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Topic: Whats your favorite xenon bulb brand?

Miguel Angel Martorell
Film Handler

Posts: 81
From: Valencia, Spain
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-24-2002 08:43 PM

Osram, no doubt. And in the other hand, we never use Ushio. Vey poor results.
By the way, before my bosses closed forever a wonderfull one screen theater with 921 seats I had order to keep a 5000 watt. lamp till 1700-1800 hours. Every show I was afraid of the audience to came up to the booth to make me eat the lamp. A lighter was more brilliant...
Do you have any order of the "big bosses" about the hours a lamp must have before change it?.
Now I´m in 9 screen complex of the same owners and every time I see "A beautifuld mind" I feel the same. A 4000 watt lamp with 3290 hours and they keep it. The worst thing is the older projectionists say: "it can last a little more...". In my land we say "donde hay patron no manda marinero" or "where there is a captain a sailor doesn´t rule" so I have to obey.
Un saludo.

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 02-24-2002 08:54 PM

Arron wrote: "PerkinElmer has not been known for doing things right the first time: They were the makers of the mirror that doomed the Hubble Space Telescope..."

Perkin-Elmer's offices and manufacturing plant are/were located only a few miles from where I live. They have shrunk dramatically over the last five years.

The rumor I heard was: They had first made a smaller-scale version of the Hubble Telescope mirror for testing purposes. Although smaller, it was still large and very heavy. To move it around, it was placed in a nylon web sling with only three lines arranged like a triangle that went up to a crane hook. Several lower-level people commented on how three lines wasn't enough, but upper engineering managment ignored them (which was a fairly common problem there.) One day, one of the lines let go, and the mirror slipped out of the sling. My friend said you could hear it crash through out the entire building. Without the test article, Perkin-Elmer was forced to rely on existing and computer-generated data, in addition to hurrying up the project.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 02-24-2002 09:57 PM

Like any large conglomerate, it's really not fair to assume that the folks at Perkin-Elmer's mirror group in Connecticut had anything to do with Perkin-Elmer Optoelectronics (which includes the former ORC) in Azusa, CA...
You're just churning the rumor mill in a pretty unfair way.
The folks who did the mirror are no longer part of PEC, but are now Hughes Danbury Optical Systems, Inc. I don't think they ever had anything to do with ORC (but don't know for certain).

--jhawk

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Matt Rockwell
Film Handler

Posts: 11
From: Madison, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-25-2002 11:22 AM

Wasn't ORC originally started as searchlights for tanks or something? Anyway, I have been using new LTI bulbs and I have been very happy with them (at least after they finally started undersizing the posts). They supposedly are what are used at the top of the Luxor in Vegas. Cool! http://www.ltilamps.com/

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Michael Harlow
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 170
From: Faversham, Kent, UK
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 05-17-2003 04:43 PM

I'm an Osram person myself. Never really had any problems with these. But then we have only ever used Osram so maybe i cannot judge?

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 05-18-2003 02:25 AM

One of the theatres where I occasionally help out has been trying the Superior Quartz. After the initial batch where they were having premature seal failures, these lamps ran great. Very steady and even light compared to the latest Osrams they've been getting. These were 3 and 5k's running in Big Sky consoles.

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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 05-18-2003 07:26 PM

I am still "Sold" on Christie bulbs. I am running them in Super-Lumex lamps. One of the 2500-watt lamps just topped the 5,000 hour mark yesterday and it is still going strong. It fires on the first "crack" of the igniter, has a rock-steady arc, and I have a beautiful picture on the screen. [beer]

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 05-18-2003 07:45 PM

For the time being I am still 100% Christie as well. I've not found a bulb that puts out a better light and lasts as long. A month or two ago I installed a Superior Quartz as a test and thus far I have not a single beef with it. The light and general performance of the bulb has been nothing short of excellent thus far. Later in the year I will post a full report on how well it performed. [Smile]

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 05-18-2003 10:24 PM

I have not seen nor used anything that is in the same league as the Christie lamp. They are works of art and they have the performance to back it up.

Steve

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Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

posted 05-19-2003 12:10 AM

If you can get upwards of 5kHours on a 2500 watt bulb, then I'd say the Yumex bulbs I was sold didn't turn out to be a great choice. Out of 3, two have failed at abt 1800 hrs. The last on is still in service, but I think it's Envelopes were getting pretty dark, and both failed when the welds to the end caps went bad.

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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 05-19-2003 12:49 AM

Jack, check your stack temperature. Seems odd that your failures are seal related. If that is in the former Regal house, I was up there before Regal closed it. I recall the lamphouses were running much hotter than normal.

The stack temperature on my Super Lumex's is about 125 degrees F at the entrance of the 350cfm Dayton aux blowers I installed. Don't let your operators close the hand dousers immediately at the end of the show. It cuts off the air circulation through the snood. Have them let the lamps cool down first.

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