# PAR 64 lamps getting hard to get?



## Ravenbar (Feb 4, 2018)

I only do one show a year for the local school. I have the director of the show order anything I need.

Today I was told that WFL Par 64 lamps were on backorder as they aren't common anymore and have to come from China now.

PAR 64's are the last lamp I'd expect to have trouble getting given there widespead use.


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## techieman33 (Feb 4, 2018)

I know GE stopped production of their entire theatrical line a year or more ago. I'm not sure about Osram, but I'm sure they're at least looking at doing the same. LED fixtures have pretty much taken over, especially for wash lights. Almost no one is buying conventional fixtures these days. And those that are already in peoples inventory are being replaced with LED fixtures at ever increasing rates.


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## theatricalmatt (Feb 4, 2018)

You need some? I've got some.


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## Ravenbar (Feb 4, 2018)

Working on a school who's equipment hasn't be4en updated since the early 2000's and I've been out of it other than the school since 2008.


theatricalmatt said:


> You need some? I've got some.



Already got some on order.


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## ship (Feb 6, 2018)

What specific 500w or 1,000w type of lamp is backordered? 

Yes there is coming problems but many suppliers have huge stocks of them. If your supplier cannot get them, you probably have the wrong supplier and possibly were paying too much anyway.

I buy a few dozen every other month or so. GE perhaps a coming problem when and if stocks go down before GE does or doesn't figure out making lamps or not given the name brand isn't GE any longer other than in bought for name brand/China. Philips perhaps more a problem, in I have no idea of where they are going in lamps. Osram perhaps a problem, or not. Ushio not a problem but a little more expensive currently. Other brands not looked into possibly out there.

Given GE/Corning which made GE/Philips/Osram lamp reflectors in the past if and I think is closed down is a problem... Believe Osram is starting to make the lamp elsewhere. Ushio never used Corning, and I believe there is other brands making the lamp also.

Bet Mark from Osram is claw scratching the edges on his desk about someone higher up having discontinued his AlumAPar line of lamps a few years too early. This would be the perfect time to re-introduce them.

If any help, I have no problems with stock or supply - though unless something really is not available which the PAR 64 is not... I do not make sales attempts on-line. I do have a small stock of 1.2Kw GFB and GFE PAR 64 lamps, and decent stock of 600PAR64VNSP lamps if looking for those though.


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## DELO72 (Feb 9, 2018)

ship said:


> Bet Mark from Osram is claw scratching the edges on his desk about someone higher up having discontinued his AlumAPar line of lamps a few years too early. This would be the perfect time to re-introduce them.



*chuckle* "No comment."


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## gafftapegreenia (Feb 9, 2018)

GE is ending all lamp production and is looking to sell off its lighting division.


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## FMEng (Feb 9, 2018)

I have read that GE wants to sell the lighting division. What I have not seen is any mention of GE ending lamp production because that would make the division less valuable to a buyer. They have closed some US plants and moved production to other countries.


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## peacefulone61 (Feb 10, 2018)

I have had the same issue with the par 54 the lamps for the scoops we have and even some of our older Fernells /Lekos I have been buying in bulk when I can find them.

The school has told me they will not upgrade fixtures so soon we will be working with flashlights and flourencents


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## FMEng (Feb 11, 2018)

peacefulone61 said:


> I have had the same issue with the par 54 the lamps for the scoops we have and even some of our older Fernells /Lekos I have been buying in bulk when I can find them.
> 
> The school has told me they will not upgrade fixtures so soon we will be working with flashlights and flourencents



(This thread is at risk of igniting a lengthy treatise from Ship.) Most stage lights will accept several types of lamps. Sometimes an oddball gets chosen, for a particular characteristic like long life, and then it gets burned into institutional memory to only buy the rarified lamp. Chances are good that there are readily available, current lamp types for your fresnels and lekos. You might want to start another thread with your instrument types and ask for lamp recommendations.

As for PAR 54, I don't think such ever existed. Perhaps you mean PAR 56? I buy a few every so often, with no difficulty. Smaller PAR lamps, such as PAR 38 have been derated in wattage by converting to slightly more efficient filaments or lower output. The wisdom of our government is that we get to live with less light, no matter what the application. For example, where you used to buy a 100 Watt lamp, you will have to settle for the "energy saving" 90 Watt. A lamp that used to be 150 is probably a 120 now.


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## DELO72 (Feb 12, 2018)

Here's the situation on Stage types- They are immune to Gov't efficiency regulations as they are "Special Purpose" lamps for a specific industry, and not for General Household or office illumination. That said, as volumes decrease and margins plummet (HPLs used to sell for $25 when they first came out. You can now find them on the web for what? $14? They didn't become $11 cheaper to make during that time period), the business is less appealing as we would have to sell more to make the same amount of profit, and with LED fixtures replacing Halogen ones in the market, we aren't selling more, we are selling less. 

Also, where lighting manufacturers used to have a few competitors, now with LEDs we have hundreds, and they are smaller, more nimble, and faster than us to respond to technology changes because they aren't bound by huge corporate structures. I can't speak for what GE is doing in the ENT market, except to say that they laid off their specialty lamp sales force about 4 years ago (which is how we got one of them -- woot! a coup I tell you!) and rolled it all into their General lighting sales branch (Current), which is now being bundled with their lighting and being sold off. Which is what Siemens did with OSRAM a while ago, and what OSRAM did almost two years ago with our General Lighting product portfolio (now sold by a company called LEDVANCE). 

Everyone is going the way of Technology- USHIO is showing up at most tradeshows under their ZYLIGHT brand and not their USHIO brand, I'm not sure what Philips is doing and they would have to say for themselves, and they got completely out of Halogen Specialty lamps entirely, focusing only on Metal Halide and Mercury Vapor (and fixtures/LEDs) moving forward, where they've always been strong. They also sold off their Xenon Cinema lamp business (Formerly LTI), which was an interesting development- probably fueled by the changes they see coming in that market to LED and Laser in the coming years. OSRAM is similarly moving forward as a technology company, and focusing on OLED, Lasers, LED, etc. No one wants a manufacturing footprint anymore as it ties them down to old technology, so everything is probably going to be eventually outsourced to manufacturers in cheaper areas of the world. GE isn't making PAR lamps in the USA, but they are still making Halogen lamps (BTL, HPL, etc.) in Hungary and China I think, but who knows for how long. Most PAR lamps from this point on from all manufacturers will be made in China. The reason they are hard to get at the moment, is the time needed to validate and qualify new factories, and approve & test the quality of the product coming out of there. OSRAM will have our PAR64 1000W lamps back in stock next month BTW, and we have no current plans to discontinue them. We ran out fast when GE closed their factory and suddenly lamps from them and us got harder to come by. Some traditional technology lamps will get cheaper (PAR lamps, moving from the USA --> China). Some will get more expensive (Sockets and High-wattage halogen lamps such as DTY, BCM, etc.) because the companies that make the various smaller components are going out of business, or wanting to charge more for such small volumes as the quantity declines. Already a few years ago we had a discontinue some lamp types (DNE/DNF) and sockets (TP220) because the supplier of key components when out of business and we couldn't find new sources that wouldn't charge a massive tooling fee which would have made them non-profitable for at least 10 years to recoup the money. 
Metal Halide should remain stable for a while as the market is still very strong there due to companies like Clay Paky, Vari-Lite, Chauvet, Elation, Robe, Martin Pro, etc. all still making fixtures using lamps.


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## Ravenbar (Feb 13, 2018)

ship said:


> What specific 500w or 1,000w type of lamp is backordered?
> 
> Yes there is coming problems but many suppliers have huge stocks of them. If your supplier cannot get them, you probably have the wrong supplier and possibly were paying too much anyway.
> 
> ...



Lamps in question are 1000w WFL Par 64 lamps.

As far as supplier, They always order from Syracuse scenery and Stage Lighting.. I simply give them a list as I need stuff and the director of the show orders it. Since the schools also due for a lighting upgrade, I've been pushing for ETC Source 4 fixtures, since we've had a hard time sourcing parts for the Altman Shakespeare units(can get individual parts, but assemblies like pre-assembled caps are impossible to get). Syracuse Scenery is a Altman dealer and tend toward Altman fixtures.
.


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## gafftapegreenia (Feb 13, 2018)

@DELO72, thank you for that detailed responsible. I appreciate the window in to what the lamp companies are thinking. The times really are a-changin’


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## ship (Feb 13, 2018)

Thanks also Mark.


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## JonCarter (Feb 13, 2018)

@DELO72 , thanks very much also for the intersting information. I grew up 3 blocks from GE's NELA Park research facility in East Cleveland and knew many people who worked there and at the local GE lamp plant in Cleveland. When working at a large outdoor theatre in Cleveland, (1950s) we used to have GE make us 2MT30/1 leko lamps in various voltages to compensate for the drop to our lighting positions far away (+/- 600') from the light booth. Later when I was sec-treas of the Ohio Section of SMPTE I arranged for many GE experts to speak on lighting issues for our section meetings. I'm surprised that GE's research people weren't on top of the changes in the industry and sad to see them leaving the business.


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## gafftapegreenia (Feb 14, 2018)

JonCarter said:


> I'm surprised that GE's research people weren't on top of the changes in the industry and sad to see them leaving the business.



Sounds like a Kodak moment. another industry giant who developed ground breaking technology but never really benefited from it.


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## dbaxter (Feb 14, 2018)

As far as not really benefiting - I can't think of anything bigger than the Xerox invention of the mouse and GUI at their PARC research facility.


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## ML.Rice (Feb 16, 2018)

Ravenbar said:


> Lamps in question are 1000w WFL Par 64 lamps.
> 
> As far as supplier, They always order from Syracuse scenery and Stage Lighting.. I simply give them a list as I need stuff and the director of the show orders it. Since the schools also due for a lighting upgrade, I've been pushing for ETC Source 4 fixtures, since we've had a hard time sourcing parts for the Altman Shakespeare units(can get individual parts, but assemblies like pre-assembled caps are impossible to get). Syracuse Scenery is a Altman dealer and tend toward Altman fixtures.
> .


@Ravenbar If your regular supplier is usually SSSL (Who are great!) and they cant get them in, give BMI Supply a try. I ordered several PAR64 lamps last week from them. They're based out of Queensbury NY and when I was in the Ithaca area I'd practically get things delivered before I ordered them. They also have an online store to make it even easier.


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## TimMc (Feb 16, 2018)

dbaxter said:


> As far as not really benefiting - I can't think of anything bigger than the Xerox invention of the mouse and GUI at their PARC research facility.



And letting Jobs walk out of Xerox's PARC (literallly) with the code that made the GUI work. Nobody at Xerox saw the potential because they were engineers and accustomed to working with arcane numbers and symbols and command lines; consumers and office workers not so much. Tied with Xerox was IBM, whose executives couldn't envision why anyone would want a computer on their desk...


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## Ravenbar (Feb 16, 2018)

ML.Rice said:


> @Ravenbar If your regular supplier is usually SSSL (Who are great!) and they cant get them in, give BMI Supply a try. I ordered several PAR64 lamps last week from them. They're based out of Queensbury NY and when I was in the Ithaca area I'd practically get things delivered before I ordered them. They also have an online store to make it even easier.



My personal preference is BMI. The schools history is with SSSL. As I'm ordering through the school,most of the basics come from SSSL. We also order some random stuff from various places online.


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## Chef Greg @TLC (Jan 8, 2019)

Any thing new, non-led on the event horizon for par56 & 64 or are they simply a product of a bygone era? ... most of my customer aren't interested in changing to $$ LED yet.... (thrifty, yes!)


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## DuckJordan (Jan 8, 2019)

Chef Greg @TLC said:


> Any thing new, non-led on the event horizon for par56 & 64 or are they simply a product of a bygone era? ... most of my customer aren't interested in changing to $$ LED yet.... (thrifty, yes!)



I consistently order Par 64 lamps, ours come from B&H most of the time.


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## WooferHound (Jan 9, 2019)

Most of the PAR 64's that I've seen lately were being used to house another lighting fixture for some reason or another.


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## ship (Jan 10, 2019)

Fascinating, I have not seen that done yet. What sort of light housed in the now prop can? Thanks in pre-knowledge of what might hit me next. Next thought on my part, given the under water LED foutain source rings with a hole in the center... do they fit inside a PAR Can and lots of options for what can fit in that center ring. No LED PAR 64 bulbs on the market at this point, and indeed would be better to do a DWE LED replacement.

As for Halogen PAR 64 lamps, at this point more a Mark (Osram) question in the only manufacturer of PAR 64 lamps left (verified) - when they will come to production given some problems to overcome, verses stocks of lamps at suppliers. Honestly I am sweating a bit and stocking up a little more. But this is not the Corning lamp panic of like +15 years ago - when LED's were not viable and a ANSI 1Kw PAR 64 lamp was still the main can fixture in only the S-4 PAR to compete.

I'm told in asking, mainly the medium and wide focus are lowest in stock thus such lamps should be the first Osram comes on line with, if of help to them in production. The ACL lamp #4595 GE lamp is a question as with the DKZ/DSE for further production I don't know about. Osram makes neither of them. Further question the DWE and FCX..


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## Pc2 (Apr 2, 2019)

Hi All,
I'm just learning of the Par64 backlogging issue. Suppliers all around here have ceased shipments and/or have little to no stock. We are now pushing for retooling budget and looking at possible options of LED Par replacements or maybe s4 Pars to replace our 60+ Unit inventory. Researching options helped me to find this forum. Thanks for all that posted.


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## derekleffew (Apr 2, 2019)

There are other retrofits, but this seems to be the early leader: http://www.onsiteled.com/ .


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## JohnD (Apr 2, 2019)

Welcome @Pc2 , the latest info is in this thread:
https://www.controlbooth.com/threads/large-par-46-56-64-lamps.45336/


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## ship (Apr 2, 2019)

Thanks Derek, will be play testing these and hopefully the TMB source next week if we get them.


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## mrtrudeau23 (Jul 24, 2019)

Curious what you thought of those retrofits if you tested them @ship??


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## ship (Jul 25, 2019)

TMB, All Bulbs, TechniLux... probably Creative Stage Lighting, in believing I heard they have them... and by now most other suppliers Fixture or lamp I would expect have or can get them now.

Main difference is GE/Corning no longer is making the globes for GE/Osram/Philips. Ushio and Eiko both on their own stopped making them in their own globe suppliers given the lack of volume.... slightly before Corning stopped I would suspect. A good question in thru the years we have heard of front lens popping from reflector, and or in general failures in lamp capsule.

Eiko I would watch in possibly they might have come back in supplying them or as per an alternate source - Eiko tends to linger on incandescent's, or their factory might have been shut down or re-started or shut down than restarted by a different company. One should well respect potential of that company as per the Hyundai of the lighting industry for building in quality.

In not having asked or being told the story, large PAR Can suppliers no doubt were onto this problem as soon as the news Corning was shutting down. Could be a question of one or more of them perhaps buying out the Corning factory in Mexico.... possible - don't know where the outer globes were made. Or just bought out the design for the lamp if no longer patent - probably. Certainly was a quick turn around time to start making lamps overall - kind of like faster I would think than the war time turning around of factories that once made cars in now making at least jeeps.

As for the quality of the lamps, finally I think got my last pallets.. cannot tell and will not be able to tell for months. Some of the new lamps probably shipped out to tours. Problem being I have no idea of what's used on them or sestemic problems on them yet, or if still filtering thru old stock - a lot of that still in stock.

That said it does become an interesting question of how well they are working. How to mark the lamps - which often came in marked over GE cardboard boxes/cases so as to send back for evaluation if they fail? This also given I believe a 800hr lamp how to track lamp hours for remote shows.

Assuming I should not put a sticker on the reflector, suppose some sort of smaller high temperature sticker on the porcelain lamp base would be appropriate with date installed and date removed. If I have an average amount of days the cans were used per week and hours... which I can if specified which leg of the tour info, I might be able to get this info.

Above nearly impossible to track.... but not impossible given a TV "entertainment" tour, done by our shop staff, and the tour/show and our guys have just as much worry about when they will have to change the system as I do. Thanks in a good question that I will look into. Never tracked PAR 64 lamps before... but might just start giving them a serial number in lamp tracking to find this out.

Thanks. Something to look into.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Jul 26, 2019)

Where does ETC (and others) get their S4PAR (and others)?


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## derekleffew (Jul 26, 2019)

BillConnerFASTC said:


> Where does ETC (and others) get their S4PAR (and others)?


I'm guessing the missing word is "lenses".

I don't think we ever heard the final disposition on this topic: https://www.controlbooth.com/threads/source-four-par-lens-question.41229/#post-356500

Jim Uphoff said:


> I have a quick question for anyone that would be willing to take the time to answer. Our supplier for the lenses we ship with all S4 Par fixtures is stopping production of those lenses. We are being forced to source a new supplier and have found an alternative. The lenses, however, are not exactly the same. Most notably, the MFL and WFL would go from being oblong to being round. (see the chart below) Thoughts? Would this negatively impact your ability to use the fixtures? Is the oblong quality of those lenses the reason you use them? Would there be any advantages to the new, round beam? Also, you could just answer the poll. One thing to note is that the other lenses we have been shipping have always been round.



I'd always heard that S4-PAR lenses were the front part of PAR56 lamps, before they were wedded with the reflector and filament assembly. Not sure that's true, but it makes a good story.


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