Chauvet Wash FX Review
Home 2023 › Forums › Digital DJ Gear › Chauvet Wash FX Review
- This topic has 11 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 6 months ago by
ScottoRobotto.
-
AuthorPosts
-
September 27, 2015 at 4:02 am #2261131
DJ Vintage
ModeratorThanks for the review.
At the BPM I saw the latest DOTZ COB fixture by ADJ up close and really liked them. They are 100W LED! single lens models. 60+ degree angle for wash purposes and a screw-on focus lens comes with it to make it go to about 23 degree angle for spot.
Haven’t seen the pricing on them. But both in size (lens) and light output they compare to good ole PAR52 cans. I a sure they have all the programs and that all programs can be fired from DMX, assuming your DMX software/controller let’s you do this.
With something like this we seem to have come full circle and back to a single source of strong light from a fixture, with the added benefit of RGB or RGBA or RGBW or RBB…. color, wash and spot in one fixture, heaps of built-in programs and built-in strobe mode. Oh, and lesser power consumption and lower heating up.
Yes, these are good times for those that love their lights.
http://www.americandj.eu/en/dotz-par-100.htmlSeptember 27, 2015 at 5:09 pm #2261451bob6397
ParticipantA venue I DJ at has a few (around 80) Visage LED PAR64 cans – they are RGBAW + UV – awesome to use and you can literally get any colour you want out of them (Plus the UV is surprisingly powerful)..
COB tech is the future though.. 🙂
bob6397
September 28, 2015 at 12:18 am #2261611ModeratorYeah, I liked the “BIG” RGB LED fixtures better than the first generation with actual LEDs in all colors (up to 144 or so in a can). But if you looked at them they would still look like a collection of lights in a can. The first series of COB were nice but not strong enough imho. And you’d need 4 or 8 in a bar or something for optimal effect. I think this 100W is getting there. Looks like 1 light, is strong enough to replace a regular can with all the LED advantages.
I have seen (other brand) UV included LED fixtures, nice indeed.
September 28, 2015 at 2:03 am #2261711ScottoRobotto
ParticipantLast night I used the Wash FX system during a concert for 3 bands. I mounted 2 Wash FX fixtures to a pipe about 15ft away from the performers.
2 fixtures was too much light output, when doing static color washes I was at about 10% power which meant working the DMX controller sliders was a little jerky. When I used auto chases the whites were too bright since you can’t dim the intensity during auto chases. Next time I think I will use a single unit and drop it back a little further to 25 feet or so.
Also none of the auto chases have smooth color fading, it just snaps from one color to another. I could program it into a DMX controller but it’s disappointing that they didn’t build it into the fixture instead of a 23rd slightly different variation of a color chase. For now I’ll use these fixtures for washes and color chases but eventually I think change over to using them for static washes and crowd blinders and pick up some LED pars that have smooth color mixing programs.
Now that I’ve used them for a live event I’ll say they they give excellent light output for their price point and are great for static washes, strobing, and as a crowd blinder. However the auto chases are limited and I wish they had better DMX controls, particularly a master dimmer that could be used for both static washes AND auto chases.
September 28, 2015 at 3:05 am #2261761ModeratorHey Scotto, that sounds off, dude!
10% is like near off … no way that should be too bright (and the artists have no say, they are not supposed to see into the room! LOL). are you sure you have the correct ranges?
The limitations seem like a bummer for a guy like you that needs his lights to do loads of stuff, rather than having fixtures for every single task.
September 28, 2015 at 3:05 am #2261771ModeratorHey Scotto, that sounds off, dude!
10% is like near off … no way that should be too bright (and the artists have no say, they are not supposed to see into the room! LOL). are you sure you have the correct ranges?
The limitations seem like a bummer for a guy like you that needs his lights to do loads of stuff, rather than having fixtures for every single task.
September 28, 2015 at 3:20 am #2261781ParticipantWell my sliders were at about 25-30 out of 255 for white light doing red, blue and green. When I was doing single color I could move the sliders up to about 100 or so. These were two fixtures with 18 4-watt LEDs so assuming linear output 10% is about 14.4 watt. That is what I found to be appropriate for color washes. On the other hand at 100% when the units was pushing white light during chases, that’s 144-watts of LED output.
I can probably work around it by programming chases into my DMX controller or software DMX control but stand-alone it is definitely limited by Chauvet’s built-in programming.
September 28, 2015 at 8:19 pm #2262111ParticipantI have used a couple of these (set to sound to light, but it wasn’t my event, I was only DJing) and they were on full.. Ignore anyone actually on the stage – they are there to be blinded 🙂
I do lighting design for some stage productions and we use about 30 500W Halogen lamps for one 30x20m stage.. No way 2 of those will be too bright.
bob6397
bob6397
September 29, 2015 at 4:53 am #2262341ParticipantWell I can say it was too bright for what I was going for. It tended to wash out the other chase lights behind the bands I was using to create a backdrop and white on full was unflattering to the performers.
September 29, 2015 at 5:49 pm #2262661ParticipantWell obviously if full brightness isn’t the effect you are after than turn them down a bit..
The situations I have used them in, we had them on full brightness the whole time – but we were using them to light up a ceiling in a reasonably sized room and not actually focused on things.. 🙂
Different situations mean different uses of the same kit..
bob6397
September 30, 2015 at 5:15 am #2262971ParticipantThe problem is that you can’t turn them down when using sound active or auto patterns, they run at 100% power only. In the future I’ll probably use a single unit instead of both and put the second one behind the band to use as a crowd blinder.
Next year I may be doing lighting for a wedding and one of my packages will be using the Wash FX units to color wash the ceiling and upper walls rather than doing uplighting.
-
AuthorPosts
- The forum ‘Digital DJ Gear’ is closed to new topics and replies.