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Thread: Converting Moving Head 575's to LEDs

  1. #1
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    Lightbulb Converting Moving Head 575's to LEDs

    Hi People, there have been a couple of posts about converting discharge lamp lights to LEDs in this forum, that was about a year ago, I wondered whether anyone has made a successful conversion? I have 8 moving heads all of which have 575watt discharge lamps, would love to move them all to LED power, I just wondered whether this is realistic? I have spoken to a friend who seems to think so, anyone done this in the UK? How much brightness can you get up to?

    Thanks!

    Paul

  2. #2
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    Take a look at this thread on the Blueroom forum for some inspiration. He made a lovely job of the Miniscans. I would think you'll be looking at a 90W source, although optical paths seem to make a massive difference with LEDs (the old Showtec Indigo 4500 was a 60W source, the new 4600 claims a 30W source but 20% increase in brightness over the 4500)

    http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.ph...1&#entry428283

    Personally, with the price of LED profile fixtures tumbling all the time, and LED tech getting cheaper, I would be more inclined to move on the 575's and buy proper LED units. Otherwise you lose the other great thing about LED movers, reduced size!
    Frikkin Lasers
    http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk

    You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?

    I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.

  3. #3
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    Hi and thanks for the quick reply!

    I will check out those links now, it does look like quite a big job but hopefully worth it.

    LEDs do seem to be getting a lot more powerful and I'm hoping to get my hands on some to breath new life into those moving heads.

    Thanks again!

  4. #4
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    Don't forget that color is going to be a big deal changing to led. Led's and metal halide lamps have very different spectra. The 575's are not going to color match at all with other 575's. If they are color mixing they are going to be even stranger.

    What kind of 575's? Who makes them? Are they electronic ballasts or magnetic? Are they a spot or a wash? Are the electronics going to care the lamp isn't there?
    A 100 watt good led array is maybe 8000 lumen if you can keep it cool enough and drive it properly. A Philips MSD 575 makes 45000 lumen and by the end of the optics you get ~10k. Thermal? Optics? A little golden scan vs a Studio Color or MAC 500 is a big jump in complexity.

    Vari*Lite spent a whole bunch of money on this. http://www.vari-lite.com/clientuploa...X_Brochure.pdf and it makes about 12000 lumen. About what a good 575 class fixture will make.

    This is not going to be just a slap it in and go.

    chad


    When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.


  5. #5
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    A 100W LED array won't get you far - if you look at the vari-lite above, they use 7x120W RGB LEDs to get to 575 brightness.

    Same story if you look at Martin: http://www.martin.com/product/product.asp?product=mac350entour

    7 x Luminus CBT-90 (50 W) LEDs, and they spec it to be brighter than a 300W HID.

    I have converted a 22W LED scanner to 50W, easy to do since the optics were designed for a LED light source. This made it a LOT brighter, but then again it wasn't very bright to begin with.

    /Thomas

  6. #6
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    i wonder what one of these would do

    http://www.uvled.us/led-400w.html

  7. #7
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    Well that's getting closer power wise. You need 70V at 6A to drive it that's going to be a pain. It has about a 50mm x 50mm aperture with a 120deg emission.

    It would take some optics to get that colimated better and down the stock light path. I don't know it would be an interesting experiment.

    chad


    When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.


  8. #8
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    They have a 500W as well:
    http://www.ledwt.com/high-power-led/led-500w.html

    But as chad said, getting the light down the optical path will be a challenge. 50x50mm aperture on the LED vs 8mm on the 575.

    /Thomas

  9. #9
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    Thanks guys, LED technology is really coming on. I will check out that 500watt LED, sounds immense but... would need engineer genius to put that in.

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