Slightly Older Moving Head Review

[TD-Thom]

Good Evening and Happy Holidays to all!

Have any of you used elation platinum profile 35 pro? https://www.elationlighting.com/platinum-profile-35-pro It looks like this was introduced around 2014 with an impressive collection of features (20k lumen, dual rotating gobo wheels, animation, framing shutters) but I have not seen much of them mentioned previously. My space currently owns 4 Elation Design Spot 575e, two of which are functioning and and two were left to disrepair by my predecessor.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. T

 

[Jeff Lelko]

Hi there, as an initial disclaimer, I have no experience with this specific unit. One thing that jumps out to me though is the lamp. The Elation product page only specs it at 750hrs. Philips is a bit more generous at 1000hrs, but either way that’s a very expensive lamp to only have sub-1000hr lifespan from. Should you buy these units be sure to budget for routine lamp replacement.

What brings up the question? Do you have an opportunity to buy these, or are you just looking for options to grow your system? Hope this helps!

 

[TD-Thom]

Thanks, @Jeff Lelko. I have the opportunity to pick up 6 of them for a around 2500 each used. (About 100 hours of use). They are going to be in high school space I manage. Using one time funds from a matching gift from a wonderful family.

 

[Jeff Lelko]

No worries! So here’s my take on the situation...and I know this is often discussed despite the fact I’m only an occasional poster here...using one-time funds for the purchase of moving lights in a high school environment usually isn’t the best use of money. The number one reason is because moving lights mean moving parts, and they will need care from time to time (which costs money). Talking just to the lamp issue alone - a new lamp will run about $300. Times 6, that’s $1800 worth of lamp you’ll have to spend every 750hrs of use. That doesn’t even take into account the motors that will need replacement (and these units have a lot), mechanisms that need realignment, PCBs that start acting up... In a working theater or production environment these costs are budgeted for, usually along with a tech trained to do the work...whereas in the academic environment money is usually scarce to do these upkeep repairs - and the units then end up disfunctional in a storage cabinet somewhere. It sounds like you already have a few moving lights in such condition as well.

Now there are definitely exceptions to this situation, but more often than not it makes more sense for schools to rent moving lights as needed, thus avoiding the cost and responsibility to maintain them. You’ll also get the luxury of picking the right units for the application instead of shoehorning what you have to work.

Seeing as you have $15k to spend, what’s the story with your light console? Sound board? Speakers? Wireless? I would personally see any of those that need attention being a better investment of money than used moving lights. That’s just me though, and I’m sure some of the regulars will chime in soon enough. Best of luck and Happy Holidays!

 

[TD-Thom]

I appreciate your concerns as are often laid out here and am myself a fan of the @gafftapegreenia method to expanding lighting capabilities. However, the district has changed the funding mechanism for theater and we are no longer reliant on our box office to fund production and maintenance on the space. I have been able and to secure a reasonable budget for both new technology and supplies (two separate line items on the annual operation budget). Either line item is sufficient to make multiple smaller purchases per year (replacement lavs, a channel of wireless, a few S4) but enough for a reasonably powerful moving head fixture.

This has and will continue to be a transformative year for the lighting system in my space. Not to be overly critical to my predecessor but he was clearly over his head as a music teacher trying to manage a full course load and manage a space which hosts over 200 events a year.
Thanks to some very poor, and frankly dangerous, choices he made (such as ripping out the rondels and leaving bare buses and wires only capped with a wire nut or nothing, wiring the female end of a Home Depot 16/2 extension cord to three of the old rondels circuits with some twists and electrical tape, etc) the school will be replacing our dimmer racks as well as all of our house lights and architectural panels.
I have received an Ion Xe (and have a Congo Jr and fader panel of anyone is interested) and used the first tranche of of the gifted funds to install a pair of balcony lighting ladders and enough 10 deg Color Source Spots to finally get a decent front wash on my apron. We have replaced the 3 cell Cycs with CS Spots with Cyc adapters and picked up a stack of cs relays and showbabies to handle the data transmission side.

My plan is to use the normal production budgets (5 main stage per year) to purchase additional static fixtures to properly outfit the space from a lighting gear perspective ( the music teacher made sure there were plenty of mics, speakers and mixers).

My guiding principle through the use of these gifted funds was what would have the greatest benift to the largest number of students. By getting the wash, Cyc, and control taken care of I am now able to look into more advanced tools for my design students to work with regularly while hiring in additional gear on a show by show basis. But knowing that my dance groups, student variety shows and show choir groups will never have the budget to rent in movers I want to make sure that I have a good set of tools for color, movement and pattern for their activities as well as the better funded groups.

In terms of upkeep that will thankfully be much less of an issue as part of my budget will directed solely in that direction every year and I, unlike my predecessor am able to do proper routine maintenance on the equipment.

 

[soundlight]

While I'd advise against any Platinum fixtures in general, especially in a school, the used units with 100 hours on them are probably more reliable than brand new units. My experience with the older Platinum line of discharge fixtures has been that there's a solid 50/50 chance you'll come up with a warranty problem right away, and then after that they're a bit more reliable. I would caution, though, against putting discontinued, arc source movers in to a school space. All of those huge list of features? They're all mechanical points of failure, ready to take units out of service when you need them most. Do you have the operating budget to send them off for a repair, which could easily cost $1K depending on what it is, if you have a problem? If not, I'd advise against these.

If you want to add hard-edge moving lights, check out the newer Elation lights in the Artiste series - such as the Artiste Davinci - as well as the Chauvet Maverick line. Both Elation and Chauvet have come a long way in the past 4 years, and their newer lights show that. The MK1 spot, while it doesn't zoom as wide as some other units (only out to 33 degrees), is a fantastic unit with CMY, 2 gobo wheels, prism, iris, frost, etc. The 3-facet prism can make up for the narrower zoom angle in many situations. Definitely get quotes from a few dealers.

Lacking that level of budget, a pile of wash movers is a great way to go. The Chauvet Rogue line is fantastic, I've seen the R2 Washes put in to a lot of high schools with great results. One school I programmed at had 5 put in for supplemental front wash (with 10 S4 Lustr+ as the main frontlight system) and they were perfect for both specials and to boost front lighting for brighter scenes. Just know that the Rogues don't have theatre-silent fans, so if you're hanging them out in the open without soft goods around to dampen, it may become annoying - but used arc-source movers would be worse in the fans department.

Basically, I'd say that newer, LED-source fixtures will more than make up for their additional cost in decreased maintenance and no lamp changes. I strongly recommend against putting discharge fixtures, especially used, in to a high school because of lamps costs and heat-related failure.

 

[Chris Pflieger]

Two, make that three, things jump out at me about that fixture: terrible CRI, low lamp life, and it's discontinued.

Unless you need framing shutters, I'd recommended Rogue R2 washes or R2 spots (depending on what you want it to do). Both of which can be had for less than $2000.

 

[macsound]

My recommendation here, especially since you have budget line items, is rentals.
In every corporate, church, school and theatre experience I've had, being able to rent more of the same of anything ranks far above renting something special. That is, make your purchases based on what someone with a multi-million dollar capital budget decided would hold up well enough so they can make money. This applies to wireless mics, lighting fixtures and dimmers, all audio and even projectors.

This, I believe, is why it was important that when facilities were replacing old 6x9,12,22s etc. they replaced them with Source Fours. Because all the rental houses rent Source Fours, not Strand SPXs or the like.

I'd recommend any moving light you decide to purchase is serviceable by at-least one of your closest rental houses, and they have a large stock of those same fixture available. This ensures short repair times, ability to rent an identical fixture when one is getting repaired or when you need more and the tech doesn't have to remember way back to his training or worse, learn to do the repair from Youtube.

 

[TD-Thom]

I thank you all for your feedback on this. I am going to go the route of replacing my mismatched 8'" fresnel and S4 PAR 1st electric with a set of Ovation F415-fc and look to get my 2nd electric outfitted over the next year. Thank you to @macsound for the rental house advice, I have not thought in those terms before but will into the future.

 

[soundlight]

You might look at getting more of the brand new P-56FC - which is a non-zoom fixture that comes with spread filters and costs less. The lack of motors will lead to less maintenance down the road, and I believe the units have similar if not better output. Even the best maunfacturers' lights have motors go out. with time Whichever you get though, you will *love* the RGBAL color mixing - I regularly use the hard-edge counterpart the E-910FC and enjoy mixing colors on those. Great output, great mix, great build quality.

And I second the rental - that way it's also on the rental house if something happens during a show so you can get a spare from them instead of having to rent a light while yours is in for service.

 

[TJCornish]

I have just spent my weekend digging in the bowels of my Vari-lite VL770 fixtures. One has a power supply issue (powers on for about a minute then shuts off); the other had a cyan wheel issue. I was able to sort out the Cyan wheel issue - the oil that came in the bearings turned into a honey-like near solid (solved with a soak in acetone and then putting the bearings back in the fixture dry as these wheels hardly ever turn and probably didn't need lubrication in the first place). I'm still working on the power supply issue. Lightparts.com has a replacement power supply listed at $1500 for a fixture worth probably $2000. I am reasonably confident that I will succeed in doing a circuit board-level repair and saving myself $1500, but these fixtures have been nothing but trouble for me in the 7 years I've owned them, and I'm at less than 500 hours of runtime on these.

My newer movers are Chauvet Maverick MK2s. They were reasonably priced, are brighter than my VLs (18,000 lumens!), and have LED light sources which means not only does the fixture take less power, but there is only half the heat in the fixture cooking all of the parts. I prefer the gobos and prism of the Vari-lites to the Mavericks (the gobos can be improved by changing them out; not sure if there's any way to replace the 3-facet prism with a 5-facet like the VL770s have), but other than that, the Maverick is a cheaper and much better fixture, and I've had ZERO problems with them, compared to my VL experience coming into each show wondering what isn't going to work today on them.

In case my post wasn't clear, I agree with the thread consensus - do yourself the favor of only considering current-generation LED light sourced movers.

YMMV, etc.