Product Spotlight

Elation’s Event Cylinder, designed in conjunction with Port Lighting Systems, gives lighting professionals a new color-changing LED element to work into their own creative designs, from dangling LED chandeliers to glowing horizontal arrays, tabletop centerpieces and stacked columns of illumination.

The Stik-up, an ultra-compact, four-ounce incandescent single source luminaire from GAM Products, has a new LED sibling, the LED Stik-up. As with the original tungsten-based version, designers can use LED Stik-ups as a general wash light to fill holes, light back stage areas or sneak extra illumination into the nooks and crannies of set elements from a completely self-contained package of portable LED light.

The 2012 Ryder Cup golf tournament at Medinah Country Club and 2012 London Olympic Games were just two of this year’s big events with live and televised production where crews relied upon the expanding range of ProPlex data distribution devices and cable options from TMB. The ProPlex line of devices includes GBS Gigabit Ethernet Switches,  IQ Ethernet-DMX converters, DMX/RDM Opto-Splitters and forthcoming (early 2013) RMT remote media transceivers for multiplexed DVI transmission and distribution. ProPlex cable options are also expanding, including DMX, Cat5e and fiber optic cable and assembly/snake options now available, and TMB also recently introduced its ProPlex RDMigo touch-screen tester/controller and 8-Track devices for DMX record/playback and backup.

This year, Christie announced the expansion of its 3-chip DLP platform with the introduction of the Christie D4K25 and new 14,000-lumen Christie M Series models. The new projectors target a variety of applications that require a combination of  brightness, performance and visual clarity.

Swisson recently introduced the latest version of their hand-held, battery-operated DMX tester, the XMT-350. It might not give you the power to control everything in the universe, but it will give you the ability to control and test most everything in your rig — including an entire universe of DMX data. And it runs off a 9V battery.

The new Unity AB series from Lightronics is designed to control high efficiency lighting sources such as LED light fixtures and dimmable compact fluorescents. The AB can be ordered to control a three-wire hot-switched ballast or a four-wire 0-10VDC-type ballast. The AB is available in a three- or six-channel version with a maximum load of 20 amps per channel. Control is via a DMX-512 console or any of the Lightronics Unity architectural remote stations. Scene recall can also be accomplished using a momentary contact signal from a switch, motion sensor or similar device.

Altman Lighting has been in the business of manufacturing lights for the entertainment industry for more than 50 years.  When new technologies came about, Altman Lighting developed products that designers asked for. When a new light source technology came along called LEDs, Altman began researching and developing products.

Like most manufacturers, Clay Paky is responsive to what lighting designers are asking for in the way of new technologies and fixtures, and the design for the company’s recent addition to its Alpha series of fixtures, the Alpha Spot QWO 800, is no exception — it was designed in response to what LDs are saying they want and need.

Roland’s V-800HD Multi-Format Video Switcher may have eight mixing buses instead of 16, and four SDI inputs instead of eight. But like Roland’s V-1600HD, it lets users tap into a wide variety of analog and video sources, manipulate the imagery and display clean, sharp video, even on large LED displays.

Controlling lights can be as simple or as complicated as you like.  Traditionally, lighting designers have been limited on how the control surfaces are laid out by the desk manufacturers.  Depending on which lighting desk you get, you are limited to a set amount of faders or how you access and control parameters of a moving light.

Lightronics’ FXLD100E and FXLD100ECMY fixtures combines the functionality of classic tungsten ellipsoidal fixtures with an LED light source. Both are available with 50°, 36°, 26° and 19° beam spreads. Depending on the lens used, the fixture offers 7,000 lux with a 50° lens, up to 23,500 lux with a 19° lens.

Solar-Powered Stage from Kleege Industries and Sustainable Waves

Kleege Industries has been around since Nevin Kleege designed and built his first “plank and ply” stage in 1984. Sustainable Waves has been an alternative energy trail-blazer for eight years. The two companies got together to come up with Helios 250, a solar-powered mobile stage. It toured the country from May to August 2011 with the Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown and Vans Warped tours, soaking up the rays and providing enough power, even on cloudy and rainy days, to provide 120 amps at 120V for up to 12 hours.