NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

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Anthony Vittore

Freshman
Nov 5, 2013
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Hello,
I am a new drama teacher and in need to buy new LED lights for our stage. The throw needs to be around 30 feet. My budget is $4000. I need to purchase 12 lights.I am currently looking at the Blizzard 12A. I have no clue when it comes to likes. Also I was looking to run it using a DMX software American DJ? Any help would be great! This is my first post.
Thank you
Anthony
 
Re: NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

Welcome to the forum. The Blizzard Q12A appears to be a passable product for certain uses, though I made a different choice after trying one (my review is here in this section of the forum if you'd like to read it). The big question is what are you intending to do, and how rigorous are your requirements? [Cheap] LEDs are good for saturated colors, and are much less good for tint colors, warm colors, and people lighting, depending on you pickiness. If you want a wide wash, most lights will be OK at 30'; some have different beam angles for different purposes. LED "throw" works the same way as conventional "throw".

Control via PC can be done, and there are several free or nearly free software packages out there. Chamsys MagicQ is $100 and is extremely powerful. I don't have a lot of experience with other software packages, but know there are a few - hopefully someone else can chime in on that. I will say that running LEDs from a conventional dimmer-only board is a challenge, so some type of control more suited to LEDs is a good idea.

I would get a demo of whatever product you are interested in before committing. Your $4000 is going to go in a hurry - I would rather see you get 6 or 8 fixtures that do what you need (or even 4 fixtures plus a reasonable lighting board) rather than 12 inadequate fixtures.
 
Re: NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

Anthony Vittore said:
Hello,
I am a new drama teacher and in need to buy new LED lights for our stage. The throw needs to be around 30 feet. My budget is $4000. I need to purchase 12 lights.I am currently looking at the Blizzard 12A. I have no clue when it comes to likes. Also I was looking to run it using a DMX software American DJ? Any help would be great! This is my first post.
Thank you
Anthony
Click to expand...

anthony in all honesty, throwing 30 feet with LED isn't going to happen, let alone for 12 fixtures on a $4000 budget... Maybe if it was $4000 per fixture (or two) ...seriously.
You can have one or the other in this case... Led with short throw, or adequate throw with traditional lighting fixtures... You might be better off shopping around for some used conventional gear at this point. What is your purpose for the lights, colour wash, gobo projection, moving lighting ?
 
Re: NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

Go conventional. You might find it more frustrating to use gels (GOD FORBID… GELS??!!!?) and lamps, but you aren't going to get anywhere reasonable for theatrical purposes with 4k unless you are looking for wash.
 
Re: NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

Shane Presley said:
anthony in all honesty, throwing 30 feet with LED isn't going to happen, let alone for 12 fixtures on a $4000 budget... Maybe if it was $4000 per fixture (or two) ...seriously.
You can have one or the other in this case... Led with short throw, or adequate throw with traditional lighting fixtures... You might be better off shopping around for some used conventional gear at this point. What is your purpose for the lights, colour wash, gobo projection, moving lighting ?
Click to expand...

I have 20 LED fixtures that are devastatingly bright and easily throw 30 feet. Simple 54x3W LED pars. And they are nowhere near $4000 each.
 
Re: NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

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We sold lights for this school, used Blizzard Pro Pars and at about 30' away, installed 8 of them on a wireless set up, worked great and gave the elementary school more light than then knew what to do with...fixtures run about $350 each. Also used a Pocket DMX Wifi NETport™ - $359.99 : Baxter Controls, The Pocket Console DMX(tm) wireless dmx controller connected to network so they can control remote. They were very pleased withe the outcome and costs.
 
Re: NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

Silas Pradetto said:
Almost no lights are UL listed, even from elation or Chauvet etc. Even Martin is not if I recall correctly.

Sent from my SCH-I545
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Most LED fixtures intended for professional markets are listed by an NRTL (typically UL or ETL). Using non-listed fixtures in a permanent installation is asking for trouble.

I know for certain that all the Color Kinetics products are UL listed, and there are other manufacturers that get UL listing as well.
 
Re: NEED YOUR HELP! A SCHOOL IS IN NEED OF GUIDANCE with LED lights

Last Chauvet I touched had a UL tag on it, if IRRC. Might not have been a listed product, though.
 
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