Cheapest Method For LOTS of Light?

[Simon Wyss]

Cheapest Method For LOTS of Light?

 

With some patience your scene will be as bright as nothing in a thunderstorm, especially when a lightning strikes right to your side. Wear earplugs!

 

Else old time brutes bring a lot of light, the carbon arcs give off quite actinic light.

Camera with larger shutter opening angle is an option, undercranking is also very cheap, if feasible. Fast lenses, fast film, and push processing. The sun.

[JD Hartman]

In the silent era, they used tons of magnesium flares placed in front of mirrors, stuck in sand buckets.

 

Good luck finding either the flares or the permit to use them...

 

I may be totally wrong with this reference.

Didn't they use a magnesium flare in one of the scenes in the movie, The Punisher? Held by the main character.

Edited March 14, 2018 by JD Hartman

[Aapo Lettinen]

the drug manufacturing business may have complicated the magnesium purchase/use in some US states I believe.... but a qualified pyrotechnician should be able to build you a rig of them torches if needed :)

 

I have never tested it but maybe one could just burn solid chunks of magnesium if igniting them with an acetylene torch?

probably not practical or economic or safe but should create tons of light no problem B)

[Stuart Brereton]

maybe one could just burn solid chunks of magnesium if igniting them with an acetylene torch?

Umm, Macks did say this is for a night interior...

[Aapo Lettinen]

Umm, Macks did say this is for a night interior...

 

oh that was not obvious from the start :rolleyes:

then I would NOT use calcium carbide in a bathtub, the glass wool panels +diesel oil would look much nicer :lol:

[Chris Steel]

More expensive per lamp but this is one of the cheapest HMI options for buying new.

I don't know about American dealers though.

https://cvp.com/product/photon-beard_a242_platinum_blonde_with_ballast

[Phil Rhodes]

I reviewed the Platinum Blonde. Because it's an open-faced light, it has very good optical efficiency and comes off as powerful, for things like backlighting a night exterior or filling a diffusion frame. It's a blunt instrument, but a big, chunky one. Is good, I like.

 

Disclaimer: I reviewed it, I know the people to say hello to, I haven't gained anything beyond an entertaining chat.

[Guy Holt]

... 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.

 

One way to use large tungsten lights, or more smaller ones, is to step-down a 240V circuit to 120V with a transformer. Common household 240V circuits include Range Plugs, Dryer Plugs, and special receptacles installed for Window Air Conditioners. Like it does with the enhanced 7500W/240V output of our Honda EU7000 Generators, a step down transformer will convert the 240 volts supplied by these household 240V receptacles to 120 volts in a single circuit that is the sum of the two single-phase legs of 30/50 amps each. Now that you have a larger (60A or 100A) 120V circuit, you can operate larger tungsten lights, or more smaller ones, than you could otherwise.

 

I regularly use transformers to power not only 5ks, but also big HMIs (2.5-4Kw) in situations where a tie-in is not an option and the budget doesn’t permit for a tow generator. For example, I have used this approach repeatedly at a historical mansion in Easton MA called the Ames Estate.

 

Scene from "Unsolved History" powered from 50A/240V range outlet through step-down transformer/distro at the Ames Estate.

 

A popular state fee free location, the Ames Estate, like many historical house/museums, does not permit tie-ins and the electrical wiring in the house is so antiquated that it is unusable. Fortunately, they have a 50A/240 volt circuit in the carriage house for a welder they use to repair the mowers they use at the park. Our standard mode of operation when shooting there is to run 250V extension cable from the welding receptacle to our 60A Full Power Transformer/Distro placed in the entry hall of the house. Using a 60A Siamese at the Transformer/Distro, we then run 60A 6/3 Bates extensions, down to the library, to the second floor, and back to the maid’s pantry. At the end of each run we put another 60A Siamese. A 60A snackbox on one side of the Siamese gives us 20A branch circuits. The other side we leave open for a large HMI or Quartz Light. Now we can safely plug HMIs up to 4kw, or Tungsten lights up to 6kw, into our own distribution anywhere in the house.

 

Typhoid Mary in quarantine on an island in New York's East River. Note the view out the window of the East River shoreline at the turn of the century.

 

To maintain continuity between shots on these dramatic historical recreations, we usually bring a 4kw HMI Par or 5k Tungsten Fresnel (depending on the effect we are after) in a window on one side of the room as a sun source and a 1200 par through a window on the other side as a northern light source. Lights positioned outside, we power off of our modified Honda EU6500is through a Transformer/Distro. We are able to power both lights off our modified EU6500is because our 60A Full Power Transformer/Distro steps down the enhanced 7500W output of the generator to a single 60A/120V circuit (for more details on how this is accomplished I suggest you read my newsletter article on the use of portable generators in motion picture production available on our website. And, since the Honda EU6500is can be placed right on the lawn, we are saved from running hundreds of feet of feeder back to a tow generator in the drive.

 

The exterior of the actual location used for the quarantine island. A 30' blowup of a picture of the East River at the turn of the century was rigged outside the windows of a house in Arlington MA.

 

We have been able to use this same basic distribution package (two Transformer Distros, 1- modified EU6500is) at numerous museums and historical houses throughout New England including Sturbridge Village. Fortunately for us, to make ends meet, many historical houses rent themselves out for events and weddings. For that reason, they usually have at least one updated service with 30 or 50 Amp 240 volt circuit for the warming ovens of caterers. By giving you safe and legal plug-in access to more house power through common 240V house outlets, a transformer makes it possible to use less expensive tungsten lights without the need for tie-ins or generators.

 

Guy Holt, Gaffer, ScreenLight & Grip, Lighting rental and sales in Boston

[Jason Nolte]

I think renting maxi-brutes and putt putts is still the most cost effective way to get a large amount of light.. Easy to source and reliable.. Outside of large, heavy, loud and hot..!

[David Mawson]

 

 

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

 

dnbof.jpg

 

This is probably a crazy thought and I'm certainly not willing to try it, but sometimes PC builders fill the cases of overclocked machines with cooling oil. Really - this is NOT a joke. Perhaps an aquarium filled with oil and LEDs would work. The LEDs would need attaching to the glass and a heatsink attaching to each to transfer the heat to the oil, after which convection cooling should kick in. You'd want to keep the case vertical and direct the light with reflectors or fresnels.

 

Good luck getting insurance... (And I hereby disclaim all legal liability if someone wants to try this.)

[Jaron Berman]

Cheapest has to include ALL factors. A cheap light may be expensive to power, and that's including labor as well as cabling and electricity. A more expensive light rental (like the mole LED tener) may save a lot of time and energy (pun may as well be intended). Or a cheap light with tons of output may work if you can easily power it and place it. Not enough info in the OP.

 

1) What exactly is the overall goal? Lots of light is pretty vague... evenly from all directions like an arena? A shaft of light? A club-look? A glowing floor? Do you care what color the light is? Do you care about the quality of shadow(s)?

 

2) What is and how big is the space itself? Large space means different things to different people. If you have to hang your lights at 50' trim, a 1k mole is not very bright. How high are the ceilings? What's the widest frame? Do you care about seeing sources?

 

3) What access do you have to grip/mounting, lifts, etc? Renting a single huge source means nothing if you can't place it. Or if you can't cluster smaller sources, then that option is off the table.

 

4) What access do you have to power? House power / wall plug? Tie-in? Generator?

 

5) What access do you have to crew? Do they know what they're doing? If you have a gaffer that's comfortable tying-in, that's a big factor in 4) - but if you're saving money on crew you may need to pay more for lights or power.

 

6) How much time do you have to build your rig, including prep? Homemade solutions take time.

 

7) Are you recording sound? Some cheap lighting options are loud, as are some power options. But does it matter in your case?

[Phil Rhodes]

 

This is probably a crazy thought and I'm certainly not willing to try it, but sometimes PC builders fill the cases of overclocked machines with cooling oil. Really - this is NOT a joke. Perhaps an aquarium filled with oil and LEDs would work. The LEDs would need attaching to the glass and a heatsink attaching to each to transfer the heat to the oil, after which convection cooling should kick in. You'd want to keep the case vertical and direct the light with reflectors or fresnels.

 

Good luck getting insurance... (And I hereby disclaim all legal liability if someone wants to try this.)

 

Possibly I've already mentioned this but there's a non-conductive fluid specifically intended for this sort of thing that's made by 3M. I'm not sure if mineral oil, which works, would affect the silicone-encapsulated phosphors on the front of an LED chip, but you could possibly cool just the rear of the device.

 

There are two concerns. First is that the liquid coolant is really only useful for getting heat from one place to another, by heating the coolant with the load, then moving it with a pump. If you don't pump it through a radiator, it will eventually heat up to the point where that's a problem.

 

Second is just the practicality of a liquid-cooled light on a film set. Even if it were a one piece unit I'd fear problems but you might even end up with a separate cooling unit, with a big radiator and large, quiet fans, which would be cabled (piped) to the head like a ballast. It could be built but the risks of leakage and unreliability seem too much to bear.

 

I'm not sure this has ever been done.

 

P

[David Mawson]

There are two concerns. First is that the liquid coolant is really only useful for getting heat from one place to another, by heating the coolant with the load, then moving it with a pump. If you don't pump it through a radiator, it will eventually heat up to the point where that's a problem.

 

No, with the right tank design you should be able to convection cool. The LEDs would heat oil and it would rise to the cross stroke, where the large surface area would let it cool fast, then it would sink again. To aid flow I'd put baffles in the tank like those shown in the convection cooling system here:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_immersion_cooling

 

 

And I'd probably make the top of the tank much wider than the body - think of an L rotated through 90 degrees, or maybe just a T. That way you'd have a lot of air-cooling at the top. The baffle design would need a little modification for that. And/or the top could have the fluid rising into a system of fins or you could half immerse a system of copper fins in the liquid.

 

 

It could be built but the risks of leakage and unreliability seem too much to bear.

 

Those would be my concerns, yes.

Edited May 26, 2018 by David Mawson

[Phil Rhodes]

...and now you have a light that only works in one orientation. Or tubes, and then you need pumps.

 

Yes it's interesting. It could possibly be built. I'll leave that one to you!

[David Mawson]

...and now you have a light that only works in one orientation.

 

Yep. That's the biggest problem of all. And getting it up high would be appalling business.

 

You could steer the light with reflectors and fresnels, I suppose. But honestly, if I thought a system like this was viable outside of a few very special niches - eg a low budget film that needed a lot of light and had a tech savvy crew - then the last thing I'd do is talk about it publicly.

Edited May 26, 2018 by David Mawson

[Phil Rhodes]

I think if you wanted lots of light and didn't have much money you would buy low-noise CPU coolers and strap 100W LED arrays to them. You could rack them up side by side and achieve quite a lot.

 

You can get 100W LED arrays that claim high CRI for $50. Yuji sell perhaps more reliable ones for $100. A reasonable low-noise CPU cooler can be had for under $50. Depending on whether you trust eBay auctions and how good a cooler you want to risk, if you don't want a point source you can therefore build a big LED array, perhaps to drive diffusion, for around $1.50 a watt for the core power components. Making it into a usable tool might take some engineering, but if you're happy with a covered wagon that's not rocket science.

 

P

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Thought multiple views could be shared here.

 

What is the best way to blast an area with light beyond a couple 1k moles which are incredible for their price , but can still stay under let's say $1000?

Maxi Brutes? A cheap HMI I'm not aware of? Just more Moles?

 

Thanks for any findings you can share from your career.

 

 

3-4 of these: Lithonia Metal Halide lights - $327, 1500w each.

 

[Phil Rhodes]

Possibly, although many bulbs to fit that have a CRI of about 60 (that is, practically unusable except for special effects) and they will be magnetic ballast and flickery.

 

Better bulbs are possibly available but would cost half as much again.

[JD Hartman]

Possibly, although many bulbs to fit that have a CRI of about 60 (that is, practically unusable except for special effects) and they will be magnetic ballast and flickery.

 

Better bulbs are possibly available but would cost half as much again.

 

Phil is correct, manufacturer's website states transformer ballast.

....and no barn doors, lenses or any type of rudimentary focusing mechanism. These are more aptly called MBLs, Make Believe Lights.

[Phil Rhodes]

I dunno, if there are decent mogul-based 1.5K metal halide bulbs out there, it'd only be as bad as a mag ballast HMI. The design is essentially a scoop light, but I could see firing it through an 8x8 and having that be an entirely reasonable thing to do.

 

If you just want a moonlit backlight for a night ext, it's not completely silly.

 

As you may realise I'm quite permissive about this sort of thing!

 

Edit: I can't find a better bulb. Iwasaki did have one with 92 CRI (that is, about as good as HMI) but they may be discontinued.

 

P