DIMMER DILEMMA
28 October 2014
This year’s LDI show in Las Vegas will see two new lighting products that solve the difficulty of adding dimmable LED fixtures to existing lighting systems. Chauvet Professional’s Ovation ED-190WW ellipsoidal and FD-165WW fresnel feature built-in power supplies that allow them to run off traditional dimming and DMX fixtures interchangeably, so they’ll work smoothly with existing dimmable incandescent fixtures.
By blending LED and incandescent dimming, the new products allow energy and cost efficient LED fixtures to be added incrementally to existing systems, company president Albert Chauvet explains.
“In the past adding dimmable LED fixtures created something of a dilemma for many end-users,” Chauvet says. “They wanted all of the savings benefits associated with LED fixtures but they couldn’t run these lights on the same dimming system as their incandescent fixtures without investing in new infrastructure.”
The new Ovation fixtures work with SCR, IGTB, rheostat, and thryristor dimmers to support both LED and incandescent dimming formats. Each has a built-in auto-sensor that determines which type of power the unit is receiving, and adjusts to it automatically.
“Chauvet Professional is targeting the pool of end-users who are comfortable with their existing systems and may not be experts at dealing with DMX systems and addressing, but want an LED fixture that they can simply plug into their existing system and achieve impressive results,” says Ovation product manager Ben Dickmann. “This should definitely make it easier for more theaters, schools and churches to discover the benefits of LED dimming without making wholesale changes to their existing incandescent rigs.
“Our new fixtures give end-users the capability of running off constant power and DMX, or connecting directly to their current incandescent dimming system. Every high school, college and community theatre, every church and anyone else who has had a couple of hundred dimmers that they just put in a couple years ago can now relax – because they can retrofit to LED without having to run a whole new infrastructure.”
Source: media release
Chauvet Professional: www.chauvetprofessional.com
Australian distribution
Showtools International: (02) 9824 2382 or www.showtools.com.au
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