Robe has released their most powerful LED wash/effects fixture and it packs one heckuva beam from a large-scale pancake-faced fixture. They’ve managed to combine the technology they made available with last year’s Spiider fixture — with a fixture comparable in size to the LEDWash 1200. If you are looking for a large-scale beam of light that can emit 20,000 lumens while offering dazzling eye candy, this may be what you have been looking for.
The Tarrantula is powered by 36 30-watt high-powered emitters wrapped around a center 60-watt LED that occupies the same amount of real estate on the front as the others. The 60-watt bulb can run as a 30-watt element when desired so it is equal brightness. The emitters are all RGBW multichips. With a narrow beam, I’m able to read 80K of lux on my meter from 15 meters distance with all colors at full intensity. The pinkish hue one sees with their eye is no different than what other 4-in-1 LED emitters offer at full intensity. I run the intensity values up on a 10-second fade and am well impressed with the dimmer curve being very linear. The fade out was smooth until the end, with no popping to black at a certain point. This is due to the 18-bit electronic dimming system. The LEDs themselves are rated to last 20,000 hours.
Colorful Choices
Color-wise, this fixture isn’t lacking much at all. I’m able to mix saturated as well as pastel colors easily. Pinks, light lavender and magenta cues are achievable, while the blue can get fairly saturated, though deep blues and true yellows are not as lovely as the other colors. I mixed everything in RGBW color mode, but the user may prefer to mix the colors in CMY, and that is easily done as well. The Tarrantula offers an 8- or 16-bit color mixing should you want it, but they note that the internal color mixing is actually 18-bit, like the dimmer.
There is a DMX channel that controls a virtual color wheel. This has 66 preset color hues to choose from and is great for building snappy chases. The fixture has a color rainbow effect with variable speed. I can write my own chase on the effects engine of the console, and the fixture executes it precisely as written with fade or bump times.
The overall color temperature is easily adjusted, even with other preset colors already dialed in. The variable CTO channel can take the output temperature from 2700 to 8000 degrees Kelvin. The fixture offers a tungsten lamp effect in white when dimming, thus adding a red shift and thermal delay when fading out if the user desires.
Eye Candy Effects
Robe’s innovative Flower effect (patent pending) that was such a success with the Spiider fixture has been put into this fixture as well. The best way to describe this is, it resembles a kaleidoscope when shined on a surface or a spinning gobo when viewed as an aerial beam. The fixture creates sharp multi-colored spikes of light, rotating in both directions at variable speeds. One can colorize the effects by changing the base color values, or resize them, as the fixture can zoom between a ridiculously tight 4° to a wide 50° beam quick enough to satisfy me that I could use the zoom in a sine wave effect.
There are six different modes available. The smallest occupying 27 DMX channels, while the most extensive requires 195. In one, users can take control of each individual pixel and make their own colors. They can also switch the color mode and have dynamic video effects easily achieved by mapping individual pixels controlled by a DMX desk or media servers via sACN with internal HTP merging, DMX or by Kling-Net protocol.
The macros users may remember from other Robe fixtures such as the LEDBeam 1000 are still in play here. Generic shapes of pixels and individual control of “rings” of pixels are easily found. New to this channel are the pie shapes. The user can now slice the front panel into six evenly spaced pie shapes. The pie shapes can mimic fan blades when chased at variable speeds. There are dimmer and color chases galore.
The built-in pixel effects include color, dimming and strobe chases along with waves and pulses at variable speeds. The overall strobe functions you need for the whole fixture perform flawlessly, with a top speed of 30 fps.
Another familiar feature on some older fixtures is now an option on the Tarrantula. Robe makes a beam shaper that can attach to the face of the fixture and stop at an indexed position or continuously rotate. They offer several other options for the beam, ranging from 2° diffusers to egg crates to cut down the beam’s halation. One can stack multiple egg crates to shroud the light source.
Motion
The fixture pans 540° in under two seconds and can tilt even quicker. Robe offers the user a mode of Standard or Speed for movement, but I did not test the difference while I played. It does come with automatic position correction, should an object impede its course of movement.
Effects-wise, the fixture responds to everything from a perfect circle to full tilt can-can boogies at high speed. Despite the size, I could stop the fixture on command and reverse direction with almost zero lag time.
The Tarrantula comes with the patent-pending Electronic Motion Stabilizer (EMS) system for movement that reduces beam deviation caused by trusses moving or vibrations.
Nuts and Bolts
There’s no denying this is a large-format fixture. Weighing in at just under 47 pounds, the fixture stands 23 inches tall with a 20-inch-wide circular head. The base in 10 inches in depth. There are two quarter-turn Omega clamps that can hang in any direction (or optional Doughty Trigger clamps). This fixture can hang at any angle with no difficulties. There is a tilt lock.
The PowerCON TRUE 1 connector accepts AC from 100-240 volts at 50/60 Hz. The total power consumption is 1000 watts. DMX and RDM can be fed through 3 or 5-pin XLR in and outs. An RJ45 connector exists for Ethernet in/out. It comes with an embedded Ethernet switch 10/100 Mbps. The fixture is CE and cETLus compliant.
The display is a battery operated touchscreen control panel that is simple to navigate, especially with a gravity sensing auto screen that repositions itself. The fixture can run in stand-alone mode as well.
At a Glance
A Bigger, Beefier Spiider
Like Robe’s Spiider fixtures, the company’s Tarrantula LED wash/effects fixture packs 30-watt LEDs around a center 60-watt module. But with the Tarrantula, there are twice as many of the 30-watt LEDs, with an outer ring of 18 units bringing the total to 36. With the ability to control each of the LEDs, designers have a dazzling array of eye candy options along with a large-scale beam of light that can emit 20,000 lumens.
PROS:
Bright beam with a small focal point. Good color mixing. Great eye candy FX including the Flower. Individual control of each pixel. Good outboard options.
CONS:
None
FEATURES
1 Central 60W LED (Can Match 30W)
36 Outer 30W LEDs (3-Ring Configuration)
Zoom: 4°-50°
Color Mixing: RGBW + CMY
66 Presets on Virtual Color Wheel
White Color Range: 2700-8000K
Patent-Pending Flower Effect
“Ring” and “Pie Wedge” Effects
Strobe Effects up to 30 fps
540° Pan, 220° Tilt
Electronic Motion Stabilizer System
Protocols: DMX-512, RDM, Art-Net, MA Net, MA Net2, sACN, Kling-Net
STATS
RGBW LEDs: 1 60W, 36 30W
Output: 20,150 lm
Wattage: 1000W
Size: 23.1” x 20” x 10.1” (HxWxD)
Weight: 46.7 lbs.
MSRP: Contact dealer
Manufacturer: Robe
More Info: www.robe.cz, www.robelighting.com, 954.680.1901
