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Topic: Changing House Lights

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-04-2017 10:12 PM

I use Cree bulbs, almost exclusively at home and, when I was in charge at Mercyhurst, I used Cree, as well.

http://creebulb.com

They were the first company to bring LED bulbs to market and, as I was told, they supply COBs to many, if not, most of the other companies in the US.

They make residential and commercial products. They have dimmables, too.

http://cree.com

Cree makes a 120 watt-equivalent PAR38 bulb and they also make 4-inch and 6-inch cans that should be drop-in replacements for the cans in your ceiling,

http://creebulb.com/120-watt-replacement-par38-bright-white-flood-45

http://creebulb.com/100-watt-replacement-6-recessed-soft-white

I know that you’ve got a tight budget but the savings on your electric bill will probably make up for the cost. Besides, the PITA factor of not having to haul the Genie Lift out every time a light burns out will be well worth it.

I live in a two-story townhouse apartment and every light in my house is Cree.
I haven’t changed a single lamp in three, almost four, years and my electric bill is only about $30 to $40 a month, including central air. ($50 in the summer if I turn the AC up.)

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 11-23-2017 09:20 PM

Some times the Leds will work OK if one or two regular bulbs are also installed. Put them in an easy-to-deal-with location. I have even mounted two in the booth, heavily shielded.

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Buck Wilson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 894
From: St. Joseph MO, USA
Registered: Sep 2010

posted 11-23-2017 09:33 PM

quote: Louis Bornwasser
Some times the Leds will work OK if one or two regular bulbs are also installed. Put them in an easy-to-deal-with location.

That's what we did in one of our auditoriums a couple years ago. It's worked well so far. One easy to get to fixture(2 bulbs) incandescent, and the rest(5 fixtures/10 bulbs) LED. Sure has saved on bulb changes in that auditorium.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-25-2017 02:14 PM

Steve, beautiful cinema...thanks for the sweet pictures.

Can someone explain why is it that it seems only non-profits are aesthetically astute enough to have proscenium curtains? [thumbsup]

I guess there is something to be said about cinemas that are not designed using the cookie-cutter, utilitarian, boring assembly-line, design-by-numbers book.

When we were trying to stimulate interest in reopening a Loew's theatre in Brooklyn (the Loew's Kings -- a "wonder theatre" palace), we needed to rebulb a few hundred colored bulbs all arranged in clusters of three in the ceiling, each cluster requiring three bulbs, red, blue and yellow, this so the ceiling could do a "sunset" dim going from bright yellow and dimming thru orange, purple and finally deep blue which was the show level -- on throughout the movie. The thing that amazed me was, every bulb, no matter if it were in a 6 story high soffet or in a parapet in the upper ceiling, every bulb was accessible without ladder or lift or even a bulb pole. Every hanging banner and any of the many chandeliers were all on hand cranked winch systems so they could be lowered to the floor to be re-bulbed or cleaned (in the case of the banners). Those archetechs knew what they were doing, and those theatre owners cared enough about showmanship and presentation to actually clean things.

Time travel 30 years later and I have been in a beautiful little theatre in a museum were the architects evidently were under the impression that halogen bulbs never burn out, or at least they will burn out long after the architects have collected their money and are long gone. They spent unconscionable amounts of money to get some big name sculptor to "create" one-of-a-kind houselight fixtures, which were then placed over seats and against pillars that made reaching them to replace bulbs nearly impossible without building scaffolding. Seems like it's one step forward, two steps back.

BTW, Loews purchased so many colored bulbs from Sylvania (all made in USA) that the bulb company named at least the blue bulb color "Loews Blue" on all the boxes. Not sure if this was a custom color made especially for Loews or just they manufactured so many for all the Loews theatres that they just slapped the name on them. That said, no one of the other colors were had the Loews name attached to them.

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Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 11-25-2017 05:57 PM

quote: Frank Angel
long after the architects have collected their money and are long gone.

That's one thing that I've never understood about architects. They get paid ungodly amounts of money to design stuff and then when a design defect is found the building it's the owner's responsibility to pay for any changes.

They build a new skating/hockey rink here a couple of years ago; the architect got something in the neighbourhood of $1 million. After it was built there were insufficient lights to illuminate the ice surface, there were not enough power outlets in the kitchen, the bathrooms weren't properly ventilated and for some reason it was almost impossible to install ventilation after-the-fact, the snow dump for the ice surfacing machine (Zamboni) was improperly designed so it would not drain properly, the spectator seating didn't have proper safety railings and some of them are too steep for older people to access, and on and on and on.

And none of those costs came back to the architect who designed it.

I've heard of that sort of thing before, and it leaves me to wonder what those guys are getting paid for. My brother is a professional engineer and if he screws something up it's his responsibility to fix it. (He actually has some really expensive insurance for that reason.) But architects seem to be able to say, "Too bad about that, Jack, and where's my million dollars.

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