Mike Morgan
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Richard will probably have me banned from these boards, as he did recently on DVX User, but when you scratch the surface, his products are not the equal of the name brand products. When it comes to professional lighting, you get what you pay for. Take for instance his 1.2kw ballasts. The Cool Lights ballasts have only a 15’ head extension and are so cheap because they are an older design called “constant-current” ballasts. The drawback to constant-current ballasts is that voltage drop over longer head cable lengths causes current to climb and the ballast to overheat. Arri ballasts are more expensive because they are a newer design called “constant-power” ballasts. The Arri ballasts are able to regulate not just lamp current but also lamp power, enabling the ballast to compensate for voltage drops over long head cable runs. With Arri ballasts you can easily run 200’ of head cable between the ballast and head. Constant-power ballasts can also compensate for changing lamp voltage as a lamp ages. The constant power of Arri ballasts means that the lamp has a stable, optimal color temperature that remains uniform regardless of lamp age or line voltage. On a constant-current ballast like Cool Lights, the color temperature of the light output will drop one degree Kelvin for every hour it burns. Constant-power designs like Arri’s are also less prone to overheating than constant current designs like Cool lights. As is almost always the case: you get what you pay for.
Richard had me banned from DVX User because I pointed out there, as is the case here, that his claims regarding his ballasts are misleading. Here in response to Noel R’s statement:
Richard responds:
What Richard fails to mention is that, outside of special Power Gems and Arri high speed ballasts that operate at 300Hz and a 1000Hz (respectively), Arri, Power Gems, and Power-to-Light (who between them manufacture 90% of the ballasts used) all generate a Square Wave at the supply frequency (60 or 50 Hz) in Flicker Free mode which makes them quieter than the Cool Lights ballasts which operate at 75Hz. He had me banned from DVX user for saying his ballasts are noisier than others for this reason, even when he
readily admitted in the same thread:
In that same thread he also erroneously claimed:
This is simply wrong. In silent mode, the bulb doesn’t resonate as much because the ballast slightly rounds-off the shoulders of the square wave, not because it “mimick (spelling error is Richards) a magnetic ballast running in a 50 or 60 hz environment (sine wave outputs)” as Richard erroneously contends.
If anyone questions the veracity of my claims, I would suggest they see the companion website Harry Box has established for the Fourth Edition of “The Set Lighting Technician’s Handbook.” On it, he has several good articles on how HMIs operate and how to operate them reliably on small generators. You can access the site, called “Box Book Extras,” with the password “set lighting.” Arri also makes available on line a good pdf written by John Gresch, Vice-President of the Lighting Division of Arri USA and frequent instructor on HMI lighting technology for IATSE Local 728. It is available at http://www.arri.com/fileadmin/media...lasts/Examining_A_Powerful_Light_Source_4.pdf. Finally, I would suggest Guy Holt’s excellent article on the use of portable generators in motion picture production available at http://tinyurl.com/66v3xhj.
They are greener than brand name LED panels like the Litepanel 1x1s because they use less high quality LEDs (less stringent bins.) For confirmation of this fact about the Litepanel LEDs see: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...-temps-for-a-5600-cool-light-LED-to-3200-Arri
Unfortunately I don’t share your enthusiasm for Richard’s contributions to the forums Cool Lights sponsors. It seems to me that he abuses the privileges of a sponsor to shamelessly market his products in the forum, spins arguments in favor of his products, and censors any dissenting viewpoints. In print journalism this is called “advertorialism.” Richard turns Reduser into an on-line version of “Videomaker” or “Markee” where every article is about a company that advertises in the magazine and none of them critical.
Mike Morgan
Richard had me banned from DVX User because I pointed out there, as is the case here, that his claims regarding his ballasts are misleading. Here in response to Noel R’s statement:
Richard responds:
What Richard fails to mention is that, outside of special Power Gems and Arri high speed ballasts that operate at 300Hz and a 1000Hz (respectively), Arri, Power Gems, and Power-to-Light (who between them manufacture 90% of the ballasts used) all generate a Square Wave at the supply frequency (60 or 50 Hz) in Flicker Free mode which makes them quieter than the Cool Lights ballasts which operate at 75Hz. He had me banned from DVX user for saying his ballasts are noisier than others for this reason, even when he
readily admitted in the same thread:
In that same thread he also erroneously claimed:
This is simply wrong. In silent mode, the bulb doesn’t resonate as much because the ballast slightly rounds-off the shoulders of the square wave, not because it “mimick (spelling error is Richards) a magnetic ballast running in a 50 or 60 hz environment (sine wave outputs)” as Richard erroneously contends.
If anyone questions the veracity of my claims, I would suggest they see the companion website Harry Box has established for the Fourth Edition of “The Set Lighting Technician’s Handbook.” On it, he has several good articles on how HMIs operate and how to operate them reliably on small generators. You can access the site, called “Box Book Extras,” with the password “set lighting.” Arri also makes available on line a good pdf written by John Gresch, Vice-President of the Lighting Division of Arri USA and frequent instructor on HMI lighting technology for IATSE Local 728. It is available at http://www.arri.com/fileadmin/media...lasts/Examining_A_Powerful_Light_Source_4.pdf. Finally, I would suggest Guy Holt’s excellent article on the use of portable generators in motion picture production available at http://tinyurl.com/66v3xhj.
They are greener than brand name LED panels like the Litepanel 1x1s because they use less high quality LEDs (less stringent bins.) For confirmation of this fact about the Litepanel LEDs see: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...-temps-for-a-5600-cool-light-LED-to-3200-Arri
Unfortunately I don’t share your enthusiasm for Richard’s contributions to the forums Cool Lights sponsors. It seems to me that he abuses the privileges of a sponsor to shamelessly market his products in the forum, spins arguments in favor of his products, and censors any dissenting viewpoints. In print journalism this is called “advertorialism.” Richard turns Reduser into an on-line version of “Videomaker” or “Markee” where every article is about a company that advertises in the magazine and none of them critical.
Mike Morgan
