New Dimmers For Halogen Lights

[Jivemaster]

Terralec (dotcodot UK) still list tungsten lamps, but which delivery will be their last?

Never neglect the cost of the converter leads -sometime it's cheaper to buy better. Moderate the weight you carry, especially heavy flight cases.  

[sandall]

5 hours ago, julz said:

During my searches I came across the Anytronics branded dimmers as mentioned above; does anyone have an opinion on them? Their website claims they still manufacture six channel dimmers but they haven't responded to my inquiry.

Good people to deal with - give them a call.

[xllx]

5 hours ago, julz said:

Also, I have found some ETC Smartpacks which might fit the bill (Socapex outputs!). 

I have a couple of smart packs, I've got rid of most of my dimmers, but keep these for a couple of shows a year. 

They are heavy, but less heavy than two 6 way dimmers. 

I've had them for about 6 years and they have been 100% reliable.

They are supposed to be easy to service, but I've never needed to.

Only potential fault I've heard about is the LCD screen and associated buttons can fail. Not happened on mine though. 

I think they are still a current ETC product so support and parts should be available.

5 hours ago, julz said:

 

 

 

[ekul1978]

we are trying to change our current paradigm rack mounted dimmers this summer to the ETC thrupower.  We may be offering them for a price (depends what school say).  Not sure if they are of interest?

[sunray]

On 6/28/2024 at 12:14 PM, julz said:

Thanks for your replies I will look into them all. LEDs are not really an option at the moment so some solution to lugging our current dimmer around needs to be found (none of us are getting younger). I've noticed that the price of t26 bulbs has about doubled recently although there still seems to be a good supply, time to stockpile I guess.

During my searches I came across the Anytronics branded dimmers as mentioned above; does anyone have an opinion on them? Their website claims they still manufacture six channel dimmers but they haven't responded to my inquiry.

Anytronics contractor packs have been my go to for school systems for many years. Very approachable and accomodating people, I usually order with master RCD (usually supplied as a retrofit kit) and 6A MCB's. Not had a single failure in about 20 units.

[David Ripley]

On 6/27/2024 at 4:46 PM, kgallen said:

Stage Electrics list Osram T-class lamps. e.g.

Well that's more than Osram do on their website, there are only discharge lamps on the entertainment site or some 80V tungsten bubbles with weird bases. https://www.osram.com/pia/applications/entertainment/index.jsp You get a prize if you can find the 'Stage & Theater' bit from their website, Googling it is cheating!

It's more about planning for the inevitable, which started with EcoDesign in 2017 and although the focus has changed slightly from efficiency to life span, LEDs will still win in a side by side comparison. Given that and, if you think about it, how complicated your average T lamp is to give the quality of light we need and therefore how difficult and expensive to manufacture, you can see why the campaign is there to start raising awareness.

With a new government we might even be able to get this recognised as Labour have mentioned  the creative industries as one of the drivers for growth - but only if we can see the creativity!