Best Low Cost Diva Ripoff? or alternative?

Richard, I'm sure it's in here somewhere, but please share the price of these units again, shipping price to USA and availalbility....production timeframe.
In other words, if I order these new "plastic" units, what is my expected wait time till delivery, and cost for a 4 ft 2 bulb and 4' ft 4 bulb unit.
Thanks, Jon in Iowa
Also, you mentioned the 1200 watt HMI, what is the cost of this unit? Does it have more output than a 400 watt , HMI Joker bug unit ???
 
RIchard - Nice work - I think you're really filling a niche here (at least for me you are).
This seems to be exactly the kind of fixture I've been looking for, at a price that makes sense for me.

keep us posted - please.
:thumbsup:
 
Luis Caffesse said:
RIchard - Nice work - I think you're really filling a niche here (at least for me you are).
This seems to be exactly the kind of fixture I've been looking for, at a price that makes sense for me.

keep us posted - please.
:thumbsup:
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Thanks for the kind words Luis. It really is incredible no one filled this niche and it seemed obvious to me too. I would have done it last year but we're only a two person company so we move at the speed we can.
 
filmat11 said:
Richard, I'm sure it's in here somewhere, but please share the price of these units again, shipping price to USA and availalbility....production timeframe.
In other words, if I order these new "plastic" units, what is my expected wait time till delivery, and cost for a 4 ft 2 bulb and 4' ft 4 bulb unit.
Thanks, Jon in Iowa
Also, you mentioned the 1200 watt HMI, what is the cost of this unit? Does it have more output than a 400 watt , HMI Joker bug unit ???
Click to expand...

Jon,

They're actually about 24" units not 4' because they use 55w tubes and those are just under 22" long. That was probably a typo. I still don't have price on the 2 bulb unit but,

4 bulb non-dimming $425 + $200 shipping
4 bulb dimming $599 + $200 shipping

Includes lolipop, stand adapter and 4 bulbs each unit in your choice of color temp. Eggcrate would be $29 extra for 4 bulb unit. The final eggcrate will be like the one pictured but black. We can get these units built within about 15 days and shipping is 4 days to the USA.

*** At some point, we should probably talk about what is a good case for these units. I saw the 2 unit kino kit uses a hard case with rollers it seems. Can fit both units, 2 light stands and 2 packs of bulbs apparently. Is that pretty much what everyone wants? Or would it better to have two cases--one for each unit? Soft sided or hard sided? Let's just do this right and see what people really think about this. For my part, I'd like to see one case per unit as many people will only order 1 unit but they still need a case. ***

On the 1200w HMI fresnel, the output is 110,000 lumens. One thing about that joker 400 is it uses a "short arc" bulb which is really efficient. But not quite this much output though: probably around 50,000 lumens. It costs $1600 + $250 shipping to anywhere in the USA by UPS International. Apparently they simplify their quoting from China and don't even need a zip code to do the quote so it makes it easier for us too. We just give them dimensions and weight and they shoot back a quote and its actually not too bad when you consider the distance.

The 1200w includes 10" fresnel, scrim, stand adapter, electronic cold start ballast (non hot restrike) in a relatively small package of about 4 pounds, 30 foot cable and 1 cold start HMI 1200w G22 bulb (6000K CRI 90). Extra bulbs $100 each.

Here's a picture of the first unit I just sent out. Its a bigger brother of the 8" model I got a while back when I first was experimenting with a 575w bulb and before I found the models that are to become the Cool Lights Blacklines as previously noted in other threads:

1200wUnit.jpg


And the ballast is high enough output that its flicker free at all the shutter speeds I tried on my VX2000:

1200wBallast.jpg


So a good question is: why didn't I use the Blackline 2000w model for this unit? Well I could have. But the DVXuser that wanted this felt, as I did, that the 7" lens on that unit wouldn't do the 1200w bulb as much justice as the 10" lens on this unit. He was going to be doing a lot of nighttime shooting on a horror movie I believe. I can offer this unit in the Blackline 2000w package but personally I think its not as good an option and would cost about $150 more since that unit is more expensive. This is a better value and its why I'll use this as the normal 1200w HMI fresnel model which will only be special order for a while until we get some more capital.
 
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The flo fixture looks very nice... if I may offer a humble suggestion I would consider making the barndoors fold over one another. Yes, this would be less elegant, but barndoors on flos are never BIG ENOUGH... even on a Diva (where the doors fold over... they are still not big enough... even with the eggcrate installed.
 
MattinSTL said:
The flo fixture looks very nice... if I may offer a humble suggestion I would consider making the barndoors fold over one another. Yes, this would be less elegant, but barndoors on flos are never BIG ENOUGH... even on a Diva (where the doors fold over... they are still not big enough... even with the eggcrate installed.
Click to expand...

VERY good idea Matt.
I'll second that.
Barnodoors on flos are definitely never big enough.
 
MattinSTL said:
The flo fixture looks very nice... if I may offer a humble suggestion I would consider making the barndoors fold over one another. Yes, this would be less elegant, but barndoors on flos are never BIG ENOUGH... even on a Diva (where the doors fold over... they are still not big enough... even with the eggcrate installed.
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That's funny. The last revision did overlap a bit and I told them to change it because I thought people wouldn't like it... I think what you're saying though is that they should be so long that they completely fold over one on top of the other.
 
Richard - I can't speak for everyone, but I can tell you that I'm much more interested in functionality than I am in appearance.

I for one would definitely like to see the barndoors grow a bit.
 
wow. Glad you are putting these out along with your great info on how to get around the sharks who make overpriced lighting packages. I'm especially interested in your HMI. Have you tested it with a slow motion camera to see if the framerates are flicker free as well? Would be interested to know if they were as with film cameras there are sometimes ballasts that only allow certain framerates to be used to avoid the flicker.


Looks like an unbelievable product and I wish you the utmost success.
 
Good question. We should have that "field" tested very soon as our first user will be doing just that--slo mo work at night time.

One thing about this. This unit is based on one of the very, very few, low cost, 1200w electronic ballasts in the world. You have no idea how hard this was to find and there were others I evaluated too that just didn't make the cut.

It's rather simple and to tell the truth, I prefer that, as it keeps it more reliable too. I'm sure as it matures though, we'll get more models and features like output frequency changes.
 
Your PM'd suggestion about black end caps is great too. Like I said, I can't believe I didn't see that myself.

Not sure how to do side flags with a design like this though. If we used a traditional barndoor setup it would have been easier with a thin metal rod bent into a square to frame the front of the unit and then the barndoors are tied to that with little metal straps which become the hinges--the classic, most often used barndoor method and like our studio models use too. It works so well but it's a very heavy, all metal method though:

CloseSideBarnDoorsFirstCm.jpg


I'm open to other suggestions about that but hope too that it would not look kludgey.
 
Cool Lights said:
That's funny. The last revision did overlap a bit and I told them to change it because I thought people wouldn't like it... I think what you're saying though is that they should be so long that they completely fold over one on top of the other.
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I understand the desire to keep the appearance as clean as possible, but I think most end users would like to have the largest possible barn doors. The ideal compromise IMO would be to accept a fold-over design where the bottom door is always committed to be the bottom/inner door in the closed configuration also... this way the user knows to close it the same way each time... and then all you need is a slightly higher top door (by like a half inch) so that the entire fixture can still close 100% completely and look tidy, but when open the two doors will give spill control that is the full width (or depth depending on how you look at it) of the fixture.

So when you look at the closed fixture from the side one of the doors will be slightly higher then the other, just enough (again, about 1/2") to allow the other door to neatly fold underneath.

Yes, even with Divas... which fold over... the doors are never big enough. With tidy doors that meet in the middle they will offer very little spill control at all. The other thing that's nice about a full overlap is that you have structural protection of the tubes from the face of the fixture... meaning if the doors meet at center then it wouldn't take a whole lot to push one of the doors in and break a tube... whereas if they both cover the entire face you have a double-wall (when closed) that has the tubes as protected from the front (during transport) as they are from the back.

EDIT: But let me add that yes, your light is very beautiful and I'd buy it as is. So you can take my suggestions with a grain of salt. I have a ton of flags and other spill control in my light kit, so it's not as big of a deal to me as it would be to others anyway... I'm just sayin'... *burp*
 
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This is what's so great about these kinds of forums. You can get user ideas and votes on issues very quickly. You just have to be open to the feedback. I get the idea and I think its doable. Just make the barndoors wider and the gooseneck and the silicone gasket a bit longer / wider on one side and you've got it.

I also think that normally I wouldn't carry the tubes in the fixture as they're so delicate but I noticed that the tubes seemed to be pretty cushioned against shock in this fixture for some reason--perhaps the plastic does it. I'm not sure. Anyway you're right and I'll try to get a model like that with the bigger barndoors.
 
Whoa...I thought for sure I had read that your 1200w fresnel HMI with non-HR was going to be $899 and then the Par option with HR was up close to $2k.

Also what's up with a 6000k bulb? Why can't you get the standard 5600/5500k bulbs?
 
Barndoors:
Mattin is spot on, especialy for ENG work, where there isn´t time for complicated setups, the "build in" lightcontrol of the large barndoors will be welcomed...

Maybe you could even add some magnetic stripe or sth like that, so when you fold the doors closed they "snap" to eachother, depending on how perfectly doors and case allign, this could be the transport case you where looking for...?
 
shawneous said:
Whoa...I thought for sure I had read that your 1200w fresnel HMI with non-HR was going to be $899 and then the Par option with HR was up close to $2k.

Also what's up with a 6000k bulb? Why can't you get the standard 5600/5500k bulbs?
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I think I really need to get some product pages on my website because there's so much stuff it can get really confusing.

I sent you a PM on 6/27 or so answering your question about the 1200w fresnel and 1200w par. That original 1200w par $899 idea was back when I still had hope for magnetic ballasts to keep the cost down. I was shooting for an economy $899 1200w par but that's not going to happen now since we can't use the magnetic. We also never found an inexpensive fixture that I liked for the economy 1200w par. We did make the target of $699 for a 575w HMI fresnel and 575w economy par though. Also where else will you find a 150w hqi / hci metal halide fresnel for $399? That's a serious instrument for portable narrative work.

I just didn't like the magnetic ballast's weight (45 lbs) or flicker problems so we rejected them. We're going with an electronic ballast on everything for stability sake and portability which raises the cost. On the under $2K par you're thinking about the 575w sportlight which will be $1699 but the 1200w arrisun clone par has always been around $2600 as those models are just more expensive to me. They're still far less expensive than anything out there I can see for serious light output and work. And all these HMI models I'm offering include everything you need. No hidden costs or other accessories to buy.

On the bulbs: 6000K is actually the standard for HMI. Look up the HMI bulbs from Osram, you'll see they're all 6000K. Same with Phillips and GE which mimic the HMI standard. So our clone bulbs just follow that standard. You can see here on their website:

http://www.osram.com/_global/pdf/osram_com/products/display_optic/5_TI-Bl%25E4tter/HMI/hmi575WSEe.pdf

This is a big misunderstanding that all HMI is 5600K. Just not true.

It's only companies like Ushio and Eiko that offer 5600K versions and they aren't mainstream bulbs. I don't have an agreement with them so can't sell those. We can probably get 5600K at some point in the future though when the quantities are larger we order from the manufacturer I'm using.
 
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Spartacus said:
Maybe you are refering to the last fixture in this post:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=997439&postcount=104
I´m sure Richard will come up with a new product overview soon :thumbsup:
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Yes, exactly. That's what I'm sure he was thinking of. Like I said, I'll try to get product pages up on the site so we have a stable repository of information. I was going to post them and have all these options and special discounts and then I started looking at the complexity of the software implementation and there simply isn't time or budget right now so we'll have to simplify how I was going to do all that "pre-offer" stuff.
 
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