Selador X7xtra LED Striplight
Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology has been with us for several years now. Certainly the promise of LEDs in theatrical lighting is exciting. Along with almost limitless color range and smooth color mixing, LEDs offer enormous energy savings in both power used and overall lamp life. Plus they generate very little heat from the light source. Unfortunately, the tradeoff has been lack of intensity for stage use and the initial high cost for the LEDs.
I have used LED fixtures in several church projects. One in particular was for a church in Texas where the choir sits under a very low seven-foot ceiling. The incandescent lights above the choir were literally burning the top of the choirs’ heads. Men were losing their hair, and women’s wigs were in danger of igniting. Anyway, I replaced these lights with LED fixtures and the difference was remarkable.
LEDs can also be used for traditional theatrical applications, from spot-lighting to lighting drops and cycs. They are also used in architectural applications. I am presently designing a church that uses LED rope lights hidden behind the reveals of crosses. This will offer a soft glow of color behind the pastor.
Selador has been on the forefront of this technology. They have recently introduced the new X7xtra LED striplight. This fixture incorporates 32 extra- bright three-watt Luxeon K2 LEDs in each foot-length of fixture. This makes this fixture almost three times as bright as their previous X7 model. What does this mean? For the first time a manufacturer is realistically claiming that their LED striplight is as bright as standard incandescent stage striplight.
Of course we were skeptical. So Selador sent us an X7xtra-21 LED striplight for testing at California State University Long Beach in Long Beach, California. We put this light through its paces in both our light lab and in the theatre under a real production environment.
X7xtra Notables
First, a few basics: LEDs use a completely different technology than incandescent lamps. LEDs are semi-conducting crystals. They produce light in narrow ranges of wavelengths when electricity flows through the crystal. Although they produce some internal heat, there is no heat directly from the light source.
Due to their small size, LEDs are usually grouped in an array consisting of numerous diodes. Grouping these together not only produces a more intense light unavailable from a single diode, it also allows the mixture of primary and secondary colors that the designer can blend to an almost limitless palette of hues. In addition, recent developments have tripled the wattage of LEDs from one to three watts, resulting in a corresponding increase in intensity.
Selador now incorporates a new sevencolor LED array in their X7xtra fixtures. These colors include: red, red-orange, amber, green, cyan, blue, and indigo. This allows the X7xtra to produce colors that were previously impossible to achieve in an LED fixture. You can now match deep blues and ambers, along with shades of yellow, lavender, and green. In addition to this wider color palette, the X7xtra can produce a wide range of color correction hues from 800 K to 20,000 K. Pretty impressive.
So how difficult is it to use this fixture? Just hang it, plug the power cable into an available 120V outlet, plug in a 5-pin XLR DMX cable from the lighting console to the X7xtra, and away you go. No dimmers are required as all the data processing circuits are located inside the fixture.
The X7xtra is controlled by seven DMX channels (one for each color). The fixture has a DMX in and thru. This permits you to daisy-chain several fixtures together (to light a drop or cyc, for instance).
This fixture utilizes extremely quiet fans for internal heat dissipation. Unlike many of its competitors, Selador does not use automatic shut-off or self-dimming circuits. X7xtra fixtures require good ventilation and sufficient air volume around fixture housings. This allows for premium LED performance and reduces the possibility of failure.
It may sound as if this fixture produces a lot of heat. The fact is that the X7xtra produces very little. The absence of heat produced out of the front of the fixture is remarkable. Although I would not recommend doing this on any fixture, you could place your hand on the LED lenses without getting burned.
The X7xtra also includes fourteen standard beam-spreading lenses. This allows you to spread the light in almost any direction in 10-degree increments (from 20 to 80 degrees). The lenses can be used to generate square or rectangular beams in almost any size and shape, producing tight beam edges and flat fields of light. You can also order additional frost and diffusion lenses directly from Selador.
Measuring Up
X7xtra fixtures come in 7-, 11-, 21-, 41-, and 62-inch models. We used a Selador X7xtra-21 on the production of California State University’s “Pericles.” Lighting Designer Leah Austin placed the fixture in the center of an electric designed to light the upstage cyclorama. The X7xtra was surrounded on both sides by 300W incandescent striplights. Austin used the X7xtra as a center punch of color for several atmospheres in the show. This allowed us to see just how bright the fixture was in direct comparison to the standard incandescent striplights.
We found the X7xtra to be as bright (and in some colors, brighter) than these powerful incandescent striplights. Remember, LEDs use additive color mixing and no intensity is lost due to absorption through gel or glass media. Regarding color rendition performance, Austin was able to color match the X7xtra to the colors she used in the incandescent strips. (Selador also included a chart that allowed her to quickly match colors to standard gel colors.) This was quite useful when she wanted to have an intense center effect on the cyc using the same color as the rest of the strips. The lenticular lens that was used on the 21-inch fixture made the beam-spread as effective as a standard six-foot striplight.
We also tested the X7xtra in the light lab. Our tests confirm Selador’s claims of the fixture’s wide color range. We also discovered the color mixing from one color to another to be incredibly smooth without any strange artifacts that you get when changing colors in color scrollers or dichroic color changers. The only color that we were unable to mix to was a very deep indigo blue—but this is due to the limitations of the technology, not the design of the fixture.
We did find that in some instances shadows from the subject being hit with the light produced multi-colored edges in shadows. This is due to the multiple light sources. However, this was very minor compared to other striplights. The fixture stayed cool to the touch throughout our testing. We experienced no problems with consistency in colors even when the fixture was on for many hours.
The street prices for the X7xtra models range from approximately $1,180 (7 inches) to $7,880 (62 inches). The X7xtra-21 that we reviewed runs approximately $2,600. Although the initial cost for this technology may seem prohibitive to many churches, when you account for the enormous savings in electricity (using a fraction of the power of incandescent lamps), lamp life (some LEDs are rated at 100,000 hours), and the cost for dimmers (these fixtures do not require external dimmers), the break-even price point may not be as far away as you think.
We are very impressed with the X7xtra. A company has finally produced an LED fixture that outperforms most standard incandescent theatrical striplights, while staying cost-competitive when you look at the “big picture.” Selador’s X7xtra will only inspire other companies to develop competing products that drive LED prices down further. And we will all be the beneficiaries of that.
Quick Links
SELADOR
X7xtra LED striplight
(415) 307-6759 • www.selador.net
