Reprinted from the September 2009 issue of Church Production Magazine

Courtesy of Elektralite

Lighting Review: Elektralite LXE700 Spot and Wash Luminaires

In December 2008, Elektralite introduced two new automated luminaires that are both technically strong while permitting you to remain conscious of your bottom line. The LXE700, available in Spot and Wash versions, was initially shown at last year’s LDI tradeshow by Farmingdale, NY-based distributor Group One Limited. Since the lights have been shipping for awhile now and will be shown at the upcoming WFX Charlotte, we thought that it was worth taking a look at the features and benefits of these lights.

Both the Spot and Wash lights offer the following features: an HSR 700 lamp which has a color temperature of 7,000K and an average rated life of 1,000 hours; eight- or 16-bit control; electronic ballast; very quiet cooling; full mechanical dimming from 0 to 100%; full color mixing; frost filter, strobe and shutter effects; on-board programmable effects; and an electronic display. The LXE Spot uses 24 channels of DMX and the Wash uses 16 channels. Both the Spot and the Wash weigh in at 75 pounds, and have a packed dimension of 29 inches by 23 inches by 25 inches. Though currently listed on the website and cutsheet as only available in a black powder-coated finish, Vinny Finnegan, vice president of Elektralite and Group One Limited, assured me that white and custom colors are available just like other Elektralite units.

The display allows you to access a menu with an assortment of options, including addressing, homing and resetting the fixture, plus you can track lamp hours as well as fixture usage hours (which are different when the lamp is doused but the unit is still running.) It also will display the DMX address, individual DMX channel values, display invert (for when the unit is hanging rather than floor-mounted), channel test without a controller, pan and tilt flip, delay lamp start, display shut off, and choice of eight- or 16-bit control.

The Spot features a pan range of 630° and a tilt range of 265°; stepped beam angles of 24°, 28° and 35° with a zoom between these fixed angles; a color wheel with eight colors plus open two rotating, bi-directional, indexable gobo wheels—six each, plus open for a total of 12 gobos; an iris with effects possible; and a three-facet, bi-directional rotating prism also with effects. The gobo wheels both have a range of standard moving light patterns, including various shapes and textures as well as some colored glass and effects glass. It has a retail price of $5,495. Manuals are fairly well-detailed and illustrated, and the text even has some humor to lighten up the reading.

The zoom function is accomplished with a wheel that has three different lenses on it to give you the three-beam spreads. “We chose to go with the multi-step zoom over a linear zoom because a linear zoom adds a lot of cost to the unit as well as dropping the output significantly,” says Norman Wright, vice president of Elektralite and Group One. Wright designed the LXE700 and has overseen it from its initial conception. “With the 35° you can get a full body shot at about 12 feet. These beam spreads are standard, but they are replaceable. We did one church, the Hillcrest Baptist church in Enterprise, Ala., where they wanted 15° beam spread, because they wanted to throw from about 100 feet.” I think that Wright chose good lenses; each lens size change only affects the output about 4 or 5 %; you don’t want to lose too much output when you zoom out. Also the lensing allows for crisp patterns projection.

The Wash unit features include linear beam angles of 7° to 28°; an electronic zoom with a wide-angle lens; beam effects; a color wheel with seven colors plus open; and a beam shaper. It has a retail price of $4,495.

There are some nice touches to the units. Mechanical dimming is handled with a shutter and is independent of the strobe effect, so you can strobe while dimming the light; the unit allows you to snap to colors, which is a feature that a lot of people use. You can get split colors with the color wheel, which works well combined with certain patterns. Speaking of patterns, both gobo wheels, in addition to being indexable, also have a gobo shake feature. The strobe and shutter effects allow a range of control, including shuttering, variable-speed strobe effects, random strobe effects, and a pulse effect.

The color wheel in the LXE700spot comes with eight colors/color correction filters plus one open position for white light. The colors include Red (Rosco 332 Cherry Rose),Yellow (Rosco 12 Straw), Dark Blue (Rosco 80 Primary Blue), Orange (Rosco 18 Flame), Light Blue (Rosco 78 Trudy Blue), Congo Blue (Rosco 382 Congo), Color Temperature Blue (Rosco 3216 1/8 CT Blue), and Color Temperature Orange (Rosco 1/8 CT Orange). All of the dichroic color filters are replaceable if you have your own preferences. You should note that the Rosco color-swatch references were subjectively assessed and some variation is bound to exist due to such variables as lamp life.

Programmed effects on the light include a channel dedicated with integral macros—up to eight effects programs, save and replay 48 scenes or cues with the fixture’s live memory capability, and select up to eight pre-programmed shows. You can edit and save a program into on-board flash memory either using the on-board controls or via an external controller. It is a limited control surface and there are a lot of levels to program; I recommend control from an external controller, as it would be easier. You can designate one fixture to be the master and slave other units to mirror the master for control as well as having sound-activation for simple control via music.

The on-board controls allow for future growth as well. When he designed the 575W luminaires for Elektralite, Wright wrote code that had the light stay lit if there was a loss of DMX, which could happen with wireless DMX. Initially with the LXE700, Wright changed it to douse the lamp on loss of DMX, which a number of users requested. “I had four designers in the room and I couldn’t get a clear consensus on which way was right and which was wrong,” comments Wright. “So, I put in a menu and wrote the software so that you can choose which way you want the light to react to the loss of DMX. You can also have it time out after a period of time that you specify and the light will turn off.”

For mounting, there is a fixed safety cable, which should always be used. It really is not safe to mount any light without a proper, well-rated safety cable. There are two (supplied) Omega brackets that use the ¼-turn fasteners. You can attach a C-clamp or half-cheseborough to hang these models. The clamps are not included with the fixture. For transporting the lights, the units come with two locks that lock pan and tilt. They are well-marked and should be used when moving the light to prevent any potential damage a loose fixture can cause. Of course, be sure to unlock these prior to powering up the lights.

The units come with both DMX-In and DMX-Out connections and use the correct five-pin connectors that meet the DMX standard. One thing that the units do not include is a DMX termination switch. You need to build (or buy) a five-pin DMX terminator to put into the last unit in the DMX chain. Without proper termination, you can get some problems with control that are caused by reflections of the DMX signal that will corrupt the DMX signal. The Elektralite manual suggests termination only for long runs or in a “noisy environment.” I recommend that you always terminate your DMX line. It is better to be safe than sorry.

The LXE700 has a very low power draw; in fact you can run two units on one 15A circuit. “So many churches want to add moving lights, but they just don’t have the available power,” says Wright. “They don’t want to go through the process, as well as the cost, of putting in a whole new power distribution system.” The LXE700 comes with a two-year warranty.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Wright is looking to keep improving on the LXE700s. “I am currently looking at different lens types for the wash version,” explains Wright. “At a later date, we plan to have different modules that people can swap. For example the color module could be modular and taken out and swapped for a different module. We can have a lot of variations so you could have a unit that could do several different things. Stay tuned.”

If you are in the market for automated lights for your facility, take a look at the Elektralite LXE700 Spot and Wash units. Arrange for a demonstration and try them out for yourselves. The price point and features make for very attractive lights that add a range of options to your lighting toolkit.

Michael S. Eddy writes about design and technology. He can be reached at mseddy2900@hotmail.com.