LED Pars

[AndrewR]

Having recieved a further 3 Led'cans from Thomman yesterday:

 

There as some interesting differences between the Stairville and the Showtec, (other than the personality)

 

Showtec can be set up to 512, Stairville 256

Showtec has a sound to light mode with a sensitivity ajustment knob. Stairville has sound to light.

Showtec can be set to several speeds of auto colour change. Stairville has a speed knob to control its auto mode.

Showtec has slots in the casing to allow air circulation to cool the electronics.

Showtec has a strobe/shutter channel.

Showtec has an LED to indicate the presence of DMX.

 

And finally the Stairville has IMO a nicer paint finish :(

 

But for the tiny difference I think I will be going for the Showtec units next time, they take up an extra channel, but they do have a strobe!

 

And now I'm going to go poke my Congo with a stick to try and find a preferable way to work them, rather than the 'dummy dimmer channel' method!

[niclights]

Hmmm. That's odd. My Showtec's have speed knob, not sensitivity. They don't have the DMX reception LED either. Silly things!

[RichD]

There are different Showtec version. I've placed two orders from Thomann and have got different ones each time.

 

The first lot were as niclights. On the back you have auto/music switch, 8 dips and a speed pot.

The others had 10 dips and a sensitivity pot, and had the same instructions as musht posted on the previous page.

Both came in Showtec boxes and had the same Thomann product code sticker on them.

 

Just looking at the instructions I noticed the 8dip version has V2.0 in the bottom right corner and the 10dip has V3.0.

I assumed the Stairville was just another rebadge so it makes sense for that to be the newer version.

 

As others have posted, the 10dip version does seem to have a more noticable flicker when changing level

[Opus Pocus]

Howdy. :P Can someone help? New to this forum and to lighting am a sound guy, run a recording studios and do lots of PA work etc. Have ordered 2 of the Thomann Stairville 64s and 2 of their Eurolite 64s which I note are 32W as opposed to the others at 15W? Anyone notice a difference between the 2 lamps outputs? Quite a difference in price. Am looking for a controller to use with them and thinking of the Stairville DMX Master as budget is tight, Stairville controller. Does this seem like a good idea? Would like to add some further lights as budget allows but it is only for simple band lighting set up. Any help at all on even the basics of all this, DMX cables, programming or choice of gear very gratefully received as you all know so much more than me....Cheers.

[Tomo]

The Stairville controller is aimed at low-end moving lights - these are static LED, and you'll therefore find it very difficult to control them with one of those.

 

Not saying that it can't be done, but you'll be fighting with it all the way - basically, you'll have a fader for Red, and a joystick for Green and Blue.

(Colours may be in a different order, but you get the idea)

 

What you really want is a fader-per-channel desk, as that feels very much like a sound desk for lighting.

 

If your controller budget really is that tiny, the Beringher LC2412 is a fader-per-channel desk - it more or less works, but it's faders are rather low resolution.

 

However, if you can stretch a bit further, a Zero88 Jester or an ETC Smartfade would be good for you.

[Ben Lawrance]

Hi all,

 

Just finished doing an outdoor concert with a load of LED pars. Just thought I'd give some feedback.

 

We had 14 LED Par 56's (Thomman jobbies) as backlight, and a few uplighting the booms.

 

Although they were nowhere near as punchy as the 1K 64's along the front, the effects they gave were great.

 

The only downside to them is that they have a slight flicker when they aren't on.

 

Check out the pictures at www.gitg.org

 

Cheers

Ben

[Opus Pocus]

Thanks Tomo for your help on the desk issue, thomann had just said that would do fine but I can see your point... Behringer looks good from a budget point of view and as you say 24 faders will make me feel more at home. Along with the pars I am wondering about adding a couple of cheapish effects lights to add some movement, however want to avoid the cheese factor...we are a serious function band trying to get some classey gigs. Check out our site Beats Working. Also do an original rock band called the remedy,The Remedy

 

Can I also say hi to Ben Lawrence, nice pics of that gig in liphook. Got a feeling I know you as I am only up the road in grayshott, Tim Benson. Its shame I did n't know about that show in the garden would have loved to have got involved. Always good to know a lights guy who is local as I have two PA companys!

[niclights]

@Ben Lawrance: You might be able to reduce the flicker when not used by switching units to 'music' mode. This helped for me although this introduced a new very low level flicker when just the right level/frequency of noise is detected (which needs to be surprisingly quiet!). The big disadvantage is you must connect DMX signal before powering up or people will laugh at you. :(

[Simonb]

I just bought a second pair of the Thomann £46 LED PARs and somewhat surprised to find the channel assignments are different. Ahh well, keeps me alert, I suppose.

 

Also, one of them seems to always show about 10% red, even with everything off on DMX - anyone else had a similar fault?

 

Of course, I have already chopped off the european plugs and fitted UK ones so may there be a problem in returning it!

[bruce]

Useful info about the Stairville version. Interesting to read there was no gel frame.

Thomann say that this is a mistake - there should have been a frame, but they were missing from one batch, and that they will forward them when they come into stock.

And they did - a package with 4 gel frames was DHL'd from Germany to me a couple of days ago...

[Ekij]

I just bought a second pair of the Thomann £46 LED PARs and somewhat surprised to find the channel assignments are different.

Can you provide details of the two different assignments (also any serial numbers / part numbers that would allow others to know which they should expect).

Also, one of them seems to always show about 10% red, even with everything off on DMX - anyone else had a similar fault?

There should be no good reason for this, unless you have the DIP switches set so that Red is always at 25% (I believe this is lowest standalone setting), or the sound-to-light is enabled. It is possible that the sheet you received describing the settings on your unit does not actually apply to the units it was shipped with! Check that the DIP switches (and potentiometer) are set to the same values on both units.

Of course, I have already chopped off the european plugs and fitted UK ones so may there be a problem in returning it!

This will be a problem for you. I would recommend in future that you remove one of the leads in its entirety from the unit so you can swap this lead back into any unit you need to return.

[peternewman]

This will be a problem for you. I would recommend in future that you remove one of the leads in its entirety from the unit so you can swap this lead back into any unit you need to return.

Alternatively I'm assuming no-one has discovered any issues that only show up later on in life (apart from possibly some of the strings failing), so it might be pertinent, and something I'll try next time, to quickly test them with a continental/shaver adaptor before cutting the plugs off, which must be less hassle than dismantling them. Out of interest for those who have opened them, how is the power lead connected to the circuit board, I'm assuming it's soldered or possibly terminal blocks.

 

PN

[bruce]

I use the adaptors that I mentioned on page 21 of this thread. Cost about a pound each from CPC. There are several variants, for "shaver-style" plugs, and also the earthed and non-earthed schukos. You need the "earthed schuko" ones for these units. The schuko fits inside the adaptor, you screw down the lid, and it's then just a slightly bulky 13A plug (fused at 3A of course).

[niclights]

Just so happens I've got one right here in bits! Earth is screwed to case, live and neutral connect to PSU wires by crimp. IMO it would be messy and awkward to remove these to test. Travel adaptor is the way forward.

[peternewman]

I think Ekij was suggesting removing an entire lead and replacing it with something else, so you have the original you can replace it with if you need to send it back for replacement/repair.

 

PN