GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

Shane Presley

Shane Presley

Senior
Jan 12, 2011
909
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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
www.bssproductions.com
So I've sold off my Blizzard LED pars and needed a replacement, but with a little more bling. So I fully had it in my head I was going to buy used Martin MAC 101, cause I already had 8 pieces, and I was going to get 8 more.... But as everyone knows they are rather "proud" of thier fixtures ( $) and for good reason. I wanted to find something that was similar but was not as expensive, and I stumbled across these guys on ebay. looks to be a chinese fixture that a new jersey company is distributing, so I thought I'd give them a shot. I took the plunge an ordered 8 fixtures in a case. They just showed up today. I brought a mac 101 home for comparison, and I've attached some pics... Basically there are a couple of differences starting right off the bat. I'm using the stock MAC 101 profile on light jockey to compare, cause that is what i use live...The generic 101, or GEN 101 to be dubbed, "homes" 90 degrees from the mac.... no big deal, I'll program a "home" position on my lighting console before I start making scenes... hurdle 1 put to bed. Next item, the shutter function doesn't work like the 101... Ok, change the profile so that works, hurdle #2. I fired them up and there are a couple of differences. First off the 'wash" or the halo on the generic fixture seems to be larger than the 101. I can see that the LEDS physically are more frosted than the 101, so that possibly could be the issue. I plan to put the diffusion gels in these fixtures so having the extra halo, will not be noticed. Also the dimming curve on the GEN fixture is smoother, but cuts off sooner, (@9% the MAC is still showing light) There is another setting that i might try to improve that. The strobe function again is out to lunch, and they will not sync, but again - I didn't plan to use them in a row, all doing the same thing, just so long each group of fixtures behave the same. Anyways the output is similar, the colours again are similar, I would say that the blue LEDS on the GEN fixture are not as deep and dark as the blue on the MAC 101. Almost a royal blue instead of a navy blue, but again, adjust some values and you can get it close.... All in all I'm pleased so far with the purchase, so long as they handle a bit of local road, my wash fixtures solution has been solved. Price of the GEN fixtures is about a third of the MAC 101's.
 

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Re: GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

Shane Presley said:
So I've sold off my Blizzard LED pars and needed a replacement, but with a little more bling. So I fully had it in my head I was going to buy used Martin MAC 101, cause I already had 8 pieces, and I was going to get 8 more.... But as everyone knows they are rather "proud" of thier fixtures ( $) and for good reason. I wanted to find something that was similar but was not as expensive, and I stumbled across these guys on ebay. looks to be a chinese fixture that a new jersey company is distributing, so I thought I'd give them a shot. I took the plunge an ordered 8 fixtures in a case. They just showed up today. I brought a mac 101 home for comparison, and I've attached some pics... Basically there are a couple of differences starting right off the bat. I'm using the stock MAC 101 profile on light jockey to compare, cause that is what i use live...The generic 101, or GEN 101 to be dubbed, "homes" 90 degrees from the mac.... no big deal, I'll program a "home" position on my lighting console before I start making scenes... hurdle 1 put to bed. Next item, the shutter function doesn't work like the 101... Ok, change the profile so that works, hurdle #2. I fired them up and there are a couple of differences. First off the 'wash" or the halo on the generic fixture seems to be larger than the 101. I can see that the LEDS physically are more frosted than the 101, so that possibly could be the issue. I plan to put the diffusion gels in these fixtures so having the extra halo, will not be noticed. Also the dimming curve on the GEN fixture is smoother, but cuts off sooner, (@9% the MAC is still showing light) There is another setting that i might try to improve that. The strobe function again is out to lunch, and they will not sync, but again - I didn't plan to use them in a row, all doing the same thing, just so long each group of fixtures behave the same. Anyways the output is similar, the colours again are similar, I would say that the blue LEDS on the GEN fixture are not as deep and dark as the blue on the MAC 101. Almost a royal blue instead of a navy blue, but again, adjust some values and you can get it close.... All in all I'm pleased so far with the purchase, so long as they handle a bit of local road, my wash fixtures solution has been solved. Price of the GEN fixtures is about a third of the MAC 101's.
Click to expand...


How the build quality of the fixture and road case?
 
Re: GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

The road case is your typical...roadready type case, the grey closed cell foam, a small compartment for cables, and 8 individual cells for the fixtures. What I like about it, is it's small, 32" x 22" it has decent blue castors, stacking cups (with round divits to accept the other wheels, never seen that before even on expensive cases..) I put all the fixtures back in the case and noticed that the foam that is to engage the sides of the base don't come up high enough to suspend the fixture, leaving it to rest on the bottom on the head... I'm going to get some thick weather stripping and add another layer on to the sides, so the fixture is suspended in the case...As for the fixtures, I have an out of box failure. 1 out of 8... I've emailed them tonight, and i already got a response saying that they'll be on it first thing tomorrow, which is cool. I half expected the "what did you do to it", speech or the other gambit of questions before they might do something. I hope they are as good as they claimed in thier emails for customer service, crappy to get a dead one out of the box - but that's the risk with ye old chinese knock-offs. As for build quality they behave and feel just like the 101... They moved as smooth, had similar behaviour for dimming and macro movement.
I barcoded, and numbered them, then patched them in to test through the 101 (pass through power and DMX). They all did the exact same thing except fixture #2... powered up, started to home, then it started to violently shake, and indicate MOTOR RESET >>>>>>>> on the display. It finished shaking after the home cycle, but the display stayed on MOTOR RESET, and the arrows were scrolling left to right...
We'll see how they deal with the return.
SP

Edit - update... So the supplier is wanting to send the fed-ex tag to my broker instead of to where I am (Canada), in his words
"So why would we not ship to the broker again? How do we deal with
getting this item in/out of Canada? Why are you, in an email trying to resolve immediately for you, waving a sword when simple dialog will solve this? I asked a reasonable question; we shipped you an item, you say it is bad, we will immediately replace. Why would we not naturally assume it was going to the same place? Is this a bad assumption?
"
Getting it in and out of CANADA ? it's called an RMA number....*ROLL*
Personally I would assume to receive 8 working fixtures, not 7 and 1 dead..... I hope this can be resolved or he'll get 8 back. :(
 
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Re: GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

Well the Generico company is doing it's part and communicating well... it's the stupid government(s) that is making this difficult, with reems of red tape and forms... Holy cow, this thing cleared Canadain customs YESTERDAY, and it's defective... you would think I could send it back without cost or hassle... apparently - not the case...
 
Re: GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

Shane Presley said:
Well the Generico company is doing it's part and communicating well... it's the stupid government(s) that is making this difficult, with reems of red tape and forms... Holy cow, this thing cleared Canadain customs YESTERDAY, and it's defective... you would think I could send it back without cost or hassle... apparently - not the case...
Click to expand...

They can likely send a single unit via USPS and avoid customs altogether...couldn't you return the bad one the same way?

You are still looking at probably $200 for the round trip. Depending on cost, have them send parts to fix, or suck it up and keep the bad one for parts and just order another one.

I have 12 generic mac101 clones from China, and it's not even worth bothering with repair. They're disposable.
 
Re: GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

Just thought I'd post some actual usage pics taken at my install this past weekend. Our band was playing so I thought I'd "spice up" the lighting rig.

The normal rig is ADJ PAR 64 LED x 12. 6 x PAR 64 1K open white front lighting.

I hung 8 x generico LED mac 101 clones... with radience hazer.
 

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Re: GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

Any updates on how these units have held up, and performed since this last update over a year ago??
 
Re: GENERICO MAc 101 clone moving head LEDS

I have 16 Gen X363's and 8 Real Mac101's in Rental stock. Have had the Generico X363's for almost 2 years now and have had only had 1 failure.
I personally like the color blending better with the X363's over the real 101's

I have known Eric Todd (Owner of Generico) for quite awhile and know that he will always make it right. (Not so much if you buy the Chinese stuff)

They have lots of quality Production related products that perform as good or better than the name brand stuff at substantially less cost.
 
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