I've seen that happen with an Edinburgh company lowering a truss onto a very expensive centrepiece light. It made a sound like a car crash.

We still do a lot of that too, it's a lot cheaper than using these moving heads!

+goose300183 Tattoo Cocktail Fund. We have a silly sort of cocktail night once a week on that job, where we create ludicrous drinks and add some atmospheric lighting with spare lights. Any advertising revenue from these videos will be added together and used to buy a bottle or two of random spirits.

+bigclivedotcom haha if I had a hundred guesses I don't think I would have got that! Sounds like a good night though.

The Varilite stuff is heavy because it has to withstand the rigours of touring. Mainly rough handling of flight cases while loading in and out of trucks. Some of the newer waterproof LED fixtures are extremely heavy due to having diecast sealing covers.

Yeah it definitely is worth it for the ruggedness. I don't dare drop my dj shit on the ground when rigging or de rigging and I'm pretty careful with my stuff, but we did (carefully) drop the 3500's on the ground when we took them off the rigs (as we needed to vaccum them before putting them back in the cases). They also got battered on the scissorlift. It was rather funny as well as we had some robe spikies along with the loan (decent little lights), and we lost our collective shits over the size difference

DipSwitches are officially a nightmare. Every time I see one I smash my head into a wall. As a noise boy I very rarely have to deal with them though.... thank god!

+Julian Knödler Thanks Buddy.

Don't blame the wind, blame the bad rigging!

The VL3000 weighs a LOT more than a Mac 250!

+Lufferov still bloody heavy. Prefer em to the 350s though. Don't like heights so trying to put those guys up while on rickety scaffold is extra fun

a 250 also outputs the same as a freaking candle :P

God. Bloody Mac2000s with the magnetic ballasts. Those things are fkn heavy

LEDs can't compete with these lights yet. These have a massive optical output.

you haven't seen the SolaSpot Pro 2000 by High End Systems. Be sure to check them out!

I'm using two of the SolaSpots next week, very impressed by the even beam and dimming curves on them. Also, I agree, they are really bright!

stick with what works and whats paid for, no point upgrading for the sake of upgrading when they still work

Ironically we've just loaded in the show and it's all PRG Best Boys including most of the followspots this year.

+Julian Knödler I go crazy over the "new" robe bmfl washbeam :o such a cool light...

Still its not something id like to try ,the complexity reminds me of old mechanical VCR guts or something crazy

Think ill stick to my 12V led lights haha :-) , I bet you could cook a egg on that light

The good thing about older electronics is they actually can be repaired as you can trace a fault through the massive amount of separate components, compared to newer devices where you might have to replace an entire board as they're built down to the lowest amount of components possible.

It does have a mechanical dimmer, but if the shutter is fully closed the lamp will run at lower level to remain lit while extending lamp life.

Interesting, I have not seen many situations where the HID was veritable. Most of the movers and video projectors seem to rely on mechanics. I am glad LED is taking over a bit more but it's sure hard to beat the output of a ball of plasma. in all honesty I tend to stay away from HID related stuff so there is bound to be stuff I don't know in that field.

+mysynthesis Aha, I see. Phillips bought that in, lazy people !

But at the same time the pricetag of these boys won't allow them to fail when you blow near them!

Matthew Bliss We used some Mac 2000's for a while. But they were absolutely terrible for lamp ballast failure.

+bigclivedotcom I used to work on the MAC 2K, 500 and 250 lights. FYI there were two versions of the 2k, a magnetic ballast and electronic ballast version.

+SpriteXP Each has its own merits. The choice of light will generally be based on the application and which light actually suits it the best. Specific lighting designers also have a preference for particular lights and brands.

It used to be that Martin was supreme with their Martin Mac 700, 500, viper lines etc. then Philips Varilite came along. High End Systems has really stepped up their game ever since ETC purchased them. Nowadays the likes of the massive Syncrolites are gone almost. TSO used them extensively but those lights are too darn massive. HES for me.

@@mrodriguez4829 Vari-light has been around since the early 80s, they started the industry. Genesis funded and first toured with them for their Abacab tour. For a while they were the only band, to use them and even after that VL were the only intelligent fixture manufacturers.

When this model came out it was around $15000

***** Just think at a festival there could be hundreds of these installed...

ronnie doorzon umm a VL3000 blows your little sl250 any day

ronnie doorzon you might want to compare the features a bit more 😂 they’re not in the same league

ronnie doorzon Cmy colour mixing, variable CTO, 6:1 zoom, iris, quieter, approx 12x brighter, 5pin dmx, industry support and usage, highly more likely chance of someone having whole fixtures available to rent if needing more or in need of replacement if unit fails (in many different countries). Who even is movitech 😂

You do get moving head projectors, but they are very expensive and relatively inefficient.

+roy00100 I was working with Sharpy's not that long ago. I really should have made a video. But to summarise they are VERY similar to the "blunty" video I made except the light source, which is a tiny discharge lamp designed for projectors, which has it's own precision reflector. The absolutely tiny point source of light is the secret for the Sharpy's ultra tight beam. I was really impressed. OK, I wasn't so impressed that at the touch of a single button on the control panel they routinely jammed my fingers between the base and yoke with explosive force, but I soon learned to keep my fingers away from that area.

Haha yeh they sure have some force on them when they are on learned that the hard way aswell :P cool thanks for the info i was rly wondering how one of them would work and how they got that super nice beam ^,^

+roy00100 +bigclivedotcom I tend to keep a good distance from Vari*Lites when they're starting up, they love to do a self-test by flailing about unexpectedly. One of my colleagues learned the hard way and took a hit to the head.

Pay for shipping from Texas? Heck I live in Texas I'll go ahead and pick them up! I'd die in happiness to get my hands on a pair!

+zh84 Not Xenon. Typical metal halide/HID style lamps.

PRG Bad Boy. We were using them as followspots.

Could u please do a inside video of those I really want to see its cmy wheels

Have you seen the new "remote" operation unit that can be used with the Bad Boy? I had a play with it at ABTT recently, I was really suprised at how easy it was to use!

Do you mean the unit that allows it to be used as a (part) manual followspot? We were using eight of those last year on the Edinburgh Tattoo.

It's called the PRG GroundControl Followspot System. You get a monitor and a remote control unit on a tripod. You can control everything on the "followspot" (bad boy) from this controller. It's designed to avoid having operators climbing truss and working at height.

In this application they were sheltered under a dedicated canopy. The new lights are all fully waterproof LED ones.

Proper touring lights have a very tough life. Slip rings have been tried on lights in the past and they didn't catch on.

Wow. Nice lol :D

+Michael Grinshtat Search my videos for PRG to find a look at the next level up in lights.

Yes try and find the part number

Bulbs are in the garden. Here's the lamp: www.osram.com/osram_com/products/lamps/specialty-lamps/metal-halide-lamps/sharxs-hti/index.jsp?productId=ZMP_56307

Mussie Tesfay Note that this board controls *multiple* stepper motors. And most of the board just distributes the output to the various plugs.

killer1479 Yeah, in the sense that Philips bought loads of pioneering lighting companies, and got the product, but not the engineering talent behind it.... That's in the light next to it. The PRG Bad Boy light which was designed by ex-Vari Lite designers.

bigclivedotcom well, seems to have the design by the engineers like you say, with the reliability of philips, so, surely you cannot go wrong ? :)

***** cool! try and convince them to send one my way :P lol

***** cool :D

google Account Nothing wrong with it. Runs at lower currents, doesn't need a power supply, and if it's a induction motor pretty much will only fail after the bearings failed.

superdau must be a retro thing :)

google Account The main reason is that if the 24V fails then the fan will still run on the mains supply as the lamp housing cools down. But in reality, the mains fans tend to be inefficient and failure prone.

bigclivedotcom Yeah I can see the heath & safety aspect of it now, they are potentially very dangerous. Is it a late 90's vintage?

2003 :)