Back again - with an old tungsten disco light

Glad to have you back Clive. :-)

Dr Andy Hill

Reminds of a similar unit from Abstract Lighting called the ScatterSpot which was a static moonflower designed to run off chaser units as an alternative to the pinspot. Very inefficient like you say but when used in multiples the white beams looked pretty nice through lots of smoke! I have seen modern versions of this same design using an RGBW chip in in replacement of the halogen lamp. Would be an interesting retro-fit

I find it amazing that the classic Clay Paky Astroraggi is still being used to this day. There are a couple of different versions of it, (not including the multitude of copies from their competitors) but the only one I have experience with, was a later version with a single 400W/MSD arc lamp that was mounted inside two octopus-beak-shaped shutters. It was (is) a great center piece effect, and it didn’t need any color nonsense. Just ~100 white pencil thin beams. And in addition to DMX, you could also control it with 0-10V, or RS232/RS423. The only downside to this lamp was the time it took to properly clean all the lenses, but since those lamps were literally moneymakers, we didn’t mind too much. (We had 5 of them in our rental department.)

Bo Holbo Rasmussen

I have a "dalek" light here with the motorised linear halogen lamps.

Big Clive

I remember the old Single and Double Derby disco lights that had 2 X 120V/150W bulbs on a moving horizontal bar in the Single Derby, and 2 X 120V/300W on a rotating bar with slip rings in the Double Derby. The only good thing about them, was that they only had a tiny linear power supply for the sound activated controller, and cheap fan. It always put a smile on my face every time I tested the Single Derby without the music running. The motors sounded kinda’ drunk, as if they were getting close to vomiting. 😂 (As the controller kept them ramping up in one direction then quickly reversing, as the horizontal bar was being moved up and down.)

Bo Holbo Rasmussen

I had some of these on my old Disco. They were bigger, LQ72 and the LQ82. The 72 was a white moonflower and 82 colour. With 4 and smoke you can make amazing effects with a mirror ball to

The best moon flower effect I have ever used was the Optikinetics strobe flower pro it had a discharge type strobe circuit with BIG capacitors wasn't very reliable and to the map being an effective spark gap interfered with lights etc h and didn't run off DMX . But it looked great when it worked.

Those bring back memories of school plays and 18 inch long resistive dimmers :-)

Mr B Shepherd

I rescued about three or four Strand theatre lamps from a skip many years ago. Mains running a filament lamp with a reflector, lens and a slot for coloured filters. I had always thought about converting them to Halogen lamps but never got round to it. Trendies in London love to polish them up and put them on a tripod. Mine are still in my shed.

Jeremy Travis

If the elv isn’t separated from the mains it’s more likely felv (functional extra low voltage), a selv (separated elv or safety elv) source doesn’t have reference to the mains side or earth, There’s another one called pelv (protective elv) which is an elv source similar to selv but with reference to earth.

Paul Ferguson

its not to old i see it was made in 2000 :)

Mort

Oh the top has a hinged lid to allow replacing the bulb and everything. The only thing missing there is the captive phenolic knob to make it tool free. That sir is nicely old school.

Michael Thompson

Good to see a video again and very glad you are back feeling better.

Michael Thompson

Unless you're keeping that for posterity, it would make a good upgrade to a LED light source and perhaps add a motor?

Oh shit I sold 2 of the older grey cased ones from 60s and they worked! Got them at a yard sale for 5 bucks I woke up when you said the filament was on the wall cool

William Nimmo

Good to see you back and on form again.

Mike Hughes