Par Replacement Recommendations

[sc93lx]

Our church is looking to replace aging Altman par-64 1000w fixtures used for stage lighting. We currently use 24 pars to light various areas of the stage plus 4 old Altman ellipsodial and 4 new ETC S4 ellipsodials. The S4's blow everything else away- we instantly fell in love with them.

This weekend we had a super nova experience with on of the pars with glass showering down and the filament and the lens falling burning holes in the carpet. Fortunately no one was seated in the area at the time but was only 15 minutes before the service. The Altman par64 have seen better days, most need new sockets, and have no safety screens.

We want to replace them. We originally considered eventually swapping them over time but the super nova experience has increased the urgency. We are considering more S4 ellipsodials but also are considering the S4 pars or Parnel's. We generally use the lighting as medium washes. Would simply swapping the par-64's for the S4 pars be the best option? We are concerned about light washing on the screens on the left and right sides of the stage. It is an issue currently with the par-64's. The Parnel's appear to give more control and seem to bridge the difference between pars and ellipsodials. Ellipsodials seem to give the best control overall but certainly at a higher cost.

Any other ideas? I've been lurking around for a while and did some searching but nothing that fit our particular situation. Thanks for any recommendations you can give.

 

[JD]

Two thoughts:

For starters, get some 1/4 by 1/4 mesh screen and put it in the gel frames on the pars because any changeover will take a bit of time. Lamp blowouts like that do happen but they are rare. Usually old lamps where the filament has sagged and the quartz tube is blistering. Most just blow up inside the outer glass, but sometimes you get unlucky and the outer glass shatters.

Second thought; Moving to the S4 pars will halve your power consumption (575 vs 1000 per.) In hot climates, the savings double as you will be pumping less heat out of the building with your AC. (Remember, 99% of the power used turns to heat.) Simple "barn doors" or snoots may be able to fix your spill problem. As most of these are wash lights, moving everything to S4 ERSs would waste a lot of cash.

LED spots are not quite "of age" yet, so for now the S4 PARs are your best option.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Source 4 PARs, in my opinion, are you best best for a direct replacement, especially since your current PAR's are lamped at 1000 watts. In general I agree completely with JD. You will definitely want to put top hats on any units you may be concerned about spill on. Two reasons why I wouldn't get Parnels: 1)They have more glass in them, which lessens the light output 2)No need to pay more for an adjustable fixture when you probably aren't swapping your current PAR 64's that often anyway.

The only reason to replace some of the PARs in the plot with Ellipsoidals is if you have constantly found yourself saying "man I wish I could do a shutter cut or project a gobo with this PAR, but I've already used up my stock of ellipsoidals".

Out of curiosity, do you know what beam spread your current PAR 64 lamps are?

 

[SteveB]

Best option might be a Source 4 Par, EA style (Enhanced Aluminum Reflector) with 750 watt lamps. That's punchy enough to well serve as a 1kw PAR64 replacement, as well you get 4 lenses with it for beam options. The fixture runs around $160, no lamp (add $15). If you currently use the 575w lamp in your existing S4's and want to use the same lamp in the S4 Pars, you will see a slight reduction in intensity against the PAR64. The S4 Par MCM version only allows the 575 watt lamp but puts out a lot less heat if that's a current problem.

I would demo one and add a barndoor. The Altman barn doors work OK and allow the gel frame to be installed 3" out in the door, so you get a built in color frame extender, which you might need if you use saturated colors on the 750w S4 Par (I have 60 S4 Par EA's all at 750 watts and use 3" color frame extenders on all of them). The Altman B/D does reduce beam spread a bit when using a wide lens, but that may not matter if you use mediums.

The ParNel is a good unit, just not sure you need the variable beam spread. Barndoors do not work as well on this unit either.

Other then that, the $300 Source 4 fresnel uses the same lamps as the standard fixtures, so a selling point, but like every decent quality fresnel, is expensive. When you add a barn door you get very good flair control though. In truth, if it came to between a fresnel or a standard S4 ellipsoidal, I'd buy the ellipsoidal and add frost.

I would certainly be calling a local dealer and doing a demo of a couple of these types of fixtures.

 

[sc93lx]

Out of curiosity, do you know what beam spread your current PAR 64 lamps are?

I'm not entirely sure. We were using medium flood lamps in them. That may have contributed to the washing onto the screens. When the S4 ellipsodials were installed, it made it obvious that the par-64's were not efficient and the S4 is a remarkably better light. Our new S4 ellipsodials are 575w and out shine the 1000w pars.

The fixtures are mounted on architectural rafters so access is only available via a lift. They are set-it and forget-it for a year (or so). We have shadow issues due to the overhead "band shell" given their current placement and long term plans is add trusses to drop them slightly.

Lower the wattage is certainly a up side for us- there is a decent heat load from the lights. With house lighting, we are over 50000 watts of total lighting so any reduction is welcomed (but we never run everything at 100%).

Great suggestions. It certainly give us more clarity on how to proceed.

 

[Pie4Weebl]

I would replace them with Source 4 pars lamped at 575, I don't think you need the intensity of a 750watt lamp and you'll save on power.

 

[mwtallman]

I'm not entirely sure. We were using medium flood lamps in them.

We are using 1000w FFR with MFL type lamps in them. According to Altman's specs, this type of bulb gives a beam angle of 12X28. The field angle is 21X44.

As Steve was saying, we have two screens with front projection and these PARS spill over pretty bad especially when we are trying to light up back stage where the choir stands. It wouldn't be so bad if the projectors were on a truss closer to the screens, but we don't have a truss...and we are throwing the projection at a great distance using high output lens (not sure the lumens at this moment), but regardless...there is alot of color/intensity loss on the screens.

 

[z2oo]

these PARS spill over pretty bad ... there is alot of color/intensity loss on the screens.

I would recommend you replace them the already mentioned S4PARs @ 575w, and grab some barn doors to go along with them (the lights nearest your screens). You can remove the spill off of your two screens, without losing all of your light on stage. Not exactly a nice ellipsoidal, but cheaper, and viable!

 

[deastman]

If you are having problems controlling where your current PAR 64 fixtures are washing onto your screens, you might consider going to ETC's Source 4 Ellipsoidals. We went with them for our general stage lighting at my church a couple of years ago and are liking being to control where the light goes - rather than using barn doors on the PAR 64's we had for the back part of the stage. We also have multiple projection screens with the projector's in and near the lighting trusses. While the choir is on the stage, the bottom of the center screen is washed out, but you can't see that part of the screen with the choir on our stage, so it's not an issue. When the choir is not on the stage, being able to trim the rest of the lights to not wash out the screens is really nice.
Just my 2 cents...

David