Lightingguy32
Active Member
Shakespeares use a combination of concave and aspheric lenses. All of the 360Qs use plano-convex lenses.
Source 4 or Shakespeare
- Thread starterjyenish
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Shakespeares use a combination of concave and aspheric lenses. All of the 360Qs use plano-convex lenses.
Adding to my notes on stuff that ETC and others could improve about their fixtures.... just had to remove without a hammer a reflector. By the manual, you insert some "extra" reflector retainers into the latch of the reflectors so as to release them. Hopefully in doing so you don't chip or crack the lens.
I have a set of reflector retaining latches that I added some 1/4"x1"x3" aluminum handles to at the shop for doing this but still find it difficult. Tip is to flatten out the latches some in making them less sharp an angle.
At that point, it's still an effort to get the reflector out. We are talking about one of the most huge pain in the rears that I can think of - serious design flaw on the part of ETC. It wold be easier to de-rivet the reflector retaing clips than get an extra set to work as described in the instructions. How hard would it be to put a weld nut on these retention clips and drill thru the fixture body for screws? Wouldn't solve the problem of inserting the lens but would on removing it in-tact - say when part of the body of the fixture has a broken casting but the reflector is still servicable.
Than that - luckily intact reflector had to be installed into a new body - not an easy process. Chipped more than one of these lenses, ruined more than one base spring / heat sink under the reflector, and wasted a bunch of time over the years in attempting to do this.
Today after three tries to get the thing in - dead on by way of fist in the center of the reflector and pushing down, I gave up. That darned spring just kept getting caught up in the rear casting. Decided on the last attempt that I was close and used a kind of like crochet like hook tool I use for extracting wire out of a hole in a lamp bar pipe to push the spring into position. Doing this allowed the reflector to go home on the other two clips. This was the first time ever that it took less than at least a half hour to install a new lens. This granted normally I take a hammer to extract the lens is still way more difficult than it should be.
Another thing to improve on the S-4 fixture - those reflectors are while decently held in, a royal pain in the rear to replace.
In this case, it was not even one of our instruments I was doing this on. Another lighting company sent their light to us to pay our people to do so - the price we charged was worth them paying given their tech person had attempted this type of thing before. We break the reflector in removal or install, he gets a new one - good investment, say insurance policy in addition to time saved for the money it cost us/me to do it for him.
Than on this fixture it was stuck yoke mounting bolts that we were removing - I had to remove. After I loosened them, I remembered who it was I was doing the project for... wait a minute, let me ding the screw, add thread locker and let's put those screws back in. We were not getting paid to loosen his bolts for him... (The tech paying us was a former employee and good friend - thus me doing such a thing to spite him would be in the spirit of him sending a light to us that I wound up fixing.)
I don't normally service ETC fixtures, we have an entire department that preps and maintains incandescent fixtures, but I almost always have to change reflectors to them. Such work is much more difficult than it shoud be. Must be a better way.
I have a set of reflector retaining latches that I added some 1/4"x1"x3" aluminum handles to at the shop for doing this but still find it difficult. Tip is to flatten out the latches some in making them less sharp an angle.
At that point, it's still an effort to get the reflector out. We are talking about one of the most huge pain in the rears that I can think of - serious design flaw on the part of ETC. It wold be easier to de-rivet the reflector retaing clips than get an extra set to work as described in the instructions. How hard would it be to put a weld nut on these retention clips and drill thru the fixture body for screws? Wouldn't solve the problem of inserting the lens but would on removing it in-tact - say when part of the body of the fixture has a broken casting but the reflector is still servicable.
Than that - luckily intact reflector had to be installed into a new body - not an easy process. Chipped more than one of these lenses, ruined more than one base spring / heat sink under the reflector, and wasted a bunch of time over the years in attempting to do this.
Today after three tries to get the thing in - dead on by way of fist in the center of the reflector and pushing down, I gave up. That darned spring just kept getting caught up in the rear casting. Decided on the last attempt that I was close and used a kind of like crochet like hook tool I use for extracting wire out of a hole in a lamp bar pipe to push the spring into position. Doing this allowed the reflector to go home on the other two clips. This was the first time ever that it took less than at least a half hour to install a new lens. This granted normally I take a hammer to extract the lens is still way more difficult than it should be.
Another thing to improve on the S-4 fixture - those reflectors are while decently held in, a royal pain in the rear to replace.
In this case, it was not even one of our instruments I was doing this on. Another lighting company sent their light to us to pay our people to do so - the price we charged was worth them paying given their tech person had attempted this type of thing before. We break the reflector in removal or install, he gets a new one - good investment, say insurance policy in addition to time saved for the money it cost us/me to do it for him.
Than on this fixture it was stuck yoke mounting bolts that we were removing - I had to remove. After I loosened them, I remembered who it was I was doing the project for... wait a minute, let me ding the screw, add thread locker and let's put those screws back in. We were not getting paid to loosen his bolts for him... (The tech paying us was a former employee and good friend - thus me doing such a thing to spite him would be in the spirit of him sending a light to us that I wound up fixing.)
I don't normally service ETC fixtures, we have an entire department that preps and maintains incandescent fixtures, but I almost always have to change reflectors to them. Such work is much more difficult than it shoud be. Must be a better way.
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highschooltech
Active Member
The S4 is a much better light. Having worked with both at my church i can say the S4 is better. It is lighter, brigther, and easier to use and focus.
bmiller025
Member
I agree with Ship about the reflector assemblies in S4s. I have only once had to remove an intact reflector from one though. Several hours of work! The rest of my experiencde with reflectors were replacements of broken ones after instruments have been dropped. Not a difficult task at all.
I have never heard of needing to replace an unbroken reflector before!
I also put in my vote for the S-4 over the Shakespeare. Better design all around.
S-4 Jrs are a lot more compact than their big brothers. Perfect for small venues where space is at a premium!
I think the S-4 Jr. 25-50 Zoom is the best designed lighting instrument I have ever used! If only the barrel rotated...
I also think the main difference in quality between the 360Q and the S-4 is the reflector. Once the reflector in the former has been jarred once or twice, you will never get it back to ideal again. S-4s last a lot longer in this manner.
I have also never had any trouble bench focusing S-4s. Could something else have been out of whack? Something in the socket assembly?
I have never heard of needing to replace an unbroken reflector before!
I also put in my vote for the S-4 over the Shakespeare. Better design all around.
S-4 Jrs are a lot more compact than their big brothers. Perfect for small venues where space is at a premium!
I think the S-4 Jr. 25-50 Zoom is the best designed lighting instrument I have ever used! If only the barrel rotated...
I also think the main difference in quality between the 360Q and the S-4 is the reflector. Once the reflector in the former has been jarred once or twice, you will never get it back to ideal again. S-4s last a lot longer in this manner.
I have also never had any trouble bench focusing S-4s. Could something else have been out of whack? Something in the socket assembly?
Lightingguy32
Active Member
Actually that is incorrect, Dave Cunningham of Entertainment technologies sent out the design of the ETC Source Four to ETC in 1993, the Shakespeare came out about 2 to 3 years later.
Removing the reflector from a Source 4 is not that hard. First you take the lamp cap off, and the remove the body of the unit from the gate and lens assembly. Then find a nice patch of wood floor, turn the yoke 90˚ and bash the body on the floor. It may take a hit or two, but usually the reflectors pop right out. This is one of those ETC solutions (like gaff tape on the Revolution scroller), but it works, and I haven't broken any reflectors this way.
skienblack
Active Member
In my high school we were in the process of migrating our VERY aged inventory of 6x ERSs into source fours. Though at my current college theatre, they almost exclusively use shakespeares, this includes zooms and fixed degree units. We have 5 S4 which I have been told by fellow students were purchased as a test and they decided to purchase the shakespeares over them. Why would they do this? I haven't asked our TD their reasoning yet, is there any logical reason for this?
Personal preference. I know some people that love the Strand SL, while I couldn't hate it more (obviously they've never seen the plastic barrel rotation ring break, allowing the light to fall and the safety cable around the yoke to become useless).
Some people are going to find things they like that others don't. It's also possible someone was given a really good bulk discount on Shakespeares. As far I'm concerned, the Shakespeare is doesn't compete (yes, Altman put a lot of research into theirs, but ETC still did it better and did it first). Typically, Shakespeares run a higher price, and come in sub-par in almost every category to the Source Four. Meanwhile, the only thing the SL has (IMO) over the Source Four is the 360deg barrel rotation. But again, I've seen that barrel rotation feature fail in ways that could get someone killed. Also, most SL's I've come across are missing knobs, screws, or other pieces. So while they do allow for 360deg barrel rotation, that doesn't mean very much if the knob to lock the rotation in place has been broken off.
Everyone will find different qualities they like that others might not agree with. If you use a fixture for a couple months while it's brand new, your likes/dislikes will change after you've been using those fixtures for a decade. There are a lot of factors that are in play, from different physical features of the fixtures to the politics of how projects and installs get bid.
Les
Well-Known Member
For the record, I am also not a fan of the SL. The fixture's overall concept is great -- it's the build quality that was lacking.
Having said that, while I've seen and worked with fixtures with the broken bushing that locks in the fixture's rotation, I've never seen it as being a safety hazard. More of an annoyance. From what I gathered last time I took apart an SL (to replace this very part), the plastic piece can break and move to other areas within the collar so that the knob's bolt can no longer apply friction, which holds the fixture in place. The reason I say it's not a safety hazard is because the instrument's body is grooved all the way around, and several 'keys' on the collar fit within these grooves. Unless these keys break off, or the collar comes apart at the seams (the collar is held together on the top and bottom using machine screws), I don't see how the light could fall out of its cradle. Maybe you could enlighten me?
I will say this: The compact size of the SL Zoom is awesome. No bigger around than a fixed focus, only about 4-6" longer with no huge cannon-sized barrel. I wish ETC or Altman would do that!
The collar itself snapped in half. It was an FOH catwalk fixture at a theatre I worked at a few years ago. I don't remember much else about it so I'd be willing to admit that there is a possibility that there is some sort of safety mechanism in place, but I remember thinking we were really lucky to find it before it fell.
That theatre taught me everything I know about the SL, including how to take an inventory of 100 fixtures with various amounts of missing and/or broken parts and turn them into ~80 fixtures that are almost fully functional. That doesn't include the reflectors, though. With reflectors under consideration, they had maybe 30-40 fixtures that weren't complete trash, bu we had plenty of fun going through and tallying up and categorizing them all. I believe our categories were Good, Cracked, Really Cracked, Broken, Shattered, and Missing.
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Les
Well-Known Member
If the collar/cradle/whateveryawannacallit snapped, you are definitely lucky! The failure you describe was probably caused by the fixture being hit or dropped, or unlikely - maybe by over tightening the rotation knob. One thing about those SL's was that the castings were awful thin. I want to say 1/8" think and that's being generous. Good thing they came with that integral safety attachment point --- too bad no one uses them. Of course, knowing the thickness of the castings, who knows what good it would do.
My other gripe with those was the bayonet style lamp cap. Great when it worked, but frustrating and dangerous when it didn't. Many failed to lock, others failed to unlock. A lucky few worked just right. This was out of about 100, all only a few years old back in 03-04. I was there to unpack them. Some were straight up temperamental fresh out of the box. I returned to the venue recently to do some freelance programming work as a favor, and many of the instruments have now baked the paint off the lamp and reflector housing.
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Yup. "Have their own dimmer line" is an understatement, if there ever was one.
Hey Kirk/Steve T./Dave N./ Anne V./ Sarah C.
Somebody in Wisc. should ask Fred how many SR48's he's sold and lets us know, if it's not a trade secret.
4,000 dimmers in Salt Lake Mormon Center, about as many at Disney Japan, etc....
SB
Raktor
Active Member
Had to do this the other day, finally. Didn't go as smoothly as you mention... ended up just having to put on safety goggles and attack it with a big screwdriver and a hammer to smash it out. It wasn't all that easy getting the new one in either, the copper coil kept moving to where it wasn't supposed to go. It'll be simple the next time though, it was just a pain working it out for the first time.
And on the SL vs S4 debate... S4s take the cake in my book. SLs are our secondary stock, I don't mind them too much until bubbles need changing. S4s win every time for that.
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