Comments

farss wrote on 6/13/2008, 7:33 AM
I've got a couple of 2 tube Chinese specials and we also bought the 6 tube version of that light on eBay. Absolutely nothing wrong with them.

They are making their own ballasts and tubes though but when the tubes do need replacing the genuine Osram parts work just fine. Mechanically those Chinese lights can be better built than some of the quite expensive units from elsewhere.

One downside compared to some of the other lights that look and work much the same. The Italian Lupos that we have a lot of use the Osram ballasts that are dimmable. Can be handy compared to just switching banks of lamps but hey, the Italian lights are WAY more expensive. One thing worth adding to any of these is egg crates. Easy enough to make your own though. Reason you might want them is to control spill, the barn doors aren't that effective on any of them.

Bob.
alltheseworlds wrote on 6/13/2008, 5:16 PM
Thanks Bob :-) I think I might go for this one then with Osram ballast.

Osram ballast
farss wrote on 6/13/2008, 7:02 PM
That looks pretty good value. Not that we've found anything wrong with the Shanghai ballasts and tubes mind you.
Note that you can get the Osram 55W Studioline tubes in daylight and tungsten. The later we very rarely use though.
One way you might improve these is to make the barn doors black, then they'll work more as expected.

If you're using these in AU be aware that they don't have local approval and neither does a lot of lighting kit. It's sort of exempt as it's for "professional" use. Even so I'd recommend getting them tested and tagged every three months. Same for any electrical kit, power boards, extension leads etc. More than once I've had issues with this in venues. Run all your electrical kit off your own power boards with inbuilt RCDs. If something (heaven forbid) ever does go wrong you can shown to have taken reasonable care.

In NSW Workcover is watching us after it seems some PA stuck their finger in a live 10K and went to meet their maker.

Bob.
alltheseworlds wrote on 6/13/2008, 9:10 PM
I am in Aus, so thanks for the advice. For testing, does that mean some sort of specialist, or would an electrician be qualified enough ?
farss wrote on 6/13/2008, 9:26 PM
If you're in Sydney I could do it for you. If not just Google or look in the yellow pages for Appliance Testing. Not a specialist thing, even I managed to pass the course at TAFE.

Bob.
Laurence wrote on 6/13/2008, 10:52 PM
Boy that light looks an awful lot like http://www.prompterpeople.com/fb-220.phpthis one[/link] or http://www.pclightingsystems.com/DF/DFP1000-Buy.htmlthis one[/link].

I'll bet they are exactly the same, good quality, and an excellent deal.
Grazie wrote on 6/13/2008, 11:16 PM
LOL! Loved the translation: "5th, the light is supple. " - superb! It actually "feels" more apt? Love it . . .

Anyways, the main eBay photog show 4 lamps and the last photog shows 4 tubes too. But actually the specs are for 2x55watts. Have I got that right?

OK, I'm now wondering the cost to UK plus ship+customs duty?

Grazie
farss wrote on 6/13/2008, 11:41 PM
You got it right. The cheapskates used the photo of the one with 4 tubes in the ad for the one with 2 tubes!

And Laurence is pretty much right too. There's not much to choose from between any of them although I'd tend to favour the ones using the real Osram ballasts and lamps and the reason for this has nothing to do with the light coming out the front of them.

We went through the motions of trying to get something like this tested to C Tick standards. It saves a lot that the Osram parts have already passed CE and UL certification. Don't know if they're any better / safer than the Chinese knock offs or not. What it also does mean is if a ballast did die you can buy an exact replacement locally. It also means if you wanted to make the fixture dimmable it's pretty easy to replace the Osram ballast with a dimmable one and fit a potentiometer. I should mention that for the asking price I can'd buy the ballast, lamps and sockets. The asking price wouldn't even cover the metal work if it was made down here.

Bob.