Rostronics-Britek Nobody Here Can Agree-Why?

Kelly Olsen said:
Kevin,

Is the dud one of the G-300's that are curently listed on the Rostronics website? How long have you had this model?
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Kelly,

Yes, here is a link the one that was a dud for me http://www.rostronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=G%2D250%2F300W

I don't remember exactly when I got it. I think it was last Fall. In all fairness, I just got busy and forgot to return it or get a refund in time, so its my faut about not getting a replacement.

-kevin
 
emergent pictures said:
Kelly,

Yes, here is a link the one that was a dud for me http://www.rostronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=G%2D250%2F300W

I don't remember exactly when I got it. I think it was last Fall. In all fairness, I just got busy and forgot to return it or get a refund in time, so its my faut about not getting a replacement.

-kevin
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If you got it last fall, it's still under warranty. You'll probably have to send it to Britek's warranty center (not to Tom), so expect a very long wait to get it back based on what others have said. However, if you're not using it anyway, why not send it in?
 
Ok so my whole order finally arrived by the end of the day. I was harrassing tom for tracking numbers, turns out UPS just didn't see them in the back of the truck. Everything came, so here are my comments.

I purchased the 1300w kit, which came with two 650's (Non focuable) and a 300w light.

I also purchased another 650 (focusable) a 1k and a 2k.

Also purchased a boompole, extra softbox, and all heavy duty stands.

The stands are all decent, nothing great, hardly heavy duty, but they'll certainly do the job. I knew from previous reviews what I was getting into here, so I'm satisfied. I've got a couple c stands lying around we'll be using as well. The one complain I have is with the boom stand, which is pretty sturdy. Unfortunately it comes on these cheap little wheels, similar to what you would find on a cheap office chair. For 125 bucks I would have been better off buying another c stand with a boom arm. We took the wheels off right away, and put rubber stoppers on the legs instead.

Now the lights. The 650's all kick off a good amount of light. Combined with the 4 tota's we have, we definetely have enough light for our needs. The 300 is also nice because it comes with a short 4' stand, which is nice because it means we can get that light lower than all the others. Overall, the construction is pretty solid. Not the heaviest lights in the world, and the focus control is a bit flimsy, but again, you get what you pay for. I think the lights are definetely a good option, depending on what you're filming.

The big boys, the 1k and the 2k are pretty sweet. The 2k which is sort of like britek's version of an HMI is big and really blasts the room. Good for simulating sunlight, etc. I think the 2k is the best deal of the bunch, at the low price to have a light that powerfull. The 1k is pretty sturdy too, although there's a bit of an issue with the barndoors on mine, just have to tighten it up.

I'm pretty happy with them for the price. I'll let you guys know how the kit holds up. Overall for a low cost solution, Britek gets good marks in my book. They're definetely a good buy, especially the 2k.

-Steve
 
I've had nothing but trouble with my Rostronics / Britek fixtures since I bought them in the spring.

I bought the 200 and 300/600 dual globe fixtures. All of them have blown globes under the most common conditions and the fuse on the 200 (as supplied out of the box) went down within an hour of first strike.

The candy-shell thin plastic casing on the 300/600 effectively shattered from the heat during a sit-down interview.

These lights are always transported in the Britek manufactured duffle case.

I'm back to using the durable and reliable Arri and Altman fixtures now. Even the worst light by Lowel is markedly better than these sorry Britek lights.

Rostronics / Britek support has been completely lacking. My problem has been Rostronics communicating to / with Britek my information to facilitate repair or replacement.

In all honesty, I view the fixtures as such a liability that I'd prefer to leave them on the shelf - broken - than gamble shooting with them.

e
 
overlandfilms said:
I've had nothing but trouble with my Rostronics / Britek fixtures since I bought them in the spring.

I bought the 200 and 300/600 dual globe fixtures. All of them have blown globes under the most common conditions and the fuse on the 200 (as supplied out of the box) went down within an hour of first strike.

The candy-shell thin plastic casing on the 300/600 effectively shattered from the heat during a sit-down interview.

In all honesty, I view the fixtures as such a liability that I'd prefer to leave them on the shelf - broken - than gamble shooting with them.
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This pretty much has done it for me. I do read that some love them here but the above experience makes it clear that it is just hit and miss with these lights more so than any other lights so I can't afford to risk having a light blow out or worse hurting somebody.

Seems like a big gamble and the pay off is not worth the savings. I'll look at spending more money to get something more reliable. Guess Lowel or NRG may be the answer but I won't be getting the Rostronics/Britek lights.

Looks like there is no equal to the Oktava in the lighting world as there is in the mike world.
 
I sent an e-mail to Tom suggesting that he take a look at this thread and see if he could supply some answers and he kindly sent me the following and did so within 2 minutes.

"The problems some were having with the lights is due to a batch of bad
bulbs. The problems have been resolved and we haven't had any problems
lately. Replacement bulbs should be purchased through places like
www.bulbtronics.com or other. Sometimes Britek ships the lights with lower
quality bulbs (although they told me this has changed) that had a short life
span. It seems that when they went through a management change a while back,
they tries to save a few bucks by using cheap bulbs... it is back to normal
now though." Tom

I commend Tom for his reply but I'm still concerned about the other issues because it sounds like there are more than just the bulbs being a problem.
 
Hey guys,

Last night we had our first shoot with all of our new equipment for our feature film. Our movie is a sci-fi musical, set in the 1950's. Our kit right now includes 2 650's w/o focus, 1 650 w/focus, 300 w/focus, 1K, 2k, 4 lowel totas, and a pro light. Last night we filmed a scene with a couple in a convertible, sort of a makeout point type scene.

We used three 650's with blue gels, one had a softbox as well. We suspended one about 10 feet in the air on the boom stand that came from britek directly behind the car for simulated moonlight. The gelled softbox was used from the rear drivers side for some soft blue fill over the car. The other 650 was used to fill in a bit of the passenger side of the car, but also to keep the exposure on the car. We were shooting in a driveway infront of a garage and did not want the background to expose, so there would be pitch black behind them.

We also put a tota, diffused and with yellow gel on the floor of the car. This was to simulate the dashboard light, and worked well to give us a nice unobtrusive light on their faces.

The scenes went well and we wrapped by three. The briteks certainly performed. We had them on for over an hour straight and one point. We only striked between setups. They turned off and on, no blown bulbs. They do start to smell like sulfur after they've been on for a while though. Hopefully that's not fillament burning up. The metal casings were suprisingly cool even after they were running for a while. You could easily touch it with a bare hand.

My one complaint has to be the spill with the barndoors. It's been discussed here many times before, but it trully is an issue. Luckily, the simple solution is to just put black wrap around it. We had no trouble working around it.

Overall I'm happy with the briteks so far. Depending on what are needs are for the later scenes, I would even consider buying a couple more. Tom has been very helpfull in all our correspondences so far, and the lights did come as described. I'll keep updating on how they work out in the rest of this thread, I might post some stills or quick clips also if there's interest.

-Steve
 
fleaguit said:
. I'll keep updating on how they work out in the rest of this thread, I might post some stills or quick clips also if there's interest.

-Steve
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I'd be interested in seeing them.
 
Second day of the shoot today. It was hell getting everything together, our locations fell through at the last minute and by some miracle I came up with a replacement this morning. The Briteks are holding up OK. The one 650 we were using today started smoking on us, but it seemed to be fine. We ran it for hours and it was letting off a little smoke from the barn doors, but it never caught fire or anything. Might have just been dust getting burned off.

We also used the 1k as an HMI to simulate a sun glare coming through the door to a laboratory, it worked flawlessly. The big lights don't seem to have as bad a spill as the 650's do from the barndoors.

And of course, as promised here's a shot from our saturday night shoot.

http://www.fleanation.com/spudsandlain.jpg
 
fleaguit said:
The one 650 we were using today started smoking on us, but it seemed to be fine.
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My spleen was hanging out but I just shoved it back in and it seemed to be fine.

You seem to take things pretty calmly. Are lights supposed to smoke?
 
Often what happens with lights smoking, is that there's some dust in the air, and as it hits the light, it burns up. Could be a lot of things. Today the light didn't burn at all, it must have been some chalk erasers we had clapped out to attempt a dusty effect in the room. Didn't work well, wound up using a fog machine today.

Anyway, the britecs are holding up well so far, Three days and no bulbs burning up, no stands breaking, and no fires (yet!) so here's hoping our luck continues.

I'll keep posting updates and maybe some more stills.
 
New lights always smoke or smell bad. It's the paint burning. Once the paint gets used to the high temperature, the light settles.
 
Kelly Olsen said:
Here is more fuel for this fire. There is another thread here currently going about problems with the 1000 watter:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=34349

I'm looking for used Lowels. Not going to get any Briteks.
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Don't blame you. I like the two britek units I've got, but I just don't trust their quality control. I'm not sure I'd feel good about taking another chance on them myself. Too bad, because I think Tom at Rostronics is a good guy; he's not the problem - it's the manufacturer.
 
Yep, that smoke is common in all studio fixtures. A little paint and dust baking off that's all. Still, you should always keep any quartz or HMI fixtures away from flammable surfaces (e.g. draperies, paper goods, chemicals) as they run very hot.

e
 
Well, today finally did it. The cheap-o stands that come with the briteks (bought the heavy duty ones too) finally stripped and broke two of them. And to add insult to injury, my 2k just stopped working. Changed the bulb, checked the fuse, tried another outlet. Nothing, just won't go on. Now I have to look into this tommorow, going to open her up, I can probably fix whatever it is (most likely a solder joint) and have her better than new within a few hours.

Overall I'm happy with what we got for the money, but there are definetely some issues.
 
After reading the reports here, I was concerned about using the Briteks yesterday for a casting audition. They stayed on from 10am until 8pm when we got done. No smoke, no blown fuses, no problems. I used the G-300 and the 600w dual - both with softboxes. Pretty ironic that I had problems with the normally trusty 2 cameras and a laptop.
 
Bad stands

Bad stands

Wow. I don't know much about Briteks but I do know that a bad stand can cost you an arm an a leg, your reputation, your ability to work in the town the failure occured in ..... Well maybe my experience wasn't all that bad but it did start a fire in a foam seat cushion that we could not put out. We litterally had to put the cushion in a bucket of water and let it sit for several days before the foam quit smoldering inside.. (for the record it was not a Britek stand... way before those were around).

I have a point. Good lights, bad lights, Arri, Britek, LTM or whatever. Use what works. Chances are your client won't notice the odd Home Depot work light in the mix if the results are better than expected.

But they will darn sure notice if a stand falls and something or someone gets hurt.

By the way, the work lights are pretty good if you cut the grill off and modify the reflector. Take it out and go over it lightly with the ball side of a ball pein hammer until you have an evenly curved and evenly dimpled reflector. Ive checked mine with a WFM and they are pretty close to perfecly even until you hit that last 10% of the edge. Take the money you save and buy some good stands and some black wrap.

Just my two cents worth.
 
Well, after praising the briteks for their price, I gotta admit I was wrong. As of yesterday, every light in my kit was down with the exception of the 1k. If it wasn't for the lowell tota's we have (4 of them) we would not have been able to continue shooting. In every light, the fuse and bulb seemed to blow at the same time. Which seems to prove the pointlessness of the fuse.

My 2k I still cannot find a fuse for. I've been everywhere, and a 10 amp, 250v small fuse is impossible to find. I shoved a piece of copper wire in there, and the lamp turns on, but my DP is afraid to use it without the fuse. I don't see what the big deal is,worst case i figure is another bulb blows because the fuse isn't there to protect. But perhaps I'm wrong on this one, anyone want to chime in on whether this is a good idea or not?
 
I agree that you're probably only risking another blown bulb.- and I agree with you that the whole fuse idea is a waste.

I definitely won't be buying any more briteks - ever. Sounds like you've been through hell with them. Too bad. Sorry to hear about all the trouble you're having.
 
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