Coollights LED

It depends upon how small and light you want. We have the LED 256 coming at the end of this month which is about half the physical size of the LED 600. At 1 lb. 15 ounces though I wouldn't classify it as a hot shoe type on camera light but more as a compliment to an all LED kit as the hair / back / rim light.

As far as ring lights, we have a round LED pcb we're playing with but the fixture and mounting is taking a while to figure out. Something light and attractive but no too expensive so its economical like all other Cool Lights products. It will be in the range of 390 LEDs.

The size of larger LED products is 1200 and perhaps bigger as the next models to come.
 
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Yes they're getting there. You can see though that CRI still isn't a priority for LED makers when you look close at the specs. The real reason for this is once they turn up the CRI, the lumens are going to go down. Not a message that designers want to here. So they'll need to make serious advances in output before they'll consider better CRI for daylight LEDs in my opinion.
 
This thread has dried up a bit. Any news on the availability of the 600?

Also, I'm tossed between spot and flood lights. I would certainly have a use for both. Would it be beneficial to buy the spot only, and when a flood situation comes up throw it in a soft box?
 
The supply is down again for the moment. Not even in stock a month and already all gone. Its hard to keep up with the demand these days.

If I had to choose between spot and flood I would pick the spot and softbox. Flood is too weak to use in softbox in my opinion.
 
Thanks for your interest.

Around end of June / beginning of July for the USA. They are in stock in China now along with quite a few more things we've been working on too and have been shipping for about 4 weeks now to customers in various countries.

Once we're done with all the production of the different items we're working on, we'll send to our US warehouse, hopefully soon.
 
Because we've been so busy with increasing sales and expanding, it kind of delayed the newer developments a bit but they are still making progress. The LED 1200 isn't far from production now. LED 2400 needs some more work since I'm changing how it will work. More on that in a moment.

The main developments lately have been in what we're doing about battery adaptation for those larger fixtures. When you have something like the LED 600, its in a size and power usage category that you can have it all in one package and not worry so much about heat. What that means is all the battery adaptation/regulation and the dimmer is inside the LED 600 and that's okay for that one.

When you get into the 1200 and 2400, its a real issue and you should think about spreading things around to keep the heat (and weight) spread around as well. On the 1200 and 2400 we'll have two power 'accessories': one included and one optional. You can call one an AC adapter and the other a DC adapter. The LED 1200 and 2400 will come with AC adapters so the person that needs no battery use at all won't pay for the very expensive battery adaptation necessary in this wattage range (90w and 180w respectively).

The other power accessory will be an optional DC Interface with a regulator inside to handle a wide range of DC input, as well as places for two optional V mount or AB mount type batteries and has 4 pin XLR standard input. This box will have our signature carabiner on it so you can hang it on the light stand. Thus, with this unit you will be able to adapt an external large lead acid battery or any DC voltage source in the range of 10V to 24V through the 4 pin XLR to what the LED 1200/2400 need. Alternatively, with the same box, you'll also be able to mount up to 2 AB or V batteries directly onto the unit as well if you prefer that type of battery. These two accessories, one that comes with the fixtures (AC adapter) and the other optional (DC adapter), with their considerable heat output, are thus external and thus the fixture itself stays relatively cool. This also lets us keep the fixtures as thin and simple as possible which contributes to light weight and portability. No pricing yet on the DC adapter and I'm still not going to announce pricing on the LED 1200 yet.

LED 1200 and 2400 will come with a nice carrying case which will carry all the accessories.

LED 2400 form factor. Because the LED 2400 would be on such a large PCB if we carry through with the paradigm of the LED 600 and 1200, its practically impossible to find automated soldering and stuffing equipment that will work with it. Thus it would be all hand stuffed and soldered which is too much considering there are well over 5000 solder points on such a PCB. So I think this kind of pushes us in a direction for that model which may be more interesting anyway. Something that folds in half is what I'm thinking. So it would use two LED 1200 PCBs and just fold out into a larger, fairly thin fixture. About the size of an LED 1200 when folded in half. That's about all I can say on that one at this time. Hopefully more soon as we get finished with production on LED 1200 and then we'll have pricing and delivery dates for it.
 
I'm gearing up to shoot a documentary on my own time, and I'm considering buying LED600 units for use in interviews (I'll be shooting with a Panasonic HMC-150 + SGBlade adapter + either a 50 f/1.4, 85 f/1.4, or 135 f/2.0 prime).

I've heard it recommended that the spot panels + softboxes are the way to go for the extra brightness, but I have no experience using LED lighting, and I've heard that even the flood units are quite bright...

I'm looking at getting:
-2x LED 600 spot fixtures (plus softboxes) as a keyand fill light
-1x LED 256 as a hair/rim light
-possibly 2x additional LED 600 fixtures (1 spot, 1 flood) for background accent lights/ambient fill
(I will almost definitely go with 5600k fixtures b/c of the ambient sunlight in many of my potential shooting locations)

Would anyone here using a similar setup care to share their experiences? I'm reluctant to spend $1400-2200 on gear that I've never used before, but I hear great things about CoolLights, and you can't beat their prices.

Now that the LED600 units have been out there in professional hands for a long time, how have your units held up with the rigorous use and abuse you've surely put them through?
 
I recently had the opportunity to use a "Ligh Panel" type of 2'x2' array of bicolor-capable LEDs.

What a difference it makes to be able to control the amount of kelvin between 56k and 32k.

Any plans on that Richard?
 
I should think the forthcoming bi-color 1200 would be similar to that. Its in production now but am not sure when we'll get it to the states because its going to miss our current shipment and I don't know the date of the next shipment. Our LED 1200 carrying case has turned out to be a longer project than I thought it would be and is the main holdup now.

We won't have a lot in stock in the beginning and the first ones will be flood models so about similar to two LED 600 floods in output.

I won't announce pricing until they are on the way to the states which hopefully will be sometime this fall.
 
Richard, any updated news on your LED panels? I'm looking to purchase in the next 2-4 months, but am really interested in your offerings.
 
Thanks for your support. This month is the 50th anniversary of the invention of the LED so this is a great time to see where we are now.

It really hasn't been easy to accomplish all the different ideas I've had for the new line of LED products but we're definitely getting closer. There have been three main goals on this re-design.

1). I want it to be modular in terms of upgrades of various kinds. I definitely see microprocessors in the near future to help with all kinds of features.

2). I am trying to keep things thin and light but also wanting it to be strong for accessories like softboxes. We were the first LED panel to offer a softbox and still the only one out there with a decent sized softbox and I want to maintain that feature.

3). The latest in phosphor technology to make the LED far more full spectrum than we were able to do in the past. Back in 2007 to 2008, I was looking for a high CRI daylight LED for the first panel we made. It just wasn't readily available at that time. So the first panel was meant to provide a lot of economically priced, battery powered light where ever you need it. Quantity of light and battery power options were the main goals of that first product. In the past 3 years I have realized, you'll never find great LEDs on the market, you just have to engineer them yourself with a partner that understands phosphor mixing. I really got busy on that some time ago and I like what we have now. You also have to be willing to throw away a lot of LEDs in the manufacturing process because yields still aren't that high if you're picky about what you want.

It's goals like these that make things take longer. We'll get there.
 
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Richard,

You've really come a long way since you first posted here those years ago! By the way, when can we expect some of these newer lights. Am I correct in assuming that since you are out of stock on all but one LED fixture that there is going to be another generation released soon?
 
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Thanks Kelly. Yes you are correct. We are working on the new generation now and have stopped producing the old generation. I don't want people to be confused about what model is what. All the new generation will be different from our first LED products in many ways.

The new generation is way overdue, but that's par for the course in any new development. We've been late pretty much anything we ever made in the last 6 years because I always hold things up till it feels like things are just about as polished as they can get. When we really like the product and like using it in our daily work here, then its ready to release. So, that's why I haven't announced the actual date, I'm just not ready yet. Plus there have been other distractions this year. We're waiting to see what happens with the US ITC affair, as that affects ours (and many other companies too) future LED sales and imports within the USA.
 
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