LTM Light Quality

[M Joel W]

Hi,

 

I learned from the operator of a relatively big lighting rental outfit (who will remain anonymous) that Mole and particularly Arri make the most reliable HMI gear (I think the jokerbug stuff is good too, of course). He warned against Desisti and other brands, which have quality control issues, especially for rental use.

 

He didn't say anything about LTM and I know his shop sells their peppers but not HMIs. Are LTMs (pars with magnetic ballasts) any good? My only frame of reference is a magnetic arri ballast and 575w fresnel, which was of awesome build quality. These ballasts don't explode, right? And the output with the PAR is similar?

 

Thanks,

 

-Matt

Edited October 28, 2007 by Matthew Wauhkonen

[robert duke]

I have been very impressed over the last few years with the new Cinemills HMI's. They are built like tanks. If I had a rental set of HMI's I'd have CineMills. I have to disagree about the Mole HMI's. The old ones were not reliable, but the new ones look eerily like the Cinemills.

 

All ballasts take a dump sometime. Power gems seems to have the best ballasts I have seen. I have an old LTM magnetic ballast and par head that hotstrikes with certainty. I love that thing. It kicks a**, but weights a small ton. Pars have a better output than fresnels, I dont have a Photometrics book in front of me but... Pars ar much brighter than fresnels.

[Kevin Zanit]

In my experience, Mole has the worst reputation for HMIs of the major brands (Desisti being even worse). Arri and LTMs seem to be the most common on my shows at least.

 

HMIs can be finicky no matter who makes them. On a recent job, I had 4-LTM 18ks and had at least one or two go down at one point (over the course of a week or so of heavy use). I know we also had a 400W. Joker go down as well as a 4k Xenon.

 

These were all from a major rental house, all in clean condition, it just seems to be a bit of a norm (though in my case I think we had a few go down slightly more than what I would consider normal).

 

Kevin Zanit

[Chris Schlaghecke]

Power gems seems to have the best ballasts I have seen.

Hi Robert, just on the powergems issue, I have found them to be excellent with their aftersales service. No matter what time of the day or night I have been able to get answers and even schematics for their gear and various pigtails at the drop of a hat.

The only problem that I have encountered with powergems ballasts was when I was running them in a 47 degree celsius environment, they were unable to cool themselves and started shutting down on thermal protect mode. Can't exactly blame them for that!

 

cheers

Chris

Edited October 28, 2007 by Chris Schlaghecke

[Chris Keth]

I have never used LTM's HMIs but I used their peppers a lot in school. They were nice little lights. The only problem I ever ran into (I also worked repair there) is every so often someone would knock one over and break something pretty bad. They're cast and prone to almost shattering on impact. Unfortunately, again because they're cast, you can't really make repairs on a lot of parts of the heads and the whole head has to be replaced.