DMX Moving Head Beam Lights (China Sharpy)

Derf

am now a 5v hypocrite
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
251
Location
Narellan Vale, NSW
Hi All,

Another Moving head fixture for those wanting to know a little bit more about them. This thread is to share my first impression of these fixtures and how they compare to other moving head lights that I have in my show.

Some of you may remember that I had a 1200w bulb fixture featured in my show last year and was a huge success with my audience star gazed of a light beam projecting gobo's onto the clouds.

As I do multiple houses in my street for my display there are some spaces that I find need a bit of light and I physically cannot put pixels there. A Moving head seemed the right choice for me as if I wanted light in the dark areas I just insert a gobo some colour and change the whole show.

Originally I was looking at what the other enthusiasts use in the states then I found out the price and knew I really couldn't afford the fixtures. Some looking around later led me to Aliexpress where the fixtures were a reasonable price and offered free shipping. Little did I know it wasn't free shipping. They provided a quote after capturing your payment with a $120 USD shipping fee.

Then I looked on amazon for something around the same price range and found a cheaper fixture offering the same thing but cheaper than Ali.

Introducing the Generic "Moving Head 230w Beam".

c3c81a76831844ea848becf2d07fff42.jpg


I'd say this fixture produces a brighter beam than my 1200w fixture. You can tell that the lenses are designed for forming beams and not as a spot light. For having a third of the weight and quarter of the size of the 1200w fixture they are going to be easier to waterproof / setup.

The fixture has some weird setting and you can definitely tell it is a Chinese fixture. (The amazon spelling is enough to give you an idea) but the fixture has some unique bugs.. or I guess you could call them features. The fixture has the function of splitting multiple colours and due to the beam lens makes a pretty cool helix pattern

bd5b895ddfd391ce7df1cbb80b10326b.jpg


6f4a5f3dff5b1e3ebc92126cf446aacf.jpg



Here is a video of the auto / sound function that you can enable on the fixture to move / change colour to music.


The focal length of the fixture is pretty large and to get a clear image there is a lot of tweaking to be done as you can see with this gobo which is approximately 5 meters from the fixture going to 15 meters on the driveway.

4ed17f131967a9469ba3f096e85a9abf.jpg



If the show goes on channel 7 again Im sure these fixtures will be able to be seen! if not they'll be in my show videos.

There is another 3 on its way now the first tests have been completed.

I'll update this thread with any new discoveries I find with this fixture. Anyway hope you enjoyed let me know if you have any questions about the device!
 

OzAz

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Dec 29, 2015
Messages
997
Location
Newcastle
They look the same as the one's Daniel Zhang sells that lots of the USA guys bought. $450 AUD delivered is a good price.
Now all you need to do is find the 350W IP65 waterproof ones at a good price :)
 

Derf

am now a 5v hypocrite
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
251
Location
Narellan Vale, NSW
They look the same as the one's Daniel Zhang sells that lots of the USA guys bought. $450 AUD delivered is a good price.
Now all you need to do is find the 350W IP65 waterproof ones at a good price :)
Im currently in discussion with a friend in China that does a lot of distribution of manufacturing machines in china to find some good outdoor ones. From the feedback he is getting, China is moving away from discharge bulbs and is really only manufacturing LED fixtures now it is very hard to talk directly to a manufacturer and for them to offer a bulb version.

I have a 250watt demo LED fixture heading over here from china soon to try out which is around the $380 AUD price (waterproof version is a bit more) these fixtures shoot multi coloured beams up to 12 different colours at once
 

bpratt

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Joined
Mar 31, 2019
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562
Location
Jimboomba, Queensland
I've ordered a 350w outdoor one through Daniel Zhang.

I was originally looking at one of these, but realised to make an indoor one weather resistant, you need to provide plenty of forced ventilation through it, as the bulb is always on, and is turned 'on' by opening a shutter, so there's going to be plenty of heat building up every night.
 

Derf

am now a 5v hypocrite
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
251
Location
Narellan Vale, NSW
Update 1:

Some more testing. I ended up purchasing a cheap DMX lighting desk to be able to set real world values and pipe them into xlights. It does definitely help.
here is the one I used. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/254314641991

I also went out and sorted out the storage issue with these fixture. A road case was definitely way to expensive for my budget something of the same size was around the $400 mark

I went on the hunt and found at bunnings the tactix storage tubs which took a $14 pair of castors. They were the perfect size for a snug fit of two fixtures. (the power pass helped by knocking a few dollars off as well).

(bunnings don't have a link for the castors) they were on the racking next to these storage tubs.

I then used some yoga mats from kmart with spray adhesive to pack out and cushion the internal of the tub. We ended up using the $8.00 ones as they were a bit thicker and in stock

With a small piece of diving mdf in the center covered with yoga matt the light fixtures are not going anywhere. and no dust is going to enter the cases during the off season.

I estimate this project to be approximately $50 per light fixture (around $100 on each case with 2 fixtures per case). Something well worth the investment rather than taking the fixture apart to do a thorough clean each season.

We've found that the boxes can be lifted by a single person but is quite heavy around 42kg's. With the handles on the cases it is a easy 2 people lift.

Having the castors on the bottom makes for easy transportation. the can also stack vertically so you can get most of the equipment where you need in one go. I grabbed a couple of the smaller tactix containers for my smaller moving heads and they stack together securely.

Some Photos:
c419ce297475f17411e1cd107f209672.jpg

3870c76e1ffe001b1ab103f7f5e15858.jpg

e168f526760a8ae7a0905dbdc8fb5557.jpg

97eff9d31256fcdb1966b07bb47de2ae.jpg

3b9a470da7232f2da60389aeae79fbfa.jpg
 

Derf

am now a 5v hypocrite
Joined
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Messages
251
Location
Narellan Vale, NSW

Nah not sure why bunnings doesn't have it on their website.

These are them from another shop
 

Cranzy

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Perth
I have a 250watt demo LED fixture heading over here from china soon to try out which is around the $380 AUD price (waterproof version is a bit more) these fixtures shoot multi coloured beams up to 12 different colours at once
Did you get these and how are they?
 

Derf

am now a 5v hypocrite
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
251
Location
Narellan Vale, NSW
Did you get these and how are they?
Sad to say but not yet.

Getting anything out of china at the moment is pretty hard unless you pay the price of the fixture for DHL. I am getting these put in a mates shipping container to be brought over here so when they get their sea freight is a mystery its not the smoothest coming out of china at the moment.

I'll be sure to put up a thread when they arrive!
 

bpratt

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Mar 31, 2019
Messages
562
Location
Jimboomba, Queensland
Some more testing. I ended up purchasing a cheap DMX lighting desk to be able to set real world values and pipe them into xlights. It does definitely help.
here is the one I used. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/254314641991

I like the packing crate idea, that's fantastic. Might do the same when my one finally turns up, I ordered a 350w outdoor unit.


So this lighting console will make it easier to set up and configure the moving heads, by giving you the 'numbers' that you want to then put in to a xlights sequence then ?


What I'm keen to get hold of, is a section of the triangular aluminium lighting rails/gantry or whatever it might be called. I'm planning on putting mine up on the roof, and I could permanently put that up, with a weatherproof power point up there. Then when my display goes up, it's a moderately straight forward installation on an existing frame. This will make it easier to put up a second one or more next year, if I can get say 3m length of that triangular framework.
 

Benslights

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Elderslie
@bpratt the triangle stuff you are referring to is a lighting truss. like link attached

flat

triangle
 
Last edited:

OzAz

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Messages
997
Location
Newcastle
Those lights are very nice, great demo at the mini @Derf

As an alternative to getting one of the cheap DMX consoles (as listed by Derf above), if you already have a USB to DMX dongle (like the ones Alan sells, or an Enttec or similar) you could install QLC+ and use the Simple Desk tab to test them and to work out what the 'real world values" are.

If someone wanted to go to the trouble of defining the fixture, then they could share the fixture definition to all the other people who said they were thinking of buying some. :D
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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Those lights are very nice, great demo at the mini @Derf

As an alternative to getting one of the cheap DMX consoles (as listed by Derf above), if you already have a USB to DMX dongle (like the ones Alan sells, or an Enttec or similar) you could install QLC+ and use the Simple Desk tab to test them and to work out what the 'real world values" are.

If someone wanted to go to the trouble of defining the fixture, then they could share the fixture definition to all the other people who said they were thinking of buying some. :D
When I got back to Bernies last night we were talking moving heads so he dug out his currently unused pair of cheap moving heads. I knew a guy who had some unsold dongles from the Syd mini so they got dug out and plugged in and a few minutes later I was merrily doing all sorts of fun things with them hooked up to da_tester. It took a bit of trial and error and it was easier to have the 2 of them set to the same start address so that I could spin them around at the same time with the same slider. After a bit of mucking around and potentially a bit of hysterical laughter and a bit of stray light spraying around Bernies wife poked her head in the room and said "nerds". I'm now at this very moment looking at moving heads as they were fun. The single page of dmx and internal settings wasn't overly well explained but with some fiddling I worked it out.
 

Brett Greenland

New elf
Joined
May 15, 2017
Messages
29
Hi All,

Another Moving head fixture for those wanting to know a little bit more about them. This thread is to share my first impression of these fixtures and how they compare to other moving head lights that I have in my show.

Some of you may remember that I had a 1200w bulb fixture featured in my show last year and was a huge success with my audience star gazed of a light beam projecting gobo's onto the clouds.

As I do multiple houses in my street for my display there are some spaces that I find need a bit of light and I physically cannot put pixels there. A Moving head seemed the right choice for me as if I wanted light in the dark areas I just insert a gobo some colour and change the whole show.

Originally I was looking at what the other enthusiasts use in the states then I found out the price and knew I really couldn't afford the fixtures. Some looking around later led me to Aliexpress where the fixtures were a reasonable price and offered free shipping. Little did I know it wasn't free shipping. They provided a quote after capturing your payment with a $120 USD shipping fee.

Then I looked on amazon for something around the same price range and found a cheaper fixture offering the same thing but cheaper than Ali.

Introducing the Generic "Moving Head 230w Beam".

c3c81a76831844ea848becf2d07fff42.jpg


I'd say this fixture produces a brighter beam than my 1200w fixture. You can tell that the lenses are designed for forming beams and not as a spot light. For having a third of the weight and quarter of the size of the 1200w fixture they are going to be easier to waterproof / setup.

The fixture has some weird setting and you can definitely tell it is a Chinese fixture. (The amazon spelling is enough to give you an idea) but the fixture has some unique bugs.. or I guess you could call them features. The fixture has the function of splitting multiple colours and due to the beam lens makes a pretty cool helix pattern

bd5b895ddfd391ce7df1cbb80b10326b.jpg


6f4a5f3dff5b1e3ebc92126cf446aacf.jpg



Here is a video of the auto / sound function that you can enable on the fixture to move / change colour to music.


The focal length of the fixture is pretty large and to get a clear image there is a lot of tweaking to be done as you can see with this gobo which is approximately 5 meters from the fixture going to 15 meters on the driveway.

4ed17f131967a9469ba3f096e85a9abf.jpg



If the show goes on channel 7 again Im sure these fixtures will be able to be seen! if not they'll be in my show videos.

There is another 3 on its way now the first tests have been completed.

I'll update this thread with any new discoveries I find with this fixture. Anyway hope you enjoyed let me know if you have any questions about the device!
Hey Derf, How do you waterproof them, I am looking at doing moving heads for the first time on my home, Hoping you can shed some ideas
 
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