Prodigi Pictures
Carbonite Member
About two months ago I extended a free invitation to The American Film Market for DVXusers. I asked people under the Saturday Night Special thread in the User's Films section to email me.
And we are more than happy to re-extend our invitation for DVXusers to see our light at the AFM. Send me a private message with three time-slots during the AFM and we'll let you know when you can come by and use one of our guest passes to check out the light. We'll be holding a press conference on the Main Floor, which is open to everyone, and you can check it out then as well.
Come on by, kick the tires, check it out. Jump up and down on the case...I did! (It freaked out our engineers, but they needed to see how serious I was about building a sturdy case capable of handling major abuse. If I can stand on the case and jump up and down then it meets my sturdiness standards).
As for the case you designed, I'm assuming you meant 150 Watt equivalent bulbs, not 150 Watt bulbs.
And, I applaud your effort, but I can explain why the design didn't work:
1.) A lot of people focus strictly on Luminous Flux (or, said slightly incorrectly but much easier to understand, Lumen Output). If you gang (24) 150 watt equivalent bulbs together you'll have a tremendous amount of Luminous Flux but poor Lux (the amount of light that actually reaches your subject). This is also my complaint with linear fluorescent lamps...the surface area of the bulbs is so large that you get a soft, weak wall of light that lacks the punch you need to light from a distance.
2.) By working with so many bulbs you'll have to have a huge, thick, heavy case to support them...or, you'll have to live with a thin, weak case that will never be truly stable. It's much easier to work with higher wattage bulbs. You need fewer of them to achieve the same Luminous Flux and significantly higher Lux.
3.) The bulbs are plenty sturdy...its the case that effects many of the durability issues. The first day I got my lights I stuck them in the back of my PT Cruiser and drove around Albuquerque at high speed, deliberately rolling the cases in the back of my car. I had two cases. Each rolled at least a couple times. Not one bulb was damaged. That's because we built a sturdy case with top-of-the-line sockets that grip the ballast tightly.
We experimented like you. We played with a variety of designs. In the end, a 16"x16"x16" cube with five sockets proved to be the best configuration. Rounded corners provided additional stability. We had professional engineers design a sliding rack made from extruded pieces so the interior plate is sculpted to fit into the recessed tracks in each corner.
A tremendous amount of work went into "hiding" our design elements. I kept hammering on the engineers to simplify the design, to incorporate the pieces into our extrusions and to exploit elements of physics to create a simpler, sturdier design. (For instance, aluminum is guaranteed to "rust." But, the byproduct is alumina, the second-hardest substance on the planet. And it can be used to allow aluminum pieces to glide across each other. Therefore, the interior pieces are self-lubricating thanks to the exploitation of physics).
Working with extruded aluminum is critical for an advanced design. Our case looks deceptively simple. Anyone who understands engineering will understand that for our glide-and-lock system to work our manufacturing facility has to produce pieces within .0001" tolerances. Our case pieces are designed to come out of the extruder and fit into each other with near perfect tolerance. Someone working on a home-made design can't create a case to those specifications. It requires large investments and access to extremely large, well equipped factories.
So, personally, I'm not surprised you encountered some struggles with a home-made design. I did as well! Whenever I showed my prototype to investors I was a tad embarrassed because it looked homemade. It was wobbly. It wasn't rugged. I had to say "Now, imagine if this were made with YOUR INVESTMENT. This is only a concept piece. With your help, this light will be tough, durable and lightweight."
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