Light-Emitting Plasma (LEP) lights - anyone used them yet?

Grug

Grug

Veteran
Units like the Photonbeard Nova 270 and the Hive Lighting Hornet, look particularly interesting. It sounds like they offer most of the advantages of HMI (daylight balanced, cool-running, low-wattage, hard-light) with few of the disadvantages (ballast etc.)

I'm yet to hear any actual user-reports on them though. And I still can't find any information on where you can even buy the Helio 270 (or who makes it).

If anyone has had any experience with the lights I'd be keen to hear it. I've been right through Guy Holts detailed posts on LEPs, but am yet to find much practical information on them.

Cheers
 
Too expensive for me, and the local rental houses don't have them .
Can't wait to give em a test ride.

Frank
 
Yeah, I can't find any locally either. Price-wise they come up kinda favourably against HMIs (not that that's saying much). But for me, perhaps the biggest appeal is the energy efficiency of the lights and the powering options that opens up.

Because they have roughly 1/8 the power draw of tungsten, the amount of light output you can safely pull off conventional wall sockets is tremendous. And they'll function terrifically with battery power too - so there could be considerable savings to be made in not having to bring in a generator on location (and in setup times with battery-powered options).

I'm not sure I've ever been quite so excited by the possibilities of lights before.
 
AbelCine sells the Hive Plasma lights. The production units start shipping this month, and we have a couple of prototype models we show around. The output is amazing for the small power draw, with excellent color and punch. They are also completely flicker free even at high speed and because the bulb emitter is so tiny the shadows are clean & sharp, making control of the light via barndoors and flags quite accurate. They look quite nice and are solidly built.
 
Ah! Units not shipping yet would explain the absence of user reviews! Thanks for the update Mitch.

What will the price be on the Hive Hornet 270 units?
 
Sound fantastic!

Mitch - checked the abelcine site - couldn't find any pricing/ordering info - perhaps a link?
 
Yeah i'd like to check out some prices. Hopefully what they say is true, 273watts of that light equals a 2k tungsten fresnel? Hell yeah! Imagine a 1200w. Throw away all your 18ks AND your generators, we're running this on a 20amp circuit!
 
I'm updating an old thread. Recently, I bought a Hive Wasp Par light and have been using it everyday for the last 2 weeks. The light has preformed well. Easy to set up and turn on. Fairly compact and produces a nice look very similar to an HMI. The lamp burns warmer than expected. We had to put 1/4 CTO on it to match the daylight kinos. The Hive website says 5600K but I'm not to sure. Will take a color temp reading this coming week. Also, the on/off switch seems cheap. After only 2 days of use we had wires sliding out of the box. Fixed it without too much fuss.

Love to hear what other people think about this light.
 
I see they are priced on Abel Cine now.... 5000 dollars for the par lamp. That's a lot of money. But AbelCine... If you read this, a small tip. As a "consumer" or potential customer if you will, I really couldn't care less about your videos talking with the people who made it. You'd get WAY more response if you actually did controlled tests / reviews that gives examples of the quality of light you'd get from these lights. There is no way I'm going to buy anything based on what self gloryfying bs the producers can say about their own product. All that I can already read on the spec sheet.

Let me see how it looks in action..... bounced, diffused thrown... etc.

Just a tip.
 
Thanks for the tip. If you go to the Training section of our website and click on the Expos & Events tab, you can find an archive of all of our past EXPOs, including the Innovations in Lighting EXPO in which the Hive lights were demonstrated and compared side-by-side with other lights.
 
The Hive LEP that I saw in Abel a few months back took quite a long time to fully warm up compared to an HMI (probably close to 10 minutes) and had a hot restrike issue.
 
-Cheaply made (switch failing after 2 days)
-No hot restrike
-Electronics attached to lamphead
-$6241.50
-Looks like my 10 yr old built it with sheet metal and a press break.

They are making all the mistakes that cheap lights make but without the savings. I dont really care how efficient they are. Any lamp in that range output can plug into a wall. No thanks...
 
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