# Best LED for high school down wash



## JHWelch (Oct 27, 2013)

I am the technical director for a high school production of Les Mis. We have limited dimmers, and I believe the best way to quickly free up dimmers as well as fixtures would be replacing the downlight wash with LED fixtures. 

We normally will use three twofered sets of ETC PARs with wide flood lense on two electrics for one color of downlight. Once we have three colors of downlight we have used 18 dimmers and 36 fixtures! 

I was wondering what the best LED fixture for this application would be. It's a high school, so the more bang for my buck is better, but we also have a rather large budget, so if the only way of doing this is a selador I'd like to hear it. 

Thanks!


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## thematthewman (Oct 27, 2013)

Chauvet has some pretty good LED PAR cans for a good price.

http://www.chauvetlighting.com/wash-lights.html


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## Tex (Oct 27, 2013)

I'm a fan of both the Selador Vivid-R and Desire fixtures. I use them for wash and cyc light. The intensity and color saturation are great and the lenses make them very versatile. They're pricey, though...


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## BillESC (Oct 27, 2013)

Blizzard's RockLite RGBAW is available with installed 45 degree optics and smoooth 32 bit dimming. MAP is only $ 399


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## Bubby4j (Oct 27, 2013)

If you wanna compare all of blizzard's fixtures, I have a spreadsheet.
http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/list-of-blizzard-fixtures-and-cost-efficiency.32509/


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## JohnD (Oct 27, 2013)

A few things to consider, do you have a way to get non dimmed power to the electrics? Do you have dmx distribution taken care of? I would think that you would want a very versatile fixture, in which the Desire with the many lens options and the 7 color mixing comes to mind. Granted, they cost much more but you also have batch to batch consistency, something you might not get with DJ class fixtures. You might also consider the LED updates to the classic borderlight for color toning. The Chroma-Q ColorForce comes to mind along with Altmans Spectra Strip and Phillips Showline Bar 640 and 660. If time is an issue, have you considered renting for this production with an eye to purchasing at a later date when you have time to make the right decision.


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## DuckJordan (Oct 27, 2013)

Anyone seen the etc fire and ice? I remember seeing ads all over the place for them but never saw them in person.


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## lwinters630 (Oct 28, 2013)

I am using the Vivid R for our CYC and Elation Par zooms for the over stage wash lights. We replaced the old strip RGB strip lights with 28 par zooms using the Edison relay for the work lights on the electrics. I have the Par zooms in 4 other venues and have been very happy with them.

We did Les Miserable Spring of '13 (Part 1, 2, 3)using these, however I did add 5 Mac 750's.

Here are some other Pic's of some of our shows


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## JHWelch (Oct 28, 2013)

JohnD said:


> A few things to consider, do you have a way to get non dimmed power to the electrics? Do you have dmx distribution taken care of? I would think that you would want a very versatile fixture, in which the Desire with the many lens options and the 7 color mixing comes to mind. Granted, they cost much more but you also have batch to batch consistency, something you might not get with DJ class fixtures. You might also consider the LED updates to the classic borderlight for color toning. The Chroma-Q ColorForce comes to mind along with Altmans Spectra Strip and Phillips Showline Bar 640 and 660. If time is an issue, have you considered renting for this production with an eye to purchasing at a later date when you have time to make the right decision.


I am not worried about DMX or non dim power, we don't have an elegant solution as of yet, but it works. As for rental, do you know of any good place in MA to either rent or try out some fixtures?


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## JHWelch (Oct 28, 2013)

Tex said:


> I'm a fan of both the Selador Vivid-R and Desire fixtures. I use them for wash and cyc light. The intensity and color saturation are great and the lenses make them very versatile. They're pricey, though...


For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.

For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.


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## BillESC (Oct 28, 2013)

Here's the Rocklite RGBAW from about 20'.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Oct 28, 2013)

JHWelch said:


> For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.
> 
> For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.




We find if a down or back light wash has maybe 6 - S4 Pars across and electric we try to get 9 or 10 of the Desires. Of course the 6 quartz is one color so we would normally plan at least for two color washes in an inventory, so could say 9 LEDs for 12 or 18 quartz, depending on your spin.


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## MNicolai (Oct 28, 2013)

BillConnerASTC said:


> We find if a down or back light wash has maybe 6 - S4 Pars across and electric we try to get 9 or 10 of the Desires. Of course the 6 quartz is one color so we would normally plan at least for two color washes in an inventory, so could say 9 LEDs for 12 or 18 quartz, depending on your spin.



Adding to this, both the Vivid-R's and Desires have a wide variety of lensing options for whichever throw distance you may be working with.

IIRC, an unlensed Vivid-R is roughly the beam size of a 19° instrument. I imagine a Desire is about the same. You can check the datasheets to confirm.


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## Tex (Oct 28, 2013)

JHWelch said:


> For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.
> 
> For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.


I have the 63" Vivid R strips. I think the equivalent number of 11" strips would be more useful. I have 14 and use 8 on the cyc, 2 on the 2nd electric, 2 on the 1st electric and 2 on the first cat (without lenses). It's a long throw, but I really needed color on our very large apron. I don't remember the exact combination of horizontal and vertical lenses I used to make it cover; it was a lot of trial and error but it works beautifully.
The D40's are used in various situations, but mostly in the black box as a color wash and occasionally for a small cyc. The grid is at 18' and the rep plot is 15 areas at about 12' across and overlapping. I use one D40 with a 45 degree lens for each area. The coverage, intensity and saturation are unbelievable. I also like the feature that emulates the fade time of an HPL.


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## Tex (Oct 28, 2013)

JHWelch said:


> For the Vivid-Rs, what length fixture do you have and what kind of coverage do you get with them. There is a chance I will have them hung at a 22' trim and I'm worried about how many I would need of what size to get adequate coverage.
> 
> For the Desire, how comparable are they to a Source Four PAR. Really I am trying to figure out how many fixtures I would need for the same amount of coverage.


I have the 63" Vivid R strips. I think the equivalent number of 11" strips would be more useful. I have 14 and use 8 on the cyc, 2 on the 2nd electric, 2 on the 1st electric and 2 on the first cat (without lenses). It's a long throw, but I really needed color on our very large apron. I don't remember the exact combination of horizontal and vertical lenses I used to make it cover; it was a lot of trial and error but it works beautifully.
The D40's are used in various situations, but mostly in the black box as a color wash and occasionally for a small cyc. The grid is at 18' and the rep plot is 15 areas at about 12' across and overlapping. I use one D40 with a 45 degree lens for each area. The coverage, intensity and saturation are unbelievable. I also like the feature that emulates the fade time of an HPL.


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## RickR (Oct 30, 2013)

The main thing to remember is the color/white usage makes a huge difference. 

LEDs in deep colors with out perform conventionals. However in white the LEDs look very dim and just don't have the punch. I've done down/wash strip replacement mostly with Vivid-R 11. This holds true with the others I've used as well. Right now the numbers say you get more light for the dollar with a Desire 40.


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## BillESC (Oct 30, 2013)

Here's the ToughPar RGBAW making white.


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## lwinters630 (Oct 31, 2013)

Other features to consider are strobe and zoom. Vivid R will not do either.


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## jwolfkill (Oct 31, 2013)

JHWelch said:


> I am the technical director for a high school production of Les Mis. We have limited dimmers, and I believe the best way to quickly free up dimmers as well as fixtures would be replacing the downlight wash with LED fixtures.
> 
> We normally will use three twofered sets of ETC PARs with wide flood lense on two electrics for one color of downlight. Once we have three colors of downlight we have used 18 dimmers and 36 fixtures!
> 
> ...



Do you really, really want LEDs? Have you considered other options, like color scrollers? LED technology is still evolving, and even a large budget for purchasing LEDs will buy less now that it would a year from now. Color scrollers, with all their well-known disadvantages (noise, cost of gel strings, maintenance, etc.) have some advantages, too. They're ubiquitous and not as expensive as high-quality LED pars, plus you can use the scrollers on other instruments, too. Just a thought!


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## MNicolai (Oct 31, 2013)

lwinters630 said:


> Other features to consider are strobe and zoom. Vivid R will not do either.



Why can't you strobe an LED fixture? Any LED fixture?


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## techieman33 (Oct 31, 2013)

lwinters630 said:


> Other features to consider are strobe and zoom. Vivid R will not do either.



Even if it doesn't have a strobe mode built in to the profile I see no reason why it couldn't strobe if you needed it to. Zoom isn't that important either for a static down wash. It's just one more part of a light that can fail. With all of the lensing options available you would just need to figure out what lens you need for the best coverage and put it in. Zoom is great for specials, and rental stock, but not needed for a downwash that will probably never get moved.


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## lwinters630 (Oct 31, 2013)

MNicolai said:


> Why can't you strobe an LED fixture? Any LED fixture?


You can Strobe LED fixtures and it usually works best when it is a built in function.


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## chausman (Oct 31, 2013)

lwinters630 said:


> You can Strobe LED fixtures and it usually works best when it is a built in function.



How is a built in function different from a console turning all of the active channels on and off quickly?


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## techieman33 (Oct 31, 2013)

chausman said:


> How is a built in function different from a console turning all of the active channels on and off quickly?



Speed, it's faster to just tell the fixture to strobe at x rate then the manually program a chase to get the same effect.


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## lwinters630 (Nov 1, 2013)

And some consoles can not chase as fast as a strobe function.


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## Focus (Nov 2, 2013)

I think built-in strobe macros are a waste in most situations. Most LEDs I have used allow you to use a basic 3 channel mode(RGB), but if you want to set it to the profile that has a strobe channel, it's often a 10+ channel mode with a bunch of extra "club modes" on the aditional channels. I will take Virtual dimmers and building effects for strobe most days, over wasting a ton of channels.

Scrollers?! Don't wast your time or money. The disadvantages are many, and the cost of LEDs have come down significantly, while scrollers remain the same.

Do you really want to deal with distributed power supplies, 4pin cable and if you are on an old console, manual MIB cues. Or even on a newer cosole with fancy MIB settings, needing to go to black to hide the transition.


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## Focus (Nov 2, 2013)

That said, if I could have just 1 extra cannel per fixture for strobe,after color, I would absolutely do it over using dimming effects, but most just don't have the option.


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## gafftaper (Nov 2, 2013)

I see five solutions:

1) Most accurate LED solution: Seledor you are going to get the best light which can be fine tuned to match your incandescent colors. 

2) Most bang for the buck LED: Call your favorite dealer and see what brand of Chinese LED is their house brand. Blizzard has been mentioned above. There are now dozens of high power and decent quality Chinese brands like Blizzard out there. The white is much better than it used to be. The pastels, while definitely inferior to Seledor, are much closer than they used to be. Since the question is about downlight on stage, you probably aren't all that worried about getting really accurate pastels. The danger with these products is what will you do in 5 years when you need repairs. My feeling is buy them from a dealer you have a long standing relationship with and who is going to be the person you turn to for repairs. This dealer will have a vested interest in helping you when that problem arises. Hopefully they will be able to fix them as it was their house brand. If they are still going to want to keep you as a customer and they will do their best to help you. What you don't want to do is go buy the cheapest LED's you can find on Ebay. 

3) LED's from Apollo, Elation, Chauvet, Altman, and others major manufacturers: Not as expensive as Seledor but better quality than Chinese house brands. What do you get for your extra couple hundred per fixture? A name standing behind the product. In terms of color accuracy and intensity, they tend to be a little better but not Seledor better. They can be made better, but some of these products come off the same production line as the Chinese knock off brands. So you need to do your research. 

4) Scrollers: Not a bad idea. Yeah it's older technology but it works and there's a lot to be said for sticking with something that works. It keeps everything the same just adds more options. 

5) Seachangers: Seachangers are awesome and should always be considered in any color changing discussion. Not sure that they are the best solution for your situation, but at least think about them. 

Before you do anything, consider your lighting console's capabilities. If it isn't from the recent generation of consoles you may find it's impossible to add all these DMX addresses and you will definitely find it difficult to work with them. Also consider how you are going to get DMX to the fixtures. Does your theater have good DMX distribution? That can get expensive if the answer is no. Heck just DMX cable is crazy expensive.


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## VCTMike (Nov 2, 2013)

MNicolai said:


> Why can't you strobe an LED fixture? Any LED fixture?



I think he means an internal strobe channel.


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## Focus (Nov 2, 2013)

Gafftaper makes some good points, yes you need to consider the cost of DMX cable, In the case of scrollers you need to buy 4-pin for around the same price, and it can only be used for scrollers. At least dmx cable will be useful if/when you expand your inventory and or reconfigure for different applications.

If you can buy used, you may find killer deals on scrollers. If you get scrollers, don't forget NC in you color string.

As for DMX distribution, (you will need DMX in any case.) if you don't have dmx on the stage somewhere, instal grade wire is pretty cheap, there may be someone on IT or maintenance staff that can run a line or two easily. This is also probably the cheapest. Also grab a Swisson opto-splitter.

Is there a dedicated network in the theater? If so, an artnet node isrelatively cheap. Or a simple line of cat5/6 can be pulled from the desk(if it has dmx over ethernet)


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## BillConnerFASTC (Nov 2, 2013)

Please don't overlook long term costs entirely. Lamps, labor cost of relamping, gell, electrical energy, cooling load energy. I really do understand the sometimes futility in making that case, but it's a real cost none the less. Retrofits to existing are tough to rationalize on a purely economic basis but we feel we have reached the point where the choice of quartz and central dimming roughly the same as primarily solid state in combination with some quartz with distributed dimming, and long term costs make it even more appealing.


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## Focus (Nov 4, 2013)

BillConnerASTC said:


> Please don't overlook long term costs entirely. Lamps, labor cost of relamping, gell, electrical energy, cooling load energy. I really do understand the sometimes futility in making that case, but it's a real cost none the less. Retrofits to existing are tough to rationalize on a purely economic basis but we feel we have reached the point where the choice of quartz and central dimming roughly the same as primarily solid state in combination with some quartz with distributed dimming, and long term costs make it even more appealing.


Bill, This is an interesting point. I have seen many installs of 90-100% Conventional fixtures with only distributed dimming, and they were terrible. Not enough dimming, very little expansion due to installing minimal power for said distributed dimming, so more dimmers could not be used without the building wire being upgraded, etc. But now with LEDs and other intelligent lighting becoming more prominent, I can see installed central dimming becoming less necessary, and smart data distribution more important.


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 11, 2015)

So rather than start a whole new thread beating the same horse to death I elected to continue this one, since I have the same problem and almost two years later there are new products out there that would merit a polishing of this thread. Sorry if this is necro in advance.

We are looking to add LED downlighting over our stage. We've got a 40' wide proscenium and are about 30' back to the sky drop. Lighting battens are about 20' up. 

I have been looking at the Chauvet ColorDash Par-Quad 18 and the Par-Hex 12 as options. The Par-Quad 18 seems to be brighter, but with the tradeoff of having less color options, most notably the absence of a white LED where the 12 has the white (and UV which is not a deal maker/breaker). 

Another product I was looking at was the Blizzard Rok Box line, the exa and the 5. 

From my math on these (which feel free to correct if wrong) I'm looking at having at least 6 fixtures per batten to get adequate coverage across the stage. I'm also looking to buy in stages so probably 6 lights now and 6 next summer. My biggest fear is what I don't know and that I don't know what I don't know, hence getting insight into this decision. 

Beam angles are another point of confusion to some degree as I understand that LED's are not as straightforward as conventionals in this arena. The Par-Quad has optics of 20, but a beam angle of 18 while the Par-Hex has just a beam angle of 20. The Rok Box has 25 degree optics with a 26 degree beam angle. I know I want the "cones" to overlap to give proper coverage, but is there a magic number for how much? At what height should the fields converge?

We are a HS PAC that functions as a mini-roadhouse. Lots of dance recitals, lots of school shows, an annual musical, etc. I'd like something that would spend 90% of its time downlighting, but could also double as a backlight truss for a flash and trash rock concert when called for. Our front wash is 5 wide x 3 zones deep and 575w S4s. Sidelighting at the moment are 6 8" fresnels. One thing I didn't mention earlier is we do have a sizeable apron, about 13' downstage of the plaster line. 

To summarize, are these fixtures a good place to start looking? Are there other fixtures that are comparable that I should be aware of? I'm not local to many dealers, so I haven't explored the demo option much yet. Budget at the moment is about $3-4,000 for one batten of downlight.


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## mikeydoesstuff (Sep 11, 2015)

As a wash unit I'm really liking the Martin Rush MH2 - not quite the same deal as pars/par equivalents, but Theyre quick, theyre bright, and they're moving heads to they'd make a really nice flash and trash option.


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 13, 2015)

Those are very cool and would be useful, but are a bit north of my budget. I'm not really looking for moving heads, but more for a static wash that can be reconfigured on occasion/as needed.


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## soundlight (Sep 13, 2015)

I've heard a lot of good stuff about the Blizzard Rokboxes you mentioned - and the HotBoxes as well. I'd suggest the RokBox 5 RGBAW over the EXA, I haven't seen a 6-color LED with a good UV or good lensing system yet. Also, the LEDs for each are 15 watt, so in the RGBAW Hotbox 5 there will be more power per LED color.

I can recommend directly against any of the Chauvet Hex gear or the Elation SixPARs - the lensing is not there yet. You get significant color splotching. Not a huge fan. Yes, I've seen them both in person. Elation said it was a "beta unit" and they were going to "improve the lenses" - they didn't. Saw the production model. Still not a great field. Yeah, for dark flash n trash club backlighting, they'd be fine, but for downlight in a non-haze situation I can't recommend them.

Now as a disclaimer I haven't seen the Blizzard stuff. But I've heard good things.


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## JChenault (Sep 14, 2015)

StradivariusBone said:


> From my math on these (which feel free to correct if wrong) I'm looking at having at least 6 fixtures per batten to get adequate coverage across the stage. I'm also looking to buy in stages so probably 6 lights now and 6 next summer. My biggest fear is what I don't know and that I don't know what I don't know, hence getting insight into this decision.
> 
> Beam angles are another point of confusion to some degree as I understand that LED's are not as straightforward as conventionals in this arena. The Par-Quad has optics of 20, but a beam angle of 18 while the Par-Hex has just a beam angle of 20. The Rok Box has 25 degree optics with a 26 degree beam angle. I know I want the "cones" to overlap to give proper coverage, but is there a magic number for how much? At what height should the fields converge?



I think your math is off. Assuming a batten 20 feet above the deck, and 'normal height actors, you have about 13. Feet of throw from the fixture Ito the top of a 6 foot actors head. A 19 degree angle spreads .31 feet for every foot of throw giving a circle of about 4.5 feet per fixture. For a 40 foot proscenium this means about 9 fixtures. To get the 20 foot depth, you need about 4 to 5 battens.

I would also advise against spreading your purchases out over multiple years. The technology is changing so fast that a year from now there will likely not be an identical fixture available.


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 14, 2015)

I was having trouble visualizing the coverage with actors, but it never occurred to me to simply reduce the distance to the height needed in the beam calculation. That makes a lot of sense.

I guess then my questions go back to getting the best light bang for light buck. The limiting factor with LED's seem to be the lack of flexibility in the beam angle, which I guess I'm just used to our current downlight which are pairs of warm/cool fresnels set to flood. I'm not opposed to raising the trim of our electrics, but realize that the increased distance will equally a proportional decrease in brightness. 

I'm also trying to find a way to buy the whole rig within a year's time, I realize that the market surges forward in this area. Is there a better time of year to buy? Do the big brands release fixtures on a predictable schedule (a la Apple) like at certain trade shows?


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## np18358 (Sep 14, 2015)

I know you said that you are not looking for moving instruments, but I just wanted to point out that you could get Chauvet Rogue R1 Washes for approx 700 - 800$, and while it is more than the ~500$ price of the other instruments you were looking at, they have a 11°-48° zoom, are quite a bit brighter, and with the combination of the moving head functionality/wider spread you may be able to get less. May not work for you, but certainly not a crazy idea.


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 15, 2015)

That's a good point. With a moving head we'd get a bit more flexibility in lighting the zones, albeit not always 90 degree down, but at least some angle of top-down color wash. The zoom would definitely make for an interesting combo of spot/flood too.


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## DavidNorth (Sep 15, 2015)

I was curious about the R1 Wash so went and looked at the data. I will recommend, as others have, to get a demo. It's small and lightweight, but it also is not very bright and has a fan. We often forget about weight and fans. We also know that various reported data on brightness are not accurate based on color use.

Demo and demo several different makes and models together. Having remote access to beam size, pan and tilt are really neat, but ultimately, you need to light the performance.

Let us know what you learn as many folks are in the same position you are.

David


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## venuetech (Sep 15, 2015)

I saw another thread where LED PAR Zoom fixtures were suggested. such as the Martin- Rush Par2 or Elation's Arena Q7 Zoom a number of others that i have been looking at. having a motorized zoom could be nice.


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 15, 2015)

I had a neighboring HS TD suggest buying a batten worth of downlight and using it as a backlight wash to get a little more mileage out of it while I shore up the funds to buy more. Being in a school setting it is difficult to save up enough to buy everything at once due to how they operate. 

I would definitely love to demo fixtures, but (and this will sound a bit stupid), I'm not exactly sure how to go about arranging that. The nearest rental shop to us is SEAL in Orlando, but they don't have any of the fixtures I've been looking at. I usually do business with BMI and Full Compass, do they ship demo fixtures? I'm not aware of any local dealers that would give as good a price as the big guys.


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## mikeydoesstuff (Sep 15, 2015)

Call someone you know who is a Chauvet or Martin or whatever dealer. They can probably find a way to get you a demo, or at least themselves a demo set up to let you check out gear.


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## RickR (Sep 15, 2015)

Call who you would like to deal with and ask them. Even if they usually don't, they might for a known customer. Worst case they say NO and you call someone else.


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## Ford (Sep 15, 2015)

Please PM me your contact information, and I will arrange for someone to contact you for a Demo of the R1 Wash, and whichever other Chauvet Professional products you'd like to see.

thanks,
-Ford


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## JimOC_1 (Oct 3, 2015)

I‘m an amateur helping at our high school, not one of the more experienced folks here. But I did put up 9 of the Blizzard Lighting HotBox 7x 15W RGBW + UV (April 2014). 

Proscenium opening is 25’. We have 15’ from the proscenium to the back drop. Normal staging uses from 10’ in front of proscenium to the back drop. The goal was front lighting for the back half of the stage, with these lights on the first stage electric at ~ 15’(H). (In the house we have 16, 575 GLA lamped lekos out 15’ to 30’ from the lip. Backlights are cheap 575 parnels)
We received a small grant with a limited time to use it. All I had time for was requesting bids with no time to demo instruments.

Although I like the HotBox, in retrospect I wish I’d added some $$$, and gone with Blizzard Lighting RokBox™ 5 18x15W RGBW+UV instead.
The directors were thrilled with the color flexibility because it fit their pageantry style (hence the UV). I struggle a little with white (having normally used no-color pink and blue for our mixed race performers, and some magenta for highlighting our current stars with darker skin). But feel we do ok with the lights. If we had gone with the RokBox I’d have more white intensity and need to mix in less of the colors for the overall brightness I often go for.

Zooms as have been mentioned, and Hotsticks (recommended by Bill Cronheim for another upgrade) may be useful.

Hope some of this helps.


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## AshleyB (Jul 13, 2016)

Strad,

Curious what you went with and how they are working out for you! Our stage has similar dimensions (40' x 20' prosc. opening, deep stage, enormous apron), and I'm also beginning a funding campaign for new fixtures.


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