $500?)

In an environment where we either know which circuits are on different breakers, or can get to the breaker box, that's going to be good thing to know about. Wherever the breaker box is in this middle school, I'm sure it's behind a locked door I'd be told I'm not allowed to open.
 
About 3 years ago, the LD at the small community theatre near my house purchased about $2000 of these cheap Chinese PARS. He ordered 45 of them. I unboxed them and set them up. Three didn't work right out of the box. Of those remaining, 20 failed before the end of the show run, about a month. They started dropping whole groups of pixels. The fans were very poor quality and noisy, if they worked at all. Fast forward to today, none of the fixtures are 100%. They all have issues. Money down the drain IMHO.

I can't advise Chinese LED PARS for anything beyond home use. For community theatres with a limited budget, I'd recommend Chauvet LED.
 
I asked this in another topic, but I want to make it a subject on its own: Are the cheap LED lights sold by Amazon and other outlets at all usable?

For example, I am assuming that theatrical professionals would see something like these lights as pure junk. But my context is not professional. I am trying to light a community theater musical being done in a local middle school and the school system's built-in lighting system (which was never that great to begin with) has suddenly and completely failed. The school bureaucracy is impenetrable and won't get the lights repaired until long after our show closes (if ever).

We have a few lights of our own, our own cables for power and DMX, and a computer with QLC+ and an Enttec OpenDMX. But we need more lights. We are on a microscopic budget ($300 is about it). If we buy a few of these crummy LED lights and get Amazon to ship them via overnight delivery, we can hang them in time to open. But I have never used any lights of this kind.

Do they work? And I mean do they work at all? We don't need long-lasting, professional stuff. We only need lights we can dim with our DMX software that actually illuminate the stage below them.

Thanks for your thoughts on this!
Stevens, as a lighting supplier, I understand your situation and you must do what you have to do. In the end you will get what you pay for. The biggest downsides will probably be a lousy dimming curve and color rendering. You will not get deep blues and the white may or may not be what you want to see. I doubt they have UL or even CE listings, so in the worst case scenario, if one should start a fire, you insurance company will look the other way. Will they work? Probably. For how long? Hopefully long enough for you to raise funds for more reliable fixtures. It was roughly 130 years from the invention of the incandescent lamp until the first Philips A19 LED hit the shelves in 2012. We are only 5 years into this LED revolution so we have plenty of developments to see yet. Unfortunately, many Chinese appliance makers are now introducing LED fixtures by copying designs from those who did all the research. I doubt they use LM-80 standards for testing and again, won't pay for UL or CE listings. Your best bet is to stick with the manufactures who have done the development and testing, but of course, you have to pay for that. I understand your budget restraints but my recommendation is to avoid Amazon and buy from a reputable theatrical supplier. We have access to all budget levels and know which ones you can trust to work. With the lack of history in LED products for now, any purchase contains a certain leap of faith in hoping the manufacturer has done the right testings and certifications. And of course, don't wait until the last minute. Remember the Truman triangle. You can have 2 of the following but not all 3, so choose which 2 you want. QUALITY - CHEAP - QUICK
 
I can't advise Chinese LED PARS for anything beyond home use. For community theatres with a limited budget, I'd recommend Chauvet LED.

Some of the very lowest priced Chauvets look attractive. I wish the vendors would make it easy to find out the lumens these things put out. Just knowing how much wattage it dissipates isn't enough.

Amusingly, when I ordering the six Coidak (is that even really a brand?) lights, I also ordered six Chauvet clamps (monstrous overkill, as the clamps will hold a 50 lbs instrument, and the Coidaks weigh about a pound) and, of the twelve items, the only one to arrive broken was one of the Chauvet clamps.

This one might work for us, as it seems very similar to the ones we bought. Twice the price and half the watts (whatever that implies for actual light), but it is a Chauvet.

Now, the picture shows an unlabeled, threaded jack with four pins. But the 360-degree image shows an otherwise identical instrument without that jack. Any idea what that is?
 
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I asked this in another topic, but I want to make it a subject on its own: Are the cheap LED lights sold by Amazon and other outlets at all usable?

For example, I am assuming that theatrical professionals would see something like these lights as pure junk. But my context is not professional. I am trying to light a community theater musical being done in a local middle school and the school system's built-in lighting system (which was never that great to begin with) has suddenly and completely failed. The school bureaucracy is impenetrable and won't get the lights repaired until long after our show closes (if ever).

We have a few lights of our own, our own cables for power and DMX, and a computer with QLC+ and an Enttec OpenDMX. But we need more lights. We are on a microscopic budget ($300 is about it). If we buy a few of these crummy LED lights and get Amazon to ship them via overnight delivery, we can hang them in time to open. But I have never used any lights of this kind.

Do they work? And I mean do they work at all? We don't need long-lasting, professional stuff. We only need lights we can dim with our DMX software that actually illuminate the stage below them.

Thanks for your thoughts on this!


i always suggest renting LED's and Movers for small shows. generally what you buy on line ( cheap ) is going to have issues. In the world of LED - you get what you pay for. I go by the manufacturer - ETC,Elation, Chauvet, phillips are all reliable. i urge you not to waste your money buying cheap ones on line - cant tell you how many calls we get with buyers remorse and asking if anything can be dome to " make them brighter, or not flicker, or not click on and off ". spend the money on a rental.
 
Interesting; it's not mentioned in the manual either. I'm sure @Ford or @Ben Dickmann will tell us for sure, but I'm guessing the picture is of a prototype unit, and the 4-pin DIN is for programming/updated the fixture's firmware/software.

That's an old picture actually and the dealer hasn't updated it, the 360 spin is correct. The 4-pin jack was from an old system we used to have called "Satellite" where that attached to a battery pack to make the fixture battery op. It was a bit big and clunky (like 8 years ago), so the tech wasn't there like it is now for battery op products.

<soapbox> BTW - We at Chauvet always list Lux in our specs. With lux, you know the amount of light being delivered and you can verify the number with almost any light meter. I personally am on an "anti-lumens" platform, because that measurement can be very misleading when you are dealing with fixtures with multiple optics. I can show you comparable fixtures that the lower lumen output unit blows the doors off the higher lumen output unit in viewed brightness because the optics are better. Plus, unless you own a $40,000 goniophotmeter you can't independently verify what the MFG is claiming, which in some cases (since we have access to one of these), we know are flat out lies. IES files are easily manipulated...We list lumens on our Ovation Series fixtures and have it available on most of our Colorado and Colordash, just ask and I can provide it if it is that important. </soapbox>
 
The biggest downsides will probably be a lousy dimming curve and color rendering.

I can confirm both of these. At the low end, the curve gets very quantized. With all LEDs at full, it has a decidedly magenta tone. The latter can be corrected with a bit of tweaking on the individual channels, but only to a degree.

I doubt they have UL or even CE listings

The box has an "FCC CE RoHS" sticker on it, but what's a sticker prove? CE is self-certified, I think. No sign that they sought UL approval, but even Chauvet doesn't seem to do that (that is, Chauvet says on their Web site that their SlimPAR 56 has CE "approval," but they don't mention UL and Chauvet is not listed at the UL certification site).

And of course, don't wait until the last minute.

For anything electronic, when the community theater companies I am working with draw up the schedule for a production, in the column labeled, "Date," they write "The Last Minute." In this particular fiasco, I forgive them. Who would have expected the entire in-house lighting system to go bad during tech week?

Looking at Coidak's Web site, it is interesting to see that they do claim FCC and CE compliance for this product. They also say they have a two-year warranty. For other products, they actually have obtained UL listing (one must drill down a bit on the UL verification site to confirm this, as they obtained it under the name "SHENZHEN SHENGHUACHENG," but that does appear in UL's database).

I hear what you say about getting mixed up in new technologies. In a number of fields, though, I am observing that recent developments are making it possible for small groups and even individuals to do things it used to take a large enterprise to accomplish. Video production, for example, can be done by one person with an affordable camera and a computer, and yield a result only professionals could have achieved a decade or two ago. Heck, my iPhone takes better video than anything that ever recorded to tape or relied on NTSC, and that's a pretty recent development too. My hand-held amateur radio is another Chinese product that works a qualified miracle. My Baofeng UV-5R cost about $30, but it does more than my Yaesu hand-held ever did at ten times that price. (The UV-5R can also be configured to communicate with the far more expensive Motorola radios some theater companies use, but doing so would probably violate FCC regs, so I wouldn't advise that.)

I find that the key to success in risking money on dubious Chinese stuff is in diversification. I would never spend $300 on one instrument, but we got six of them and could get by on five. That's about the failure rate I notice for this sort of thing. That is, my rule of thumb is to expect 20% of my Chinese cheapies to fail, so I buy a sixth one for every five (yes, yes, that sixth one should go into the math as well; it's just a rule of thumb, after all :grin: ). Same with the UV-5R. We needed two (one for me, one for my wife), so we bought three at the same time. So, we have a spare, and two in-service radios that perform very well, all for much less than a name-brand radio would have cost.

Here's the label, btw. What's the little house mean?

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We at Chauvet always list Lux in our specs.

Yes you do! I see that at your site, so I shouldn't have blamed you for an omission by a vendor. That kind of thing is much appreciated by those of us with little direct experience. Making choices can be very hard when specs don't include that sort of thing. I got quite the education here about that with respect to audio power, where, again, watts are not really a helpful parameter.
 
i always suggest renting LED's and Movers for small shows.

This is something I have had a little experience with, almost all of it bad. We rented a lot of theater gear for a show recently. None of it was lighting, but it came from a local supplier that does sound and light rentals. In particular, we rented a number of name-brand wireless microphones. Several had unreliable connections from the headset to the body-pack. I was quite surprised that they had left the shop in that condition. But when I asked for guidance here, the consensus on CB was that repairs are done when customers complain, because the rental companies don't have the time to test everything when it comes back in. When I did complain, the company offered to replace it, but I had to go their shop or else pay a delivery fee.

When I rent something, I expect it to work and, if it isn't working, I expect a replacement as part of the rental cost. Apparently, I expect too much :lol: .
 
And thanks for paticipating in this discussion, that is much appreciated.

Have I missed any UL listings for Chauvet? Wouldn't want to make a mistake about that.

You are correct that you won’t find Chauvet on the UL site. Within the Chauvet Professional Brand and the DJ brand, everything is CE tested and certified. Certificates are available upon request. On the Pro side, we also use MET (another NRTL like ETL and UL) to test and certify to the applicable UL standards. Again, certificates are available on request. By law, MET and ETL certificates must be accepted in the same way UL is in the same standards.
 
As to the UL Listing... It depends on the product.
UL is actually one specific lab... Underwriters Laboratory. The standard was developed by them, but the testing can be done by any NRTL (Nationally Recognized Testing Lab). There are a handful of NRTLs, the most common being MET (the first independent lab to get the degsignation... in the 1970s, I think), Intertek (their certs carry the ETLc mark), and TUV (often used for structural testing, though they can do some electronic testing). The important thing is that they are a NRTL, and that the proper standards are tested. For Stage an Studio lighting, the US standard is UL1573. In Canada, it is CSA 22.2 No.166.
I served on the Standards Committee that revised the latest CSA 22.2 No.166.
I highly recommend serving on a standards committee (ESTA always needs participants) if you're really looking to expand your mind. It can be incredibly interesting...

For CE, there are two components, the LVD, and the EMC.
There are 4 separate EMC standards that we test to, and 2 LVD standards.
These are all done at independent labs, so that we have no undue influence.
Although there used to be a "self certification", this doesn't really exist anymore. you need to use a certified lab to get a certification, and the right to mark.
However, some EU member states also require the manufacturer to present a document that says in effect "although I have independendent certifications, I also certify that I have done additional diligence in testing and verifying that these products meet the CE Standards in question".

In the Chauvet Professional line pretty much every lighting fixture has been tested to the UL and CSA standards. We typically use MET or Intertek (ETLc) for our lab, purely because we have a great relationship with them, and their engineers. it typically takes anywhere from a month to two months to get through the testing, and revisions required, and can cost several thousand dollars.

If you want to hear this in more detail, buy me a drink (or several) at LDI... I can go on for hours about this.
 
As to the UL Listing... It depends on the product.
Thank you (and Ben) for this extra detailed info. I learn so much here.
I highly recommend serving on a standards committee (ESTA always needs participants) if you're really looking to expand your mind. It can be incredibly interesting...
Uh... yeah. I put in some years on Loudoun County's Zoning Ordinance Review Committee a little over a decade ago. Trying to codify standards is harder than I expected. I would definitely agree that doing so affects the mind. In my case, it ended up leading to a run for public office which means I made a lot of friends who just won elections here in Virginia last night. That's kind of mind-blowing too. On the whole, though, if one is looking for personal enrichment, today I would recommend theater over politics. There's much less drama.

If you want to hear this in more detail, buy me a drink (or several) at LDI... I can go on for hours about this.

You're on!

What's LDI?
 
Congratulations to your friends!

As to LDI... LDI is the largest professional entertainment (lighting mostly, but also some staging and ancillary products...) tradeshow in the US.
The main exhibition floor is open next Friday (the 17th) to the 19th in Las Vegas.
It is where many of the major manufacturers launch new products, and where end users can go to get a close-up look at all of the new gear.
 

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