Opinions on Cheap LED Lights, Please.
- Thread starterStevens R. Miller
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GreyWyvern
Well-Known Member
In the picture, note the mark between FCC and RoHS. Look at it carefully and you'll notice there is a space - C E and not CE. That simply means China Export. Don't get fooled into thinking they are CE tested and marked. They are not. They make it look as close as they can. A dirty Chinese manufacturing trick.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.
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).
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). 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?
View attachment 15523
Stevens R. Miller
Well-Known Member
That might be a bit harsh. I'm not going take it for granted that all Chinese businesses are corrupt. As it happens, that CE symbol is an exact match for the authentic logo, which does have a significant space between the letters. I copied (what I am pretty sure is) an official version, then edge-detected my picture and overlaid the edge in red on the official version. Here's what I got:
Note that, not only is the spacing correct, the horizontal line of the "E" is truncated to the left of the center of its defining circle, which is also a characteristic of the official version.
Googling this topic produces a lot of material (like this page) suggesting that the "China Export" interpretation is more legend than fact. Of course, Googling often produces more legend than fact as well, but one has to ask: if the company were going to fake it, why not get it right (which, as you can see from my picture above, they are, whether it's a fake or not)? Also, as I noted above, this manufacturer actually has bothered to obtain a verifiable UL listing for other products that need it.
Not saying you're wrong on this, Dave, but I don't want to jump to any conclusions just because the vendor is Chinese. I mean, so much of the things we have in our homes (and on our stages) is made in China, that if we just assumed that every Chinese claim about quality was a lie, that would mean we are voluntarily surrounding ourselves with stuff that we don't know is safe. No reason to single out this vendor for that accusation instead of all the others, eh?
Chris Pflieger
Well-Known Member
Whether it's Chinese Export or it's just a fake Conformité Européene, it's still not vaild. At the end of the day, the mark gets you close, but you still have to consider the manufacturer and if they are trustworthy. If you're putting illegal compliance marks on, what's the penalty? Close down, move across the street, and start over. It's a wild west frontier in those parts of China. Furthermore, from the limited work I've done in compliance engineering, certification isn't a guarantee of safety and in no way is any statement on reliability.
UL: "Does it start a fire? Will it electrocute someone?"
Me: "No."
UL: "Good. We don't care if it doesn't work or if all the electronics blow up inside the cabinet."
Looking around my home, I see some Chinese branded cheap little speakers, clock, and a few other small things. The bigger things - all name branded meaning there's company (with a reputation to protect) with a QC department that ensures they meet a higher standard.
Chauvet manufactures their lights in China, but there's an American engineering team that ensures they meet a level of quality. The result is I trust my Chauvet gear hanging over the stage, I don't trust the cheapo Chinese brand lights I have for in-house testing at work.
And that brings me to my next point, if my cheap Chinese mouse fails, well, I can get another or I can use my touchpad. Either way, it's not critical. My lights hanging over my stage are critical.
If that cheap speaker at home goes POP!, the absolute worst it could do is burn down my house. But in a large theatre... Same reason I run romex at home and EMT conduit in a commercial space.
Of course, none of this is saying you can't buy a Chinese brand light, budgets are budgets, and a trade study may point you in a different direction than others with a higher budget. For you, the risk of failure, poor output & CRI, and reduced longevity may be outweighed by the need for more light per $.
UL: "Does it start a fire? Will it electrocute someone?"
Me: "No."
UL: "Good. We don't care if it doesn't work or if all the electronics blow up inside the cabinet."
Looking around my home, I see some Chinese branded cheap little speakers, clock, and a few other small things. The bigger things - all name branded meaning there's company (with a reputation to protect) with a QC department that ensures they meet a higher standard.
Chauvet manufactures their lights in China, but there's an American engineering team that ensures they meet a level of quality. The result is I trust my Chauvet gear hanging over the stage, I don't trust the cheapo Chinese brand lights I have for in-house testing at work.
And that brings me to my next point, if my cheap Chinese mouse fails, well, I can get another or I can use my touchpad. Either way, it's not critical. My lights hanging over my stage are critical.
If that cheap speaker at home goes POP!, the absolute worst it could do is burn down my house. But in a large theatre... Same reason I run romex at home and EMT conduit in a commercial space.
Of course, none of this is saying you can't buy a Chinese brand light, budgets are budgets, and a trade study may point you in a different direction than others with a higher budget. For you, the risk of failure, poor output & CRI, and reduced longevity may be outweighed by the need for more light per $.
GreyWyvern
Well-Known Member
Doh! I had it backwards. Space is correct, no space is not. I've always been told that if it is truly a Chinese brand light, not just something built in China for an American company, eg: Chauvet, the chance that the CE mark is legit is almost none. They are looking to make an easy buck by mass producing something at as low a cost as possible. They aren't going to spend money to certify something. It may be wrong, but I think the accepted thinking is that if it is a chinese product, disregard any CE mark that might be on it. You get what you pay for.
Stevens R. Miller
Well-Known Member
Agreed. Just assuming things, one way or the other, gets me nowhere. Getting reliable info is a challenge, as even respected manufacturers have been exposed for misconduct from time to time.
At some point, one does have to make a choice and, alas, even choosing to spend significant money ultimately does not absolutely guarantee anything (other than a big invoice). We had a bulb, for example, from a reliable source, just pop in the middle of a show. The lamp housing contained it, but it might otherwise have sprinkled glass on my audience. No amount of quality control stopped that.
I'm no master electrician, but I can tell a bad wiring job when I see one. Gathering all the available info (the manufacturer's claims, reviews of the product, longevity in the marketplace, the experiences of colleagues, etc.) and then just inspecting the thing myself is about the best I can do and, usually, that's good enough.
Stevens R. Miller
Well-Known Member
This discussion got me curious, so I spent a few minutes wandering around my house, looking at everything that might have a "CE" symbol on it. With my newly minted expertise, I was able to recognize about one-third of them as not meeting the double-circle, short-stemmed "E," specification. Interestingly, some of the out-of-spec versions were on products bearing the names of some pretty established vendors (not going to name them, for obvious reasons).
Wondering if others see the same thing in their homes...
Wondering if others see the same thing in their homes...
Chris Pflieger
Well-Known Member
Yeah, it's amazing what you see when you know what to look for.
You've now taken the red pill, welcome to life outside The Matrix.
Stevens R. Miller
Well-Known Member
I prefer to think I've taken my first step into a larger world
.
JerseyMatt
Member
@Stevens R. Miller Most of the 6 or 8 packs with two line cords power ALL of their internal control electronics from one input power cord, usually the cord powering the lower numbered dimmers, which equates to two points: 1; As @JerseyMatt pointed out, both halves of the pack MUST be powered from the same phase AND 2; If you lose power on the first line cord, the entire pack goes down due to losing power for its internal control electronics.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
JerseyMatt
Member
IIRC it has to do with the dimmer's zero crossing detector circuit. The zero crossings (where the sine wave hits 0V twice per cycle) are different on different phases of a 3-phase system. It might work with circuits on opposite legs of a split-phase system, depending on how the dimmer is designed (since the wave peaks and zero crossings are 180 degrees apart), but in a 3 phase system (which is what you'd have in pretty much any venue) the peaks and ZCs are going to be 120 degrees apart between circuits on any two phases - which would screw up the dimmer's ability to accurately detect the wave angle and therefore it wouldn't be able to dim both halves accurately.
This is from the Chauvet Pro D6 manual..
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@danTt @JerseyMatt At Dan, across multiple duplexes, yes. Across multiple duplexes on a single phase 120 / 240 service, maybe. Across multiple phases on a three phase 120 / 208 service: No way. You've got more than one of us you'd need to explain that to.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
EdSavoie
Well-Known Member
Being an owner of three El-cheapo moving heads, I don't mind what these can achieve on a budget.
That being said, I would never trust these somewhere where they can't be very quickly [powered off / extinguished] in the event of something dramatic occurring. To buy these for a school is a very bad idea simply because these lamps are too much of an unknown variable. I would have left my lights behind for the school to use, but I won't do it because the likelihood of a future student completely trusting these units. If they trust the little things, they might leave them plugged in overnight or *god forbid* running the already questionable power supplies off of a dimmed circuit, then raising the pipe up into the air.
I managed to snag some pretty solid units where the physical and electrical construction is quite good and actually using brand name components. (If i remember correctly, the 10W units use Cree emitters, and my 30W light uses a Phillips RGBW chip.)
That being said, the quality of these can be... varied.
That being said, I would never trust these somewhere where they can't be very quickly [powered off / extinguished] in the event of something dramatic occurring. To buy these for a school is a very bad idea simply because these lamps are too much of an unknown variable. I would have left my lights behind for the school to use, but I won't do it because the likelihood of a future student completely trusting these units. If they trust the little things, they might leave them plugged in overnight or *god forbid* running the already questionable power supplies off of a dimmed circuit, then raising the pipe up into the air.
I managed to snag some pretty solid units where the physical and electrical construction is quite good and actually using brand name components. (If i remember correctly, the 10W units use Cree emitters, and my 30W light uses a Phillips RGBW chip.)
That being said, the quality of these can be... varied.
microstar
Well-Known Member
This from the Lightronics AS-62D manual:
"The AS-62D is a compact 4 channel light dimmer. It has a maximum capacity of 1200 Watts per channel and maximum total load capacity of 4800 Watts. It is supplied with 2 input power cord stubs which may be connected to 2 different 120 VAC power phases. The AS-62D is intended for INDOOR USE ONLY. The unit operates using the USITT DMX-512 protocol or an industry standard three wire multiplex protocol. The AS-62D may be operated in a relay (non-dim) mode. The unit will also function as a chaser and has several preset chase patterns which may be used."
Chris Pflieger
Well-Known Member
Stevens R. Miller
Well-Known Member
We've drifted a bit from the original topic (*gasp!*), but into a valuable, related area. This has me curious about something else: My ADJ dimmer pack has four outlets (well, eight, actually, in four parallel pairs) and an overall limit of 15A. That's fine, but it also has a per-outlet limit of 5A. We use a lot of 1,000W bulbs. Are there any dimmers in the same price-range ($100-$150) that can provide the current I need for a kilowatt instrument? I'd be happy to have be a two-channel or even a single-channel pack. Being limited to 5A is a bigger drawback than not having four channels would be.
Stevens R. Miller
Well-Known Member
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