Best Low Cost Diva Ripoff? or alternative?

Richard, what are the dimensions of your CL-455PMD(including weight) and what would be the price of this unit? $hipping to usa...? Thanks for the updated photos.. Good things come to those who wait.
 
A few random stats about the fixtures

Dimensions:

CL-255P or PMD 2 x 55 = 24" x 5.5" x 3.75" weight about 4.75 lbs.
CL-455P or PMD 4 x 55 = 24" x 11" x 3.75" weight about 6.25 lbs.

Current prices with tubes:

CL-255P and PMD (don't know yet)
CL-455P and PMD $425 and $599 respectively

Line voltage 110v/220v 50/60 hz.

Completely silent and flicker free.

Both dimming and non-dimming version have bank select on/off switch by two tubes at a time in addition to a dimming pot on the PMD version. The dimming version uses ballasts that claim dimming down to 2% and it does go very low but the tubes don't seem stable to me and occasionally flicker at that lowest setting so you'll probably back off to 5 to 10% most of the time from there to be sure. After backing off just a hair from lowest--no flicker.

Plastic used: Corrugated Polycarbonate (black color) -- listed as 80 times as strong as glass. Can be dented with a hammer but hammer bounces off.

Aluminum edge protection extrusions for maximum protection.

PVC gasket extrusion along barndoors to act as a holder for eggcrates or any other future filter accessories.

One of these units fell on the floor the other day with tubes inserted and still worked after the fall. Something about the plastic has a tremendous amount of give and cushions shocks; although I don't recommend trying this on purpose at home. Leave these kind of tests to the pros!
 
Cool Lights said:
One of these units fell on the floor the other day with tubes inserted and still worked after the fall. Something about the plastic has a tremendous amount of give and cushions shocks; although I don't recommend trying this on purpose at home. Leave these kind of tests to the pros!
Click to expand...

That's good to hear.
Lord knows I've conducted similar 'spontaneous testing' on my sets from time to time.
:thumbsup:
 
The big fixtures also look great, but like you I´d keep the ballast seperated...
Would be interesting to compare light outputs of the 6x T12 fixture and the 12x L shape fixture though...
And your 6x L shape might be the best compromise between "portability" (well, they are all portable...), output and lightsource size...
 
Thats a good question. I did a comparison between 75w tubes and 55w tubes a while back but I'll repeat it here. I can already tell you that the 12 bulb fixture will win hands down for shear light output because its using a more efficient tube and it has more of those tubes than the other one.

A 75w Kino tube puts out about 3300 lumens. the 40w version which is far more common and can be gotten in many other places besides kino flo puts out about 1600 lumens or about half the other which is logical. A 55w tube puts out about the same 3200 lumens mean. Next, we figure lumens per watt just to show how much we're drawing for what we get. On the 55w tube, it draws 55w and puts out 3200 lumens so thats 58 lumens per watt (LPW). The 75w tube draws 75w and puts out 3300 lumens so thats 44 LPW. So lets now compare the 6 bulb fixture using the best case 75w tubes and the 12 bulb 55w fixture. Given the amount of bulbs, each draws:

12x55=660w
6x75=450w

And also given the amount of bulbs and lumen output per bulb, each fixture puts out:

12x55=38400 lumens
6x75=19800 lumens

So for the same exact size fixture, you get more light output from the 55w tubes. I know many like the 75w tubes better for various reasons but going purely on efficiency, size and weight of fixture vs. light output, ability to dim (you can't dim the other tubes), availability of the tubes from many manufacturers (55w tubes made by so many/75w only by Kino) and the 55w tube fixture is just more versatile and a better value.
 
Okay finalized prices for the plastic units so here goes:

CL-255P $275
CL-255PMD $369
CL-455P $425
CL-455PMD $585
CL-655P $588
CL-655PMD $799

Of course they all include bulbs in your choice of 3200K or 5600K as do our studio models.

CL-MPSA $29 (stainless steel lollipop to baby/junior stand adapter)
CL-EGG2 $19 (2x55 eggcrate)
CL-EGG4 $29 (4x55 eggcrate)
CL-EGG6 $39 (6x55 eggcrate)
CL-LS2 $69 (portable stand good for plastic units)

Prices still to come on carrying cases but I'm thinking a carrying case for the 4x55 will be in the $125 range. A carrying case for 1 2x55 and 1 4x55 or 1 6x55 would be about $175. A carrying case similar to the Kata 4 (I love those) for some combination of fresnels and 1 or 2 2x55's and 3 stands would be $225.

Early DVXUser adopters of our plastic models that also get carrying cases will get free foam-padded bulb carrying cases as an extra gift.

Also as promised before, those DVXUsers that buy these or other Cool Lights fluorescent or HMI products (or have bought Cool Lights Studio Flo's in the past) will also be able to get the tungsten fresnels for 20% off normal web site price. Now I just need to figure out how to do it with our web software--not easy apparently. Especially the part about looking into the past of what someone has ordered to see if they get a discount or not. I hate limitations like that but that's software. We may have to take some orders manually where you want to order the fresnels and expect the discount. We'll take the orders manually anyway for people in other parts of the world as all your shipping has to be calculated separately anyway.
 
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IM ready to buy an interview kit with cases and stands from you Richard- I am in NY when will you have them ready ? IM interested in 2 x 55
 
We're getting close enough now that I have actually started taking pre-orders for those in the USA that want to be sure to get one and from many around the world too. Just email me at info@coollights.biz. Just haven't had time to organize all this into some product pages yet and even if I did, my site software doesn't currently have the flexibility to offer some of the things in the way I want to offer them and with all the different options. So I'm doing it the old-fashioned way right now.
 
These new products seem to be very good and resonable prices, but there is no shipping costs quoted that I could see.

Are these being shipped individualy from China and what is the average cost?

Thanks.

(Edit) OK. I see that shipping is on a case by case basis, but it sounds like shipping could be very costly. Are you no longer stocking in the States and shipping from here?
 
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Hi Kelly,

Shipping from China will only be for those in the rest of the world. Since the USA is my home market, we keep a warehouse there and we ship most of the products when they're done to this warehouse. Thus, shipping to you, in CA for instance is just ground shipping from TX to CA. If I shipped direct from China to you in the USA it would be average $250 per package. Shipping ground in USA is average $20 per package. Quite a difference! For other parts of the world though, even with the higher shipping we're still a bargain compared to what they have to deal with locally in most cases.
 
"Shipping from China will only be for those in the rest of the world. Since the USA is my home market, we keep a warehouse there and we ship most of the products when they're done to this warehouse. Thus, shipping to you, in CA for instance is just ground shipping from TX to CA."

Richard, thanks for lightning fast reply. Good to hear that shipping is from Texas at a reasonable cost.

As you know, I've been following your progress since the first day you posted and it seems that you have lived up to your promises. I really hope these do well for you.

I'm getting really tempted.
 
Kelly Olsen said:
"Shipping from China will only be for those in the rest of the world. Since the USA is my home market, we keep a warehouse there and we ship most of the products when they're done to this warehouse. Thus, shipping to you, in CA for instance is just ground shipping from TX to CA."

Richard, thanks for lightning fast reply. Good to hear that shipping is from Texas at a reasonable cost.

As you know, I've been following your progress since the first day you posted and it seems that you have lived up to your promises. I really hope these do well for you.

I'm getting really tempted.
Click to expand...

Hehe, I remember, your email was about one of the first into my info inbox when I opened the site. It's been a long road to get to this point and we're still not done and won't be for a long time because we've got lots of other stuff to find here. Miles to go before we can sleep...
 
Just a quick question while I consider whether to get the 4 lamp unit, or the 2 lamp unit. How many "watts tungsten" will the 2 lamp model produce? I want to use it for keylight in interviews, but need to make sure that it's producing enough light (normally use 750-1k for key light.) I had originally thought about buying a chimera for my 1k, but for same price I can get one of your lights and expand my light kit!

Let me know...

Thanks,

Matthew
 
Hi Mathew,

Both our studio and portable models use the same ballasts and bulbs so you can expect they behave about the same way in light output:

255/P/PMD 110w is equivalent of 440w tungsten
455/P/PMD 220w is equivalent of 880w tungsten
655/P/PMD 330w is equivalent of 1300w tungsten

I would say the 455P falls in your range of normally used for interviews. Hope this helps.
 
Richard -

Are you still on track for a Noember USA delivery of the new plastic models- I have my credit card ready.
 
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