During the last year I have seen many manufacturers unveil various 300-watt lighting fixtures. Each of them had some impressive features that made them stand out. Unfortunately for them, Robe has just upped the bar for everyone by unveiling their evolutionary compact Robin 300 series of fixtures, and, let me tell you something, they’re not missing anything here.
Robe has become the first manufacturer to offer a choice of lamps by making separate models that use standard discharge lamps or the revolutionary plasma lamp. We’ve been hearing about the coming of age of this plasma lamp, but until today, I had never seen it in person, and I am simply wowed.
Plasma Technology
The plasma lamp is new technology that is being manufactured by a group called Luxim Corporation. While the bulb is no bigger than a Tic-tac (the little breath mints), it outputs 17,800 lumens of light. This miniature bulb is attached to a small radio frequency amplifier, eliminating the need for a ballast in the fixture.
While your typical lamp life for a 300-watt discharge lamp may be 2000 hours, these puppies have a rated life of 10,000 hours, which is when the manufacturer says it will be at 50 percent brightness. And the cost is only 10 percent more than a typical discharge lamp. The RF amplifier attached to the bulb will last at least 30,000 to 60,000 hours before needing replacement. While some discharge bulbs can hot-restrike, it takes less than one minute for the plasma to cool before it can restrike and two minutes to achieve its full color temperature.
Looking at the green side of things is important these days and Robe has recognized this. Because the bulb is so small, the collection efficiency of the plasma lamp is greater, so it uses uses less power than you might think. That allows the fixture to be smaller and keeps the fixture at a relatively cool temperature. The surface never gets hotter than 170° F. This will help TV studios cut down on A/C bills and allow techs to move them around while still turned on. The plasma lamp can also be dimmed electronically to 20 percent for additional energy savings.
The color temperature of the plasma lamp fixture reads 6000 Kelvins and the CRI is 94. The beauty of the plasma is that it looks better on skin tones and looks warmer than a discharge lamp. Discharge lamp fixtures have more of a blue-ish color, so they appear brighter, but they don’t render color and skin tones nearly as well.
Discharge versus Plasma
The reason Robe is offering the same models of light fixtures with two different light sources is simple. For theatre and TV, the lighting designer doesn’t want the blue-ish white color of a discharge lamp, and often has to color correct the beam to make it camera friendly. Lighting these shows is all about the people and scenery being lit. But for concert lighting, the average LD wants a brighter beam with shafts of colorful light that stand out in a hazy atmosphere.
Discharge lamps will lose color temperature and brightness as they age. They will also tend to have a hot spot in the center of the beam. The opposite is true of the plasma bulb. It may not appear as bright, but because it has no filament or arc, the field of light coming out is perfectly flat with no hot spots.
Because the spectrum is more continuous, you can get better color mixing with the CMY dichroic color mixing flags in the fixture. Besides the color and gradient CTO flag, there is also a dedicated color wheel with seven interchangeable hexagonal color slots. Half-colored beams are also achievable in this range of fixtures. The color mixing systems are slightly different depending on which lamp type you choose. Robe took that extra step to tweak the dichroic filters for the different lamp sources.
Spots and Wash Fixtures
Technically, the spot and wash fixtures utilize the same color systems. The beams can zoom between 10° and 40° in the spot fixture and between 10° and 35° in the wash fixture. The spot has a separate iris mechanism. The spot can also vary the sharpness of the beam using the focus capabilities of the lens or using a gradient frost wheel. A 3-faceted rotatable prism filter is also included. There is mechanical as well as electronic strobing in the discharge fixtures.
The static gobo wheel comes stocked with nine gobos, and the rotating, indexable gobo wheel allows for seven patterns. All these gobos and prisms are easily exchangeable with no tools using Robe’s “Slot and Lock” mechanism, which keeps the patterns securely in place.
I swear by the swift, jerk free movement of Robe fixtures in concert lighting. No other manufacturer can achieve what this company has in terms of preventing lights from over shooting their destination (which is where the English term “nodding buckets,” comes from — ed.), their ability to stop on a dime or follow an effects generator in a light console. These lights are no exception. They can pan 540° and tilt 280°.
By the way, Robe now has something no other light has as well — in the discharge lamp version of the spot fixture, a dedicated channel allows you to move the hot spot in and out of focus. This channel actually moves the reflector back and forth to allow the light beam to be abnormally hot in the center or close to a flat field.
The power supplies are auto voltage-sensing, and they have batteries in the LCD display for addressing the fixtures without power. They can be controlled via DMX512, ArtNet, and grandMA Net through the built-in Ethernet and XLR ports. They are RDM-capable and ACN-ready. They can also run in stand-alone mode.
They are compact units, basically measuring 17 inches by 18.5 inches with a height of 21 inches. The heaviest spot fixture weighs 46 pounds.
Besides these hard edge and wash fixtures, Robe has added their name to a new “ROBIN Beam” fixture to compete with the latest trend in the concert market. This fixture is designed to throw a tightly collimated beam a long distance. Like a typical ACL, the front of the fixture is a wide clear lens that emits an almost hard edge shaft of light. It zooms between 1.5° and 6°. It comes complete with various effects from rotating gobos to beam shapers with various templates that allow for pin spot capabilities as well.
Each of these fixtures is surprisingly affordable, and with my personal knowledge of Robe’s reliability in the wear and tear department, I highly recommend them. The plasma bulb revolution has arrived, and Robe is helping the future get brighter very rapidly.
What they are: Automated spot and wash fixtures with a choice of plasma lamp or discharge lamp.
Who they’re for: Anyone who wants moving light in a compact housing.
Pros: Choice of lamp, lots of output in compact enclosure, very flat, uniform field, lots of features.
Cons: Not as much punch as high wattage fixtures.
How Much: Robin 300E Plasma Spot: $10,900; Robin 300E Plasma Wash: $8,900.
