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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => Lighting Forum => Topic started by: Martin Primus on September 18, 2014, 04:32:43 PM
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So the band I'm in has been shopping lighting for some time, as it's one of things we've run into trouble sourcing consistent rentals at prices that don't kill profitability. With bang for the buck in mind...we made the decision to give some Ebay LED's a shot (Chinese manufacture/American seller). These are 9x12w RGBAW flat pars with a metal housing. Everything is perfect out of the box...the fans are definitely noticable, but for a club/outdoor environment really are a non-issue. They get rediculously bright (no specs available) and the color reproduction is pretty good imo, the caveat being i have never worked with extreme top-of-the-line stuff. At significantly less than $100 per fixture we are using 16 for backline and 4 for front lighting, all controlled by American DJ MyDMX, which i previously owned.
The big tell with these will be how long they hold up to travel, setup/teardown etc. The good news is that they will have paid for themselves in saved rental fees after about 12 shows. If we get several years of shows out of them, great investment. Our normal rentals are a combination of older Chauvet Colorado Tri fixtures and Chauvet Color Band Pix strips. The results so far are fanatastic. Attached is a pic of a club date we did where we provided sound/lighting for ourselves (as the opener) and Joe Diffie.
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I also am renting way too many 4 bars considering I have trussing and stands. Would you message me the eBay auction number in a message please?
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So the band I'm in has been shopping lighting for some time, as it's one of things we've run into trouble sourcing consistent rentals at prices that don't kill profitability. With bang for the buck in mind...we made the decision to give some Ebay LED's a shot (Chinese manufacture/American seller). These are 9x12w RGBAW flat pars with a metal housing. Everything is perfect out of the box...the fans are definitely noticable, but for a club/outdoor environment really are a non-issue. They get rediculously bright (no specs available) and the color reproduction is pretty good imo, the caveat being i have never worked with extreme top-of-the-line stuff. At significantly less than $100 per fixture we are using 16 for backline and 4 for front lighting, all controlled by American DJ MyDMX, which i previously owned.
The big tell with these will be how long they hold up to travel, setup/teardown etc. The good news is that they will have paid for themselves in saved rental fees after about 12 shows. If we get several years of shows out of them, great investment. Our normal rentals are a combination of older Chauvet Colorado Tri fixtures and Chauvet Color Band Pix strips. The results so far are fanatastic. Attached is a pic of a club date we did where we provided sound/lighting for ourselves (as the opener) and Joe Diffie.
I did the same thing with some PAr64 LED fixtures awhile back. At significantly less than $100 per fixture, I got what I paid for; poor quality, loose hardware and plenty of repair on my part to keep things going. I hope you have better luck. The lights look great. Maybe in the near future, I might go to the flat pars myself, but I seemed to have corrected all the quality issues and made things stable, so an upgrade to the lights is not high on my list. Good luck!
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I did the same thing with some PAr64 LED fixtures awhile back. At significantly less than $100 per fixture, I got what I paid for; poor quality, loose hardware and plenty of repair on my part to keep things going. I hope you have better luck. The lights look great. Maybe in the near future, I might go to the flat pars myself, but I seemed to have corrected all the quality issues and made things stable, so an upgrade to the lights is not high on my list. Good luck!
Also interested here, what's the eBay sellers name?
thanks
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I have a bunch of old stock up for sale. I too am going to take a shot on a 10. I will use triangular truss on crank ups. Much better than the 4bars the competition rolls with. I will take any edge I can get.
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I have a bunch of old stock up for sale. I too am going to take a shot on a 10. I will use triangular truss on crank ups. Much better than the 4bars the competition rolls with. I will take any edge I can get.
Good stuff. Do you guys have a trailer? I keep 20 lights in a rolling trunk. I put foam rubber on the bottom (literally a couple rubber (not foam) exercise mats) then I made individual slots, similar to how they package apples or lightbulbs etc. I used white chloroplast, with the idea of changing to black sometime, but the white makes it easy to see the slots in the darker rooms.
(Old clamps, I need a new pic)
(http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z398/robare99/AA64F071-0EC4-4C09-BFA7-1455730F7B29-19541-00000D4AFEBBAD71_zps8b7cf81d.jpg)
I use 11 on a 16' triangle truss with crank ups. It looks really slick. I like having an odd number, it gives me a center light when using alternating colors, instead of 2 colors the same.
(http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z398/robare99/F402321A-4074-457C-A4DC-802D467F858D-6579-00000432EA3ED8F8_zpsd5b4ad48.jpg)
I also pair the addresses from the outside.
1 2 3 4 5 6 5 4 3 2 1
Both 1's come on, both 2's etc. it was done out of necessity back in the day and I like the looks. Instead of chases going all the way across from one side to the other, they run towards the middle or out from the middle.
Quick video...
http://youtu.be/38njyiJ9xUM
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Would you message me the eBay auction number or seller's name in a message please?
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Hi Martin,
Still happy with your Lights ?
How bright are they compared to a 300 watt bulb ?
Where did you get them ?
regards
Mike
So the band I'm in has been shopping lighting for some time, as it's one of things we've run into trouble sourcing consistent rentals at prices that don't kill profitability. With bang for the buck in mind...we made the decision to give some Ebay LED's a shot (Chinese manufacture/American seller). These are 9x12w RGBAW flat pars with a metal housing. Everything is perfect out of the box...the fans are definitely noticable, but for a
club/outdoor environment really are a non-issue. They get rediculously bright (no specs available) and the color reproduction is pretty good imo, the caveat being i have never worked with extreme top-of-the-line stuff. At significantly less than $100 per fixture we are using 16 for backline and 4 for front lighting, all controlled by American DJ MyDMX, which i previously owned.
The big tell with these will be how long they hold up to travel, setup/teardown etc. The good news is that they will have paid for themselves in saved rental fees after about 12 shows. If we get several years of shows out of them, great investment. Our normal rentals are a combination of older Chauvet Colorado Tri fixtures and Chauvet Color Band Pix strips. The results so far are fanatastic. Attached is a pic of a club date we did where we provided sound/lighting for ourselves (as the opener) and Joe Diffie.
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Hi Martin,
Still happy with your Lights ?
How bright are they compared to a 300 watt bulb ?
Where did you get them ?
regards
Mike
Just a quick update, so far no issues with any of the fixtures. It looks like there is a live auction for the same fixtures going on right now:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DJ-FLAT-PAR-9x12w-LED-LIGHTS-5-COLOR-RGBWA-5in1-108-watt-DMX512-STAGE-PARTY-SHOW-/141451920322?pt=US_Stage_Lighting_Single_Units&hash=item20ef3103c2
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Quick update. So we're about 6 months into regular usage and I did have an issue come up. Last weekend one of the fixture did not power up (power pass-thru and dmx pass-thru were no issue). Pulled the fixture apart and the power supply was dead. Seller is shipping a new one out that we'll replace on our own. Road cases are still in the works so these are probably getting a little rougher life than they should. Happy with the seller's response to the issue so I'm still in a good mood on these fixtures given the fairly insignificant investment.
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The moment has come where I can no longer trust the Blizzards I have and its time to purchase some extra lights. Mine only go out once a month or so. I am curious what you guys use for controllers the above set ups. I currently have a similar setup by my board limitation only allows me to pair lights instead of each individually.
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The moment has come where I can no longer trust the Blizzards I have and its time to purchase some extra lights. Mine only go out once a month or so. I am curious what you guys use for controllers the above set ups. I currently have a similar setup by my board limitation only allows me to pair lights instead of each individually.
I would look at a PC based solution. A flexible enough board is going to be north of 5k.
If you like learning programming languages (it's actually a macro language to be technical) the Jands 500's pop up under $500 and they have lot's of programmable buttons.
Really depends if the operator is PC kind of person or like consoles.
The biggest cluster f*** I ever saw was a guy trying to mix and do lights on 1 iPad. He did neither well.
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Quick update. So we're about 6 months into regular usage and I did have an issue come up. Last weekend one of the fixture did not power up (power pass-thru and dmx pass-thru were no issue). Pulled the fixture apart and the power supply was dead. Seller is shipping a new one out that we'll replace on our own. Road cases are still in the works so these are probably getting a little rougher life than they should. Happy with the seller's response to the issue so I'm still in a good mood on these fixtures given the fairly insignificant investment.
Martin,
How did you make out with the repair? How has the support been once you encountered a problem from start to finish? Thinking about going your route just skeptical about the long term life span and support once an issue arises.
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So the band I'm in has been shopping lighting for some time, as it's one of things we've run into trouble sourcing consistent rentals at prices that don't kill profitability. With bang for the buck in mind...we made the decision to give some Ebay LED's a shot (Chinese manufacture/American seller). These are 9x12w RGBAW flat pars with a metal housing. Everything is perfect out of the box...the fans are definitely noticable, but for a club/outdoor environment really are a non-issue. They get rediculously bright (no specs available) and the color reproduction is pretty good imo, the caveat being i have never worked with extreme top-of-the-line stuff. At significantly less than $100 per fixture we are using 16 for backline and 4 for front lighting, all controlled by American DJ MyDMX, which i previously owned.
The big tell with these will be how long they hold up to travel, setup/teardown etc. The good news is that they will have paid for themselves in saved rental fees after about 12 shows. If we get several years of shows out of them, great investment. Our normal rentals are a combination of older Chauvet Colorado Tri fixtures and Chauvet Color Band Pix strips. The results so far are fanatastic. Attached is a pic of a club date we did where we provided sound/lighting for ourselves (as the opener) and Joe Diffie.
Hey that is Shooters in the pic. I think I have seen your light rig in there. It covers the stage nicely.
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Hey that is Shooters in the pic. I think I have seen your light rig in there. It covers the stage nicely.
I use DMXIS to control my lights. It's software based and fairly easy to use.
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Hey that is Shooters in the pic. I think I have seen your light rig in there. It covers the stage nicely.
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Mac