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[Adam Becker]

I'm having a hard time finding any reviews on the Martin Smartmac.  Doesn't seem like to many people have these units.  I'm just looking for any reviews on the units, brightness, quality, etc...  I posted before about moving heads, and have pretty much narrowed it down to either smartmacs or elations new platinum 5r.  The 5r has a lot of really good reviews, I would like to hear the smartmacs side though.  

Thanks everyone for any info on them.

Adam B

[Ray Cerwinski]

Go with the Elation units. I recently installed 6 SmartMACs in a ballroom and while having no fans is a great feature, everything else about them is lacking. You only have one gobo wheel, one color wheel, no effects such as frost or prisms. All of my fixtures also came right out of the box from Martin with focus errors that can only be repaired by sending them back for a software change. Not saying all SmartMACs will have the error, but mine did and I still haven't had enough downtime to send them for repair. Photos and video of them in action...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CnVUuVQ5fo Video of the lighting starts at about 8:50 in.

[Adam Becker]

Thanks Ray for the reply.  First off I have to say those pictures look great.  You did a fantastic job!  The video of the venue with the heads and uplighting looks really nice.  The chasing of the uplighting looks really cool as well, I have not seen that before with uplighting, did you do that?  What are you using to control everything?

About the smartmacs, that is really crumby that they all have focus errors, sorry to hear that.  Did Martin say why this is?  I would be a little mad to recieve all those heads and then have to send them right back to Martin, that shouldn't be with a brand new head.

In the videos, the heads look pretty bright, how would rate the brightness on this head considering it only has a 150 watt bulb.  I know they say it rivals many of the 250 watt units.  Whats your opinion on this?

I really like Martin units, I have all Martin Lights now, and I'm having a hard time deciding to make a switch to trying another brands heads, which would be the 5r.  I do agree with you Ray that the Smartmac doesn't have many features, where the 5r does, that is why I am considering trying something new.  Have you ever seen the 5r in person, you over all think the 5r is a better buy?  Thanks.

Adam

[Ray Cerwinski]

All the uplighting was installed at the same time as the movers. It is all Iluminarc LED lighting, everything is individually channeled and controllable. It is a combination of 3 styles of fixtures, 93 in total. Everything is controlled with a tablet running GrandMA onPC wireless to a Grand MA 2port node. The chasing was built using the effect generator. I was just goofing around one night and they decided they liked it, so it was kept.

We are currently working with Martin to get this issue repaired, but it still is a bit of a pain to work around. It seems the root of the problem is during the fixture "home". Focus just seems to do whatever it wants, so you have no real control or index-ability.

They are bright, the optics are great. I'd say they come in relatively close to a Mac250k. That said, if I had to do it all over again, I'd definitely go with the Elation movers. Fan noise and power requirements were a factor in the decision to go with the Macs, but if the 5R was out when the job was speced, I would have definitely chosen the 5R. There are two sister estates that  will be getting the same lighting treatments and Elation is the direction I'll be heading.

http://www.iluminarc.com/casestudy/ashford-estate