Innovations in LED technology have resulted in some very interesting lighting fixtures for the entertainment industry. Some of the advantages of LEDs include: Long lamp life — 25,000 to 50,000 hours or more (We don’t really know yet since most of the new generation fixtures haven’t been around long enough to tell); Economic benefits — Because there are no lamps to replace, this also means there are no associated labor costs involved; Time Savings — Lower maintenance because of the fixture’s limited moving parts reduces labor and the total cost of ownership as compared to conventional lighting fixtures; Low Energy Consumption — Higher efficiency means it uses less energy to produce the same amount of light.
Manufacturers of entertainment lighting have been focusing lately on building LED wash fixtures for all of these reasons. Many challenges with past LED technology, including lack of brightness, have led manufacturers to advance the technology including optics and processing chips. This has led to several wash fixtures that are comparable to conventional lighting fixtures but with added features.
While there are many static LED wash fixtures available in the lighting market today, for purposes of this article, we will focus specifically on the moving yoke LED fixtures. These can be broken down into two types: color wash and lo-res graphics display fixtures.
LED Color Wash Fixtures
These moving yoke LED fixtures are usually designed strictly for color wash and video images cannot be mapped to their display areas. Examples include:
Elation Impression, Impression XL and Design Wash LED Pro
The Impression has 90 Luxeon K2 LEDs arranged in a circular array and in certain color ranges has the output comparable to that of a 575-watt discharge fixture. Also, the unit is a compact head, extremely fast and can be mounted in various orientations making it suitable for a variety of applications. The Impression XL uses 240 Luxeon K2 LEDs and is said to be comparable to a 1,200-watt discharge fixture in certain color ranges. Elation’s inexpensive Design Wash LED Pro uses 108 3-watt Rebel LEDs for RGBW mixing and outputs approximately 240 footcandles at 16 feet, making it affordable to add LED washes into smaller scale venues like clubs.
Chauvet Legend 6500 & Legend 4500
The Legend™ 6500 is an LED moving yoke wash with RGBW color mixing capability and a total of 90 LEDs. The Legend™ 4500 is an LED with the same capabilities but with 56 total LEDs.
Robe REDWash 3•192
Comparable to wash lights with a 700-watt discharge lamp source, the REDWash 3•192’s RGBW LEDs are arranged in a unique linear optical layout, which is ideal for flooding large areas with broad color washes as well as creating unique visual effects when directed at the audience. It comes with a standard 12° lens configuration and optional 25°, 45° and 15×45° “Egg Crate” lens modules are also available.
JB-Lighting JB LED A7 Zoom & JB LED A4
JB-Lighting’s followup to the VaryLED 3*84, the JB LED A7, is built with 108 Luxeon LEDs and a zoom range of 8° to 28°. Maximum light output in certain colors is comparable to that of a 700-watt discharge source. The LB LED A4 features 60 Luxeon Rebel LEDs, and its output is comparable in certain color ranges to a 250-watt discharge lamp.
Vari-Lite VLX Wash
Vari-Lite’s soon-to-be-released VLX uses seven proprietary 90-watt RGBW CBM-380 LED emitters that provide approximately 10,000 lumens of output with a variable color temperature range between 3,000K and 9,000K. It has a 22° fixed beam angle or variable 23° to 60° zoom range.
Lo-Res Graphics LED Fixtures
High End Systems has coined the term “Pixelation Luminaires” to describe their newest line of LED wash fixtures. These fixtures are a cross between a high power LED wash light and programmable graphic image-displaying fixture. They are designed to do more than just project color, they can also display lo-res visual images and effects on the circular array of 127 LEDs, all while the head is moving.
High End Systems Showpix and StudioPix
Smaller than its big brother, ShowPix, the StudioPix features a circular array of 61 LEDs. Essentially though, it programs and operates the same as the ShowPix, just on a smaller scale.
Main Light MF/V and MF/3
In what Main Light has termed its line of “Multi-head Motion LED” fixtures, the Main Light MF/V and MF/3 offer alternative moving yoke LED display devices geared toward the concert and touring markets. The MF/V features an 18-inch-by-21-inch panel of 30×36 pixels with full pan/tilt control. The unit accepts RGBHV or DVI Input and offers pixel mapping with 15mm pitch.
The MF/3’s versatility can provide a soft wash as well as accept a direct video source to display a lo-res digital image. A panel containing three Martin Stagebars (vertical rows of 54 pixels each) make up the display area of this fixture with a total dimension of 23 inches by 24 inches by 22 inches.
More Options
In today’s digital lighting market, there are many more options available with an ever-widening range of LED products being introduced. Multiple LEDs in a single fixture can be more versatile than a single point source, and many manufacturers have taken advantage of this flexibility to create lighting fixtures capable of dynamic and unique visual effects. Both media servers and pixel mapping are more widely used in the lighting world today, so it only makes sense that the fixtures being developed would match that functionality. So the next time you want to do some pixel mapping in your show, consider replacing the single source PARs in the rig with LEDs, and let the magic begin.
