FloLight LED500 Light Review

Pain is right. I hate all this waiting but luckily I usually have several projects running at once and there will be inevitable delays on each of them for lots of reasons mostly relating to some aspect not being right yet. I am including a picture of what I have now. This is the panel with 480 LEDs (24 x 20) and the companion dimmer/driver circuit board. It measures 8 3/4 x 9 3/4.

PanelCloseup2.jpg


Actually we discovered they used 10,000K LEDs contrary to my directions! My RED camera (which the auto white balance is very accurate at sensing color temperature) shows exactly 10000K color temp with no other lights on but this one. I do like the actual LEDs that they used though which are known as "superflux LEDs". Very good on power usage and heat output. This panel draws 25w at 12v. I see no CRI issues actually but the color temperature is obviously a problem when being used with other lighting. Pictures I took showed no green fringing like I had with my first panel (from last fall which was actually right on 5600K but the CRI was terrible of the LEDs). Dimmer works fine. I think we'd mount this back to back in the fixture case. Need to find a good place to put the dimmer knob so its not protruding in an awkward place though. I think dimmer sticking out of the back is less desirable than dimmer out of one of the sides.

PanelCloseup1.jpg


A final picture showing the panel lit. The LEDs are 30 degree and the beam is fairly round and whiter/blue looking than normal daylight when being shown on the wall next to our 5600K tubes.

PanelCloseup3.jpg


I will probably go ahead and continue to use this kind of LED which is a higher quality kind but just locate the lower 5600K type LEDs.
 
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Hi Richard,

I would reconsider putting mirrors on the inside of the barndoors. It really defeats the purpose of barndoors in that it scatters light when you are trying to control light. I bought one of your metal 4 bank flos and I had to pull the mirrored material off the inside of the doors. The portable 4 bank flo is working great and I like the lighter weight. How's that 575 sport par coming along?

Buck Brinson
 
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I know what you mean but eggcrates control spill far better than barndoors ever can on a softlight. Most fluorescent manufacturers (and Cool Lights too) have opted to not use them as barndoors but rather "intensifiers" which increase the surface area of emanating light. By far and away, most of our customers appreciate the mirrors. Its better to let the relatively small number (two) of customers that don't appreciate it, take the mirrors off.

On the LED, its probably best to have them velcro'd on since its another type of light which is kind of between hard and soft. We had quite a few votes on this thread for having the mirrors too.

On the Sportlight, 575 its on hold while I work on other projects that are a bit ahead of it in priority like our 1200w HMI par, the CDM 250 and perhaps 400 too as well as the LED panel talked about here.
 
Does anyone have any footage using the LED 500's?
I'd like to see how they look compared to say the Cool Lights Fluorescent lights.
I'm in the market for a light kit to use for some corporate industrial interviews and need something that is portable, not prone to damage etc.
 
Hi Matt,

What did you use to measure the color temp?

On our panel, the status is I am redoing the one I had shown earlier as the superflux LEDs are just not suitable for several reasons. I'm going back to 5mm round LEDs and we are auditioning as many as we can. Luckily, Shenzhen, where we live is the LED capital of China so we have lots of choices. I will keep testing until I find the manufacturer that has the ones I really like and want to use. In the meanwhile the PCB is being worked up and is an aluminum PCB to help with heat dissipation. The outer dimensions of the fixture will be 10" x 10". We have the fixture, just have to come up with a good stand adapter now.
 
I know that pestering Richard wont help...

But hurry up! hehe.


Seriously though, looking forward to this. I popped another $60 bulb on my last shoot. I'm *so* ready for unpoppable bulbs.

-a
 
Hi, Im new to this forum but I found it pretty interesting, we purchased 4 chauvet led fixtures, and we have been using those for quite a while, we started a thread on digital juice on this http://www.digitaljuice.com/community_forums/tm.asp?m=90925&mpage=1&key=led&#90925.

So far they have worked pretty well. We have used them for several jobs, one of them was a music video which you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYYQnKOEoIE

Sorry for the quality, but the customers where the ones who uploaded it. For this video we lit the whole wharehouse with 4 led panels and they did the job, the only issue is to properly white balance the camera and they work great. And the best thing about it we run all of our gear (lights, audio, Xh-a1 camera, sound mixer, and monitor) with a tiny 1200 watts power plant, and all of our gear fits in the back of a small pickup truck. We payed arround 1000 for 4 of these panels, they are fully dimmable and work with a dmx controller.
 
yes exactly the white led stobe, you just set the strobe function to off, and all the leds stay on, for dimming we use a dmx controller, but otherwise when we use the fixtures on the standalone mode you can use gels or paper to difuse the light and it works pretty well.

Regards
 
Just tested the LED 500. It is clocking in @ 4300k.

Hardly 5600k as advertised.

Unfortunately they're not out putting what they say they should. I purchased these bulbs because they are advertised as being 5600k to match outdoor settings. I first saw the lights at NAB and was going back and fourth making my decision with other LED lights. Finally I decided to buy the 2-500w LEDs. I'm using gels to correct the temperature.
 
Wise choice on sticking with Cool Lights ;-)

We have one prototype almost done and another on the way. 600 LEDs in 24 columns of 25 rows mounted on an advanced aluminum substrate PCB for better heat control. The fixture will be about 10" x 10" based on our PCB size.

We'll see which one we like best and that will be the product we offer--hopefully in September is my current target.
 
Just tested the LED 500. It is clocking in @ 4300k.

Hardly 5600k as advertised.
This is Mark Ditmanson President of Prompter People/Flolight. I wanted to briefly respond to the 4300K issue Matt brought up on our LED 500.

We spot test the LED 500's for accurate 5600K color temperature and allow a +/- 5% reading. It is possible that Matt received a light with a lower temperature that did not receive the spot test. Matt emailed us a month or so ago with the issue and we offered to replace the his LED 500 with a new color tested light. As of today we have not heard back from Matt. Matt, if you see this posting the offer is still open.

I wanted to assure the forum members that we take all quality issues including color temperature seriously. I hope this helps clear things up.

Best Regards,
Mark Ditmanson
Prompter People/Flolight
 
We have one prototype almost done and another on the way. 600 LEDs in 24 columns of 25 rows mounted on an advanced aluminum substrate PCB for better heat control. The fixture will be about 10" x 10" based on our PCB size.

How much watt in thungsten is that?
 
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