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Arri Event HMIs


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I notice that there are lots of Arrisun 1200W HMIs available quite cheap with a single lens and electronic ballast. The catch is, those seem to be event version. Has anyone any idea if these are flicker free or in any sense quiet?

https://www.10kused.com/product/arri-sun-1200w-package-2-lnbu-95464/

Those ballasts seem to only have one power switch, I asked for a photo of the other side and there is only a (dimming?) knob and the fixture connector.

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I found this manual for the EB1200/1800 Event Three ballast, which is a rack-mounting pack of three ballasts presumably designed to run heads like that. It does say "flicker free," and I have found various online references to the Event series, or at least modern incarnations of it, being flicker free.

I don't know if it's equivalent technology to what's being sold there, but that does look like an electronic, rather than a magnetic, ballast. If it's anything like the event-style 575 ballast I own, it may well be stuck in the square-wave mode a normal Arri ballast would call "flicker free" and cause the lamp to emit a high pitched singing sound when active, which is probably not what you want. Or it may not.

In short, I don't know, and I suspect it'll operate perfectly well as a light source - just be warned of the possible shortcomings of this. You may reasonably take the position that a 1200W HMI PAR with highly-sensitive modern cameras is likely to be so far away as to make the whistle easy to ignore.

(Oh, and if you do figure out they're good, let me know. I'll take a pair!)

P

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Thanks Phil! My thoughts exactly, I found the EB1200/1800 manual as well and it does give  hope -- but I still wouldn't want to pay a grand just to see if it really is ok ?

Do you happen to know anyone from near Kent, UK who could pay a visit and go check them out for the community? ?

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50 minutes ago, Heikki Repo said:

Thanks Phil! My thoughts exactly, I found the EB1200/1800 manual as well and it does give  hope -- but I still wouldn't want to pay a grand just to see if it really is ok ?

Do you happen to know anyone from near Kent, UK who could pay a visit and go check them out for the community? ?

If the Arris are actually in the UK, you need to take into account that you probably have to pay VAT and import fees in Finland since we are no longer part of the EU. Things will get worse come January. As an example of the madness,  I sent a gift to a friend in Germany, a sketch I made with no actual value. Shipping cost a few pounds but he had to pay 35 Euro to receive it. Items with actual value will cost you a lot more. A couple of years ago I was looking into buying some other lights from that site and they sent me a quote that included shipping from Italy. Should the Arris be somewhere in Europe, you may be in luck and be able to avoid those extra costs.

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49 minutes ago, Uli Meyer said:

If the Arris are actually in the UK, you need to take into account that you probably have to pay VAT and import fees in Finland since we are no longer part of the EU. Things will get worse come January. As an example of the madness,  I sent a gift to a friend in Germany, a sketch I made with no actual value. Shipping cost a few pounds but he had to pay 35 Euro to receive it. Items with actual value will cost you a lot more. A couple of years ago I was looking into buying some other lights from that site and they sent me a quote that included shipping from Italy. Should the Arris be somewhere in Europe, you may be in luck and be able to avoid those extra costs.

I'd be purchasing for my company, so VAT is not an issue, it's deductible. As for import fees, it's not that many percents. In fact, if I found the correct Taric number (https://www.taricsupport.com/nomenclature/en/9405990090.html) it seems that lights are covered under an international treaty by EU and UK and as such fees are 0%. And even if they weren't, import fees would be only 2,7%.

I have a reason to suspect that the lights are in UK as I asked for a photo of the other side of the ballast and received one  of a pile of ballasts that is not on the website. Also, they were reluctant to sell singles as "The ones we have available are all in double flight cases." even though on the website such option is mentioned.

Edited by Heikki Repo
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12 minutes ago, Heikki Repo said:

lights are covered under an international treaty by EU and UK and as such fees are 0%.

I would be surprised if that is the case but that would be very positive, of course. I started reading through this but gave up.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/classifying-electric-lamps

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7 minutes ago, Uli Meyer said:

I would be surprised if that is the case but that would be very positive, of course. I started reading through this but gave up.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/classifying-electric-lamps

Good find! Even if it's under  8539 29 92 -- which is according to that site "high-power studio and theatrical lamps" or if it is 8539 32 90 -- Metal Halide lamps -- it's the same 0%.

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I'm about 45 minutes from that place.

I'd be very cautious about trying to figure out how something like that would be viewed by the customs people.

I have some experience of this having received quite a lot of packages from all over the world containing equipment on review, which in most cases is intended to be free of import duty on the basis it isn't a commercial import. The fees you end up paying are based essentially on the whim of whichever customs inspector you get, and particularly the behaviour of the shipping company and how they describe the shipment to the customs people.

You will probably end up paying fees to the shipping company for clearing it, which may be where Uli's 35-euro fee comes from. The company is incentivised to behave in whatever way makes it the most money for the least work, without any regard for you. It can be difficult to contest the fees because the company makes the decisions about what information goes to the customs people, and you have no control over that, but you may still end up being legally responsible for the information given.

For what it's worth one of the reasons I was never a huge fan of the EU was that in my experience the import duty exemptions didn't work very well. I was frequently charged import duty when moving goods between EU countries. I have no idea why that happened other than that the outside of the box was marked with Chinese characters and the text "made in China" (and what isn't made in China, these days?). It didn't work very well for individuals. It worked very nicely for big companies.

P

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Well, my experiences with the customs have been very positive. In fact, here in Finland the necessary import procedures are done on the customs website, with a tool that has been made very easy for private persons. I just give the required numbers and information, it calculates the amount of tax and import fees and then I can pay it immediately, receiving the necessary paperwork for the items to be released.

I myself have never paid import duty when buying items from EU countries.

As for courier companies, I usually inform them that I'll be taking care of the clearance myself and then send them as an email the clearance PDF I have received from customs. Easy, fast and doesn't cost me anything. But I can well understand that in countries such as Germany or UK where your ID is checked by presenting a gas bill or fax machines were necessary and prevalent ten years ago, YMMV.

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1 hour ago, Phil Rhodes said:

I was frequently charged import duty when moving goods between EU countries.

Before January this year I never had any problems buying or selling gear within the EU and was never charged import duty or carrier fees.

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Ha, I don't know about fax machines. For some reason the UK police are still obsessed with them, but outside that microcosm they're things of the early 90s at best. Japan, on the other hand... I had to fax a company in Japan in the mid-2010s to enquire about a music clearance.

But yes, it's very YMMV. I think here most of the problem is actually caused by the courier companies - Fedex is particularly nasty, remembering that they get paid if they have to clear something so they like to do what they can to clear everything they can. Anyway yes, I've found there's a significant random factor involved.

I could conceivably go down there and look at one of these lights if they'd let me. Who're you talking to?

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That'd be great, thanks! I have been in contact with Garry Nelsson, though only for three emails and last time yesterday. Also, living in Finland I haven't asked about testing the lights - but I guess they wouldn't mind being able to sell some. I'd guess that if those turn out to be suitable for motion picture work, they are going to sell out relatively fast.

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