JieTu HMI

H

Huy Vu

Veteran
The JieTu "Arri-like" fresnels have been discussed quite a bit on here. I myself have a few of their fixtures and have been fairly pleased with them. However I just discovered that JieTu also makes 575w and 1200w HMI

http://cgi.ebay.com/HMI-Fresnel-Lig...913?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c18986189

The 1200w is not listed at the moment but was listed for about $1700 including shipping. The 575w is about $1200 including shipping. This includes the head, ballast AND bulb. Obviously this is a pretty unbelievable price. Their tungsten fixtures are decent but obviously HMI is a much more complex piece of hardware so I'm tempted but a bit wary. Has any one has any experience with these fixture?
 
Hadn't seen that one. I've seen the $3,000 ones listed, but not one for half that. Looks a lot like my Cool Lights 150w, and that's a good unit. Maybe the next time the 1200 comes up, I might gamble on one.
 
Chinese know how to make something "look" real but have no clue about why certain materials were used... Thus for instance you get fresnel lenses that break too easily (as i had happen on my tungsten units), so i would assume similar thing happens here. That said though if one of you guys gets his hands on one unit and runs it through the works i would be interested in hearing about the experience - though i don't hold my breath as when price is the only factor crapiness usually rules. And crappy gear cots too much in lost down time on the set.
 
Yes, I agree with all that. However, my Cool Lights 150w is surprisingly decent. I have no complaints about that unit at all. And if JieTu is the source manufacturer, then I would think this would be worth the gamble.

I'd love to hear from any direct user reports of the JieTu gear though.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
though i don't hold my breath as when price is the only factor crapiness usually rules.
Click to expand...

Well, that's true up to a point IMO. There are budget gears i.e Cool Lights where even though they're about 1/3 of the price of a brand name unit they're 90% of the quality. I've worked extensively with the JieTu tungsten fresnels and on a feature with 65 days of shooting and tons of abuse they still held up very well. Customer support from them have also been very responsive even though they're from China, so I do have high hope for these HMI.
 
I have several of their 150 fresnels and they wok great.

A colleague has several of their 300 and 650 fresnels and is also happy with them.
 
I've seen those listed for the same price recently and had the exact same questions. I have a number of Coollights CDM's/LED's/Flo's and they've been stellar performers for years with no problems.

I've been wanting to own a stronger HMI/Par for a while but the prices have always made me rent instead. Even the very used ones with magnetic ballasts on eBay typically sell for well over the $999 + shipping new price of the JieTu.

I'd love to hear some feedback on this unit as well.
 
Not that it's totally on topic but I bought an old Century fresnel body, a new 150w pulse start ballast, a new 150w halide bulb (3200k, g12 base, same ones spec'd for brand name HMI units) and built my own "HMI" for like 150$.

I just don't understand how that even being made in china how something like this can cost so much.
 
Hey, the 1200w HMI light came back up on ebay, and it was even cheaper -- it was $1399 for a 1200W Fresnel including head, ballast, cable, and globe. And a case! All that, for $1399 plus $180 shipping. That's $1580 complete, for a 1.2k! That sounds like a steal, so I jumped on it.

Foolish of me. Well, I guess somebody had to take one for the team, and this time it's my turn. Now, don't get me wrong, it works, but ... the ballast sounds like a semi at idle, and the head buzzed like mad for the first 10 minutes or so until settling down, and there's a screw missing on the assembly of it, and there's no instructions. And the beam pattern looks like it's probably pretty terrible when spotted in, it's hard to tell but it looks like the center is nice and blue and then it fringes green outside of that. Looks good wide though.

On the plus side, it's a light cannon. It is a 1200W HMI, which -- if you were using tungsten and had to get it matched to blue, you'd need at least a 10,000 watt (and maybe a 20,000 watt) tungsten light with CTB gel to get as much blue light as this thing puts out -- and this can be run on a household circuit.

But no way could you record dialogue with that trundling ballast fan groaning away. It's awful. Maybe if they made like a 50-foot head extension cord (and hey, that's an idea, maybe I'll ask 'em about that).

I had a 1200W fresnel HMI I bought off ebay a few years ago for, I think, $1200. It was a Sirio or DeSisti, with the gigantic magnetic ballast, and the head was beat to crud, it was probably thirty years old. Worked great until it died. But, it died. So did the two 575w fresnel magnetic-ballast HMIs I bought off ebay. So buying cheap HMIs off ebay isn't really the best way to go. And those were magnetic ballast, so I couldn't use them effectively with the Red or any other CMOS camcorder, without forcing the shutter speed to 1/60th. This unit at least has an electronic ballast, which (while not exactly small and light) is probably 1/4 to 1/10th the size of the 1200W magnetic ballast, and probably easily 1/10th the weight. And, unlike a magnetic ballast, you can actually use these lights with CMOS camcorders and you don't have to fear the "scrolling waves" at shutter speeds up to about 1/250th, so that's a big bonus. At 1/500 and above it flickers and scrolls, but below that, it looks like it's probably pretty clean.

So -- summation -- meh. Worth it? Probably not. I feel about this like I feel about DSLRs -- if you have no money, and you're willing to jump through hoops to do workarounds, then okay -- but if you're used to working with gear that just works, you probably aren't gonna like this all that much. If you absolutely have to have a 1200W light at the cheapest possible price and you're shooting MOS (meaning, without recording audio) then this appears to be a pretty darn good deal. But if you're recording dialogue, forget it. Just rent from your local rental house instead.
 
I mentioned the loud fan part the other day. Highly doubtful you can have a long ballast to head cord with that unit. Two things which are in direct conflict since a long cord is the only way to remedy a loud fan.

Why not show some pictures of the real thing rather than what they show on the eBay listing.
 
Cool Lights said:
I mentioned the loud fan part the other day.
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Yes, but I'd already ordered it a week before. Wish I would have known sooner... :)

Why not show some pictures of the real thing rather than what they show on the eBay listing.
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The one I got does show the pictures of exactly what you're gonna get. The pictures look just like what showed up. Here's a current listing for another one just like it...
http://cgi.ebay.com/HMI-Fresnel-Lig...701?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e621f2b1d

(from which, I have just learned, it is indeed not a hot restrike unit. Wonder if that means a longer head cable would indeed be a possibility?)
 
On that unit, what they've done is bolt the ignitor to the side and the cord is hard wired coming out of there. You can verify it by opening up that black box on the side and seeing if there is another black box in there with 4 fairly hefty wires coming out of it. 2 are input and 2 are output. Probably different colors on each side. No polarity so its not necessary to know which side is which on input or output but of course don't mix up input and output though.

You may indeed be able to make a longer cable and put it in there yourself if the ignitor is there in the side box.

This was our 1200w cold start beta unit and a couple were bought by a dvxuser and he's mentioned them before on here. Its been about 2 years now and still running last I heard:

1200wFresnelBackViewX.jpg


About the same price. Should be using the same bulb. The longer base at the bottom is the good place to put an ignitor and we put a quick lock military connector on the outside of fresnel to be able to have a longer cord if necessary. Yoke is a professional type with our yoke clamp and the stand adapter is a junior male type.

He thought the fan on that unit was too loud but not even close to what we are talking about on this other unit in question.

I just didn't think it was worth going ahead with all these "fan" projects because I already knew what the reaction was going to be. Not worth it.
 
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Thumbs up for Barry for giving us some real life feedback, just what I was looking for when I started this thread.
 
Okay, so ... exploring the idea of making an extension cable that might salvage this thing for use in dialogue situations... if the ballast could be put in another room or behind a door, it might be fine, so... a twenty-foot to fifty-foot cable might make it worthwhile. Step one would then be to identify what type of connectors these are. Anyone have any idea where I could get some of these?

ElecConn-3.jpgElecConn-1.jpgElecConn-2.jpg
 
I've probably seen ones similar to that around but you never know and there could be little differences. I would just contact that company and see if they can sell you another one if you want to stick with that. The best thing to do though would be just to replace the whole connector with a good metal one. Something in the 1" in diameter size or greater with plenty of good spacing between the contacts. A "bayonet" type connector which is like a 1/4 turn quick lock military or aviation style connector. Like Amphenol GT-PC series is what pro ballasts like our 575/1200 use and the Arri 575/1200 also uses that connector as well. Pricey but its the best way.

http://www.qscomp.cz/Pdf/GTseriesReverseBayonet.pdf

http://www.amphenol-aerospace.com/new/PDF/12-024-8_GT_Series.pdf
 
Thanks bclighting, that is what I had determined after much googling and stumbling across the Neutrik powercon -- looks like it may be exactly the same, probably a knockoff version of it.

I had contacted the seller to let them know that this unit is not usable for movie production as-is, and could they identify the connectors so that I could investigate getting an extension cable made. The seller responded by saying that not only would they identify the connectors, but that they would make up an extension cable and express-mail it to me.

That's some pretty amazing customer service, especially when you consider that the unit was sold with a 7-day money-back guarantee! Optimism is beginning to creep back in... :thumbsup:
 
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