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Cheapest Method For LOTS of Light?


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Tungsten tends to be cheap to buy or rent — but expensive to power. Sure, multi-bank PARs tend to give you a lot of light assuming you have the generator for them. Not sure whether a 1.8K HMI PAR is cheaper than a 12-light Maxibrute...

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If you have a few hundred to spend, look around for some Chroma-Q Daylight PARs. They're hot-start 575W HMIs in an (extremely efficient) ETC Source Four PAR shell, and are currently going for $350 or so on eBay. I'd own some, but they're barely worth shipping transatlantic; the eBay ones are in Glens Falls, New York, so that may be workable for you. The caveat is that they're effectively stuck permanently in flicker-free mode, so they can buzz. I get the impression most don't. A similar technology is available in the Enliten Exhibition PAR, which is similar but less desirable as it will not hot start, though the lamps are cheaper. Other search terms are things like "Elation Opti PAR" and "575W Power PAR" but some of the results from those searches will be magnetic ballast. This may or may not be a dealbreaker for you.

 

Failing that, I wish people made ceramic metal halide lighting for moments like this. Arri do make the Ceramic 250, which uses the technology, but it's more common at the 150 and 600W level. It's the technology that is widely used (though gradually being supplanted) in retail premises, but if you want a lot of light with reasonable colour quality, with the caveat of not being hot-strikable (the Arri is), it is very useful.

 

You can sometimes find Source Four PARs that have been refitted with 150W ceramic or even 575W MSR, which is sort of HMI by another name but tends to be colder in colour temperature; it's a lamp often used for intelligent lighting. Or, at the extreme cheap end, buy hydroponics gear, clamp it to a stand, and look out for 600W ceramic metal halide bulbs with decent colour performance. The best CMH is often around 4200K.

 

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Cheapest for lots of low-power light might be a bunch of plastic sockets and a hell of a lot of LED bulbs wired up on a piece of plastic/wood. Another option would be just the 50W LED Chips
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2PCS-110V-Driverless-High-Power-LED-20W-30W-50W-110V-DIY-COB-LED-Diode-Chip/173004274089?hash=item2847dbb9a9:m:mII-OTAmoxmpmbJoOvo1kQQ

again on plastic or something similar. Color might not be great, but would be cheap on a per lumen basis.

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I could not see, under almost any circumstances, going through the aggravation of getting a generator out to run a (nearly) 6K mini brute, to achieve an amount of light that can be confidently equalled by about 1.5K of almost any better tech. I just wish more options existed that weren't $10k plus to buy.

 

Re Adrian's plan, the problem with the LED chips is that anything above a few watts starts to need active cooling. If you're into a bit of DIY, You can strap the 100-watt Yuji LEDs to standard computer CPU cooler and an off-the-peg power supply, and end up with something pretty close (really startlingly close) to some of the 100-watt open faced LED lights that currently exist. But it might not be very pretty.

 

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I could not see, under almost any circumstances, going through the aggravation of getting a generator out to run a (nearly) 6K mini brute, to achieve an amount of light that can be confidently equalled by about 1.5K of almost any better tech. I just wish more options existed that weren't $10k plus to buy.

 

 

I agree. As David said tungsten is cheap, but powering it is not. I've done some low budget shows where the LP wanted us to run from house power to save money, and just about all my beloved tungsten lamps had to get cut as well.

 

HMI is the only way to go, and without a genny, an M18 is your best option if you're renting

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I could not see, under almost any circumstances, going through the aggravation of getting a generator out to run a (nearly) 6K mini brute, to achieve an amount of light that can be confidently equalled by about 1.5K of almost any better tech. I just wish more options existed that weren't $10k plus to buy.

 

Re Adrian's plan, the problem with the LED chips is that anything above a few watts starts to need active cooling. If you're into a bit of DIY, You can strap the 100-watt Yuji LEDs to standard computer CPU cooler and an off-the-peg power supply, and end up with something pretty close (really startlingly close) to some of the 100-watt open faced LED lights that currently exist. But it might not be very pretty.

 

P

 

On the LED chips; I'm imagining them more as "covered wagon" configuration; where hopefully by being spaced out a bit, you'd be able to keep them cool passively. Not ideal; of course, but you could, I suppose, throw on some heat-sinks to the back and work out a cooling solution to the enclosure with a PC fan, though then you'd need to drop down the voltage for that from the 120 mains (plus the noise).

if i knew how to solder, and I don't, I'd fab one up and see how well it comes out.

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It's a nice idea, but sadly it doesn't quite work. Anything above the three or five watt level needs either fan cooling or an impractically large heatsink.

 

If you want to build LEDs, you can do the 100W junctions on a CPU heatsink with fan, or, you do basically what we discussed when we were talking about essentially a clone of the Quasar LED tubes. You buy three-watt LEDs on the hexagonal heat spreaders, bolt them down to the heatsinks designed for just such an eventuality, and you can build something that's four feet long (or four one-foot lengths, or whatever you want) and represents about 48W of LED. This is essentially a weekend project (making it pretty is a bit more work) but that's absolutely the hairy edge of what you can cool passively.

 

50W LEDs run without enormous heatsinks, or heatsinks with fans, will catch fire.

 

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I don't think "a couple of" 1K fresnels sound right for a large night interior, unless some peculiar qualifification is added....two small pools of light...etc...

 

But let's not waste energy with unnescessary argument...if there is a kernel of interesting idea in there, go to that and see what people think.

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couple of hundred pounds of Calcium Carbide + a bathtub full of water + RUN!! :lol:

 

For post-apocalyptic lighting rigs one could also use some large insulation mineral/glass wool panels dipped in diesel oil and lit on fire B)

 

Remember to call the fire department BEFORE "turning your lights on", it may save some bucks on property damages :lol:

 

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if you can get away without electric shocks you could build up a liquid cooled LED light with for example 10 or 20 of the 50w or 100w chips.

A heat exchanger + huge low speed fan to transfer the heat from the cooling system to the outside air.

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Liquid cooling is plausible - the trick is ensuring the liquid is compatible with the silicone that's used to encapsulate the phosphors on the front of the LED, then you can immerse it fully for the best possible results. 3M make a product called Fluorinert which is used for immersion cooling of electronics in this way. It's expensive, but not impossibly so. The radiator could possibly just be mounted on the back of the head; I'm not sure you want to end up with tubes full of circulating fluid running to some sort of external box.

 

I notice, though, that nobody has felt it necessary to do this. As far as I'm aware, the highest-powered single-module LED light that currently exists is the Mole Tener LED, at 1800W. It is air-cooled, and actually uses fans designed by an Austrian company called Noctua who supply people who like their computers to make less noise. Liquid-cooled computers can be extremely quiet, but the maintenance issues are... well. As you'd expect.

 

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