The Great LED PAR can vs PAR 56 shootout

[musht]

Thanks Brian, much appreciated, don`t suppose you took any side by side pics as well?

 

Numbers look like a fairer comparison would be shootout with a Pat 45 :-)

 

Lets remember brightness is relative and the ambient light floor might be somewhat lower in the corner of the `Duck and Dive` than it is in Wembley Arena. Throw will be somewhat shorter as well.

 

MK1 Eyeball is extremely adaptive and shows how peoples perception can be very different from the actual numbers.

 

Would say that it is not just Far Eastern manufacturers who have figures that are hard to replicate, its a problem that goes right back to the LED manufacturers themselves, some large companies do appear to use a lottery predictor pen to fill out the photometrics.

 

LED brightness is very dependent on temperature, very steep neg temp coefficient, initial brightness will be different from output after an hour, bigger LEDs have more heat to get rid of...

[Brian]

Thanks Brian, much appreciated, don`t suppose you took any side by side pics as well?

Nope, sorry. I was using a black surface as it was easier to visually find the beam centre as a starting point for the measurements.

[Chris L]

I'm looking at buying some of the Eurolite LED par 64s with 183 LEDs, does anyone else own any of these?

In theory this should be brighter than the tested, but probably still nowhere near the "real" lamp.

The thing about the figures that interests me is that the beam coverage seems to be wider in the LED fixture, which I think is good for the sort of thing I do, smallish rock concerts.

Also good for rigging, I only need to run a data cable and a power cable round my rig with LED fixtures, as opposed to a power cable per light which takes ages (can't afford soccapex or anything useful like that).

I used a pair of Stairville LED par 56s (cheap ones from Thomann) and found that they were pretty good. I used them facing across and at the back of the stage, rigged over the front of the stage. They gave a really good vivid colour "glow" to the stage area with some smoke, which I don't think I could achieve with normal fixtures - the colours look so much more vibrant.

But I'm not dumping the proper pars yet ;)

 

Chris

[LDODD]

Not sure if this is the right place, but....

 

Using the 'newest' technology, I have an LED Par 36/38 Replacement Lamp running on 350mA producing 160lux at 5m.

 

(White , 5200k, 9 LED, 15 deg beam angle, 111mm dia lamp)

 

This was independantly measured for a specific project and therefore I do not have any more Data at present. I am working on the general photometric data now...

 

I will publish further findings ASAP if they are of interest?

 

(This unit retails at about £150 [Price guide -not selling on BR...] and offers 90lu/W)

 

We are never going to achieve like for like using 5mm LED technology, but the higher output stuff is now getting there on price and certainly is not far away on lux now...

[CoolMemory]

I'm looking at buying some of the Eurolite LED par 64s with 183 LEDs, does anyone else own any of these?

I own 6 of these- purchased from thomann- which I use as a replacement for 8x PAR56's, lighting a club duo.

Although their output is lower, and I would say thebeam is narrower I have been very pleased with the result. The advantage is of course the colour changing ability of each light, with 8 pars, if you want red then of course you can only really have the red ones on (2 of which in my case) and the others dimmed. With the LEDS I can have them all on the desired colour, basically I can use all lamps at the same time as opposed just theones with the right filters.

Had them a few months now, the artists love them because on small stages they're no longer cooking!

The colours are wonderful but but I found a little too intense on their faces (honestly with blue full on they looked like the blue man group, the green makes it look like theyre about to puke!) so I added 2x150w chauvet legend colour changers as spots for the faces mounted on the end of the PARs.

With the vastly reduced power consumption means I havent blown a clubs electrics since I got them. (why is it when they say "that plug is 35a" I always prove them wrong? ** laughs out loud **) and I certainly wont miss buying bulbs.

 

The construction quality is pretty good for the price. 1 or 2 have stopped working but it seems the block connectors for the dip switches are prone to coming loose (10sec repair) and I'm goin to glue in the power cable grommets which are easily pulled out the unit.

 

Pete

[oxogoxo]

hi brian thanx 4 those figures .wow. im blown away .really appreciate it.

[Rocket]

I own 6 of these- purchased from thomann- which I use as a replacement for 8x PAR56's, lighting a club duo.<snip>

That whole post more or less sums up my experience and opinion of them (including the power cables pulling out!). I use 4, and will be ordering another 4 soon - sure, they're no substitute for the originals but they have their uses.

[zcream]

Just canceled my buying plans. Thanks for the comparison..

Here is another email I got...

 

>>>>>>>

I'll contact you when we get more in. As far as brightness goes LED's are not as bright as the conventional lighting just yet. I would give it another 1 - 2 years before LED's are as bright.

 

This LED Par 64 is equivalent to around 250 - 300 watt DYI bulbs.

 

>>>>>>>>>>

[thistle2007uk]

This is all great info and very much appreciated. Just what is needed.

We all want to know who's winning the game.

But please cast your minds back only 5 years ago; our concept of the LED stretched as far as the TV's remote control.. Did we even contemplate using LEDs in a rig as we are now?

 

What was DMX 20 years ago?

 

We might compare each to each old to new, Betamax to VHS, vinyl to CD, DVD to BluRay, the new more often than not will win!

 

In another 5 years time we'll snigger at those still using tungsten lamps, dimmers and coloured gels and praise the LED lighting fitting.

 

So let's not knock the LED but instead embrace it. For it will be our future (for the time being at least)

 

LONG LIVE THE LED LONG LIVE THE KING!

[richardtank]

Bearing in mind this topic is almost 3 years old (Nice grave digging thistle) B-) It may be that the budget LEDs are a bit brighter now. Although it's painfully obvious they wont be as bright as the traditional PARs for quite some time!

[thistle2007uk]

oops, too much of the flava. sorry,

But still even more of a valid point I think, no?

 

What you doing reading stuff from 3 years ago anyway? You should know better.

[adam2]

It would be very interesting if someone could repeat the test with more modern LED PAR lights, budget and good ones if possible.

 

I would expect the results to be a considerable improvement over those in the O/P, but still less than a halogen lamp.

 

I can forsee the day when most theatre and general lighting is LED, but not just yet!

[smalljoshua]

It would be interesting to see a Par56 against say a ChromaQ Colour Block 2 or similar.

 

Josh

[JMackenzie]

I have to agree with Thistle's thoughts on this. I recently bought 4 Par64LED Parcans budget LED's.

Knowing before hand that they would not be as bright, I was really surprised by what I can achieve with them. I like softer colours and generally "moody" lighting states rather than full the white glare that most video camera operators prefer. I love the ease of colour mixing and the various different ways of using them. I found , by doing a little experimenting that they function best when around 10m away from the lit objects or surfaces, the colour mix is better, even if a lot less in intensity. I love the fact they run cool, dont eat electricity, dont cause fizzes in my audio system like my dimmer rack does. I can only hope that the price of the 30W-50W (approx £200) comes down rapidly as people start to buy them. I can only hope the LED's do last for their estimated life. I would replace all my old 150W strand floods, (about 30) with even the type of LED I have already bought, but at £50 or so per unit , its a bit beyond the school's budget to do it all at once. I think the max. my controller can deal with is 16 units, its only 192 channels.Again , it was a cheap thing , at £105, by comparison to a full blown lighting desk.

I can see this greatly improving in a very short space of time. The E.U. will no doubt get round to banning the use of tungsten in an effort to save energy etc. so we may as well do the best we can, while we still can!! :D

[Brian]

I would expect the results to be a considerable improvement over those in the O/P, but still less than a halogen lamp.

I very much doubt there would be any improvement on the budget units. All that seems to have happened there is that the price has come down to around the £40-£50 mark. The next step up is to 1W units at the £110 - £130 range. I'd hope that they would show a useful increase in performance.