This is topic Best Bulbs? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Keith Peticolas (Member # 971) on 10-13-2001, 07:01 PM:
Riddle me this. Who makes the best bulbs for the Christie lighthouses? I use 2k &3k. Need to start getting new ones and want the best I can get. Thanks.
kp
Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 10-13-2001, 07:05 PM:
What vintage are your Christie Lamphouses? Personally I have had better luck with Christie Bulbs in other lamphouses like Strong's and ORC's. I would highly recommend using replcement Christie lamps in your lamphouse. If cost is a big issue the cheapest bulbs are usually the Perkins-Elmer (Formerly ORC) but again personally, I had bad luck getting these to make it to there warranty period in a Strong Console.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-13-2001, 07:06 PM:
Christie lamps, hands down over all others!!! 
Perkin-Elmer lamps are shit. I am seeing them literally SAG at the envelope by half life. Removing them is sad, yet borderline hilarious as to how "out of round" they become. I must post a video of this. Stay away from them, unless all that matters to you is saving money and presentation doesn't matter.
OSRAM makes a very good bulb too, which would be my second choice, but I hear horror stories about them not honoring their warranties on those rare events they do fail.
Posted by Keith Peticolas (Member # 971) on 10-13-2001, 07:15 PM:
Thanks guys. Christie it is. Brad this site rocks. Good work keeping in up.
kp
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-13-2001, 07:32 PM:
I have had very good results from Christie Xenon bulbs.
Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 10-13-2001, 07:59 PM:
My company insisted on using Perkins-Elmer bulbs in Christie SCL consoles. Was lucky to get 2500hrs out of them with proper routine maintenance for 2500Watt bulbs
Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 10-14-2001, 04:41 AM:
At the beginning of the summer, we switched our big houses using Christie 7000 watt bulbs to Perkin-Elmer 4500 watt bulbs. Two of them were previously switched over to Christie 4500 watt bulbs and one still does until we burn out the remaining used Christie 4500 watt bulbs out then it will switch also.The Perkin-Elmer bulbs are shit in my opinion just as Brad said.
Ive changed a few of them out at the end of their warranty life and had trouble getting them to strike.
I had to raise the power up HIGHER than we were supposed to just to get them to strike and sometimes they dont even strike by the time the film hits the screen so some of our projectionists resort to striking the lamp manually EVERY TIME they start a movie.
So now I have to worry about blowing something out due to the power running too high (like the contactor in the rectifier maybe which I've had the pleasure of changing before).
I was told after we use these up we are to change over to OSRAM bulbs for any house over 3000 watts.
We'll see how those work.
But I can tell you that I do not like the Perkin-Elmer bulbs.
Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 10-14-2001, 07:56 AM:
I don't know about you guys in the states, but here in Japan we have Christie & Strong consoles, The LTI & Osram bulbs we are only getting 700 hrs from them (if we are lucky), Strong came over here twice to check these console & all is fine with Consoles, The Christie bulbs seem to be the one to use in both consoles....to me Christie bulbs wins hands dowm, case close !! (just my 2-cents worth)
Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 10-14-2001, 11:55 AM:
My last theatre used all Osram bulbs with 3K and 4K Strong Highlight II consoles, and we had no problems.
Posted by Jeff Skallan (Member # 891) on 10-15-2001, 03:35 AM:
We've been getting well over 7,000 hours using 2k Christie bulbs running them in our Neumade XCN-35 lamp consoles. Anyone have any extreme endurance records?By the way, this forum is the coolest ever! Long Live Film-Tech!!
Posted by Andy Bergstrom (Member # 360) on 10-15-2001, 11:01 AM:
Anybody have any experience with the Hollywood Lamps and Bulbs LTD company located out of Eau Claire, WI? They are very aggresive in the upper midwest claiming to supply many theater chains located there.
Posted by John Spare (Member # 885) on 10-15-2001, 12:09 PM:
I have been dealing with Mark from Hollywood Lamps and Bulbs for about the last ten months. He is still trying to work out the bugs in their bulbs, but swears that he will have the best bulbs in the industry in the next couple of years.......we'll see......
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-15-2001, 05:26 PM:
Jeff, 8500+ hours from a 2000 watt Christie lamp in a Christie SLC console.
4000+ hours from a 4000 watt Christie lamp in a Christie SLC console.
That's the longest record I've ever personally seen, and the light output on the screen was still excellent when they were removed. No trouble striking, no blackening and the arc was still stable. This was par for that complex, as all of the machines there got approximately the same results.
Posted by Barry Hans (Member # 477) on 10-15-2001, 06:44 PM:
My old boss pulled an Osram 1000 out of a Xetron lamp with 10,000+ hrs. It was the darkest thing I've ever seen. It was put in a coffin and hung the thing up on the booth pegboard. Any verdict on the Superior bulbs?They have some relation to the old Duro- Test if I am thinking of the right bulb.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-15-2001, 07:24 PM:
Brad- what was the oldest bulb at the Chinese? I worked there for over 2 and a half years and there were at least a couple 2K bulbs that were NEVER changed in that time, and they still looked pretty good. I assume you changed them eventually.Christie bulbs do indeed kick much ass. Best light... especially in a Christie SLC lamphouse. And no, Christie did not pay Film-Tech to endorse them)... they really are that good.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-15-2001, 07:34 PM:
When I left the Chinese, there were still a couple of bulbs that had never been changed. They were over 8500 hours and still looked good. Who knows when (of if) they have been changed. Maybe they ran another 6 months, maybe they exploded that next week. I don't know anyone that is still working there. The projection staff did a full turn-over.
Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 10-16-2001, 01:55 AM:
It's been several years ago, in fact it was 1981, I installed a Orcon II console at an old single theatre in west Texas that only show one movie a week on Saturday night, I was laughing then that it would take 16 years before the warranty ran out...I don't know if the theatre is still operating or not, but it was the first time I ever saw a non-magnet speaker, it had a magnetic field generating it on the rear wall behind the screen, power by a 6-foot tall, 1936 (year date) RCA ampilifier & was still working.....Two month later they were upgraded to.....Solid State "MONO", a new speaker, and of course a mono solar cell....
Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 10-16-2001, 09:02 AM:
Don: FYI, that "speaker without a magnet" is called a field coil--just an electromagnet instead of an alnico or ferrite "permanent" magnet (not that they're so permanent in a lot of old VOT's where they do get tired and lose magnetism). Not too surprising that the old RCA amp from 1936 was still working, too. Originally those amps were leased by RCA or WE with service rather than sold to the theaters (just as the production equipment was only leased to the studios), and even then nobody liked paying for a tech, so they were literally rated at hundreds of thousands of hours before failure.
Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 10-16-2001, 10:14 AM:
Hey Jeff, that's the word I was looking for "Electromaget",I just started as a tech back then, I was still green or wet behind the ears, the engineer in charge told me to align the PEC cell (no solar cell), when I connected the volt/ohm meter to the speaker output & ran 9khz test film,I discovered a 90vdc on the speaker output of the amp, I told the tech about this & he tripped out, told me to see where the voltage was coming from, that will burn up the speaker voice coil, just as I was about to cut the voltage wire to troubleshoot the output of the amp, the engineer came running to the booth, screeming "don't do anything, this is an electromagnet speaker, it needs that voltage to operate"...when I went to see the woofer it was just like looking at a today woofer speaker without the magnet, there was a large coil mounted on the wall behind the screen, the horn was something to see, it was the largest damn thing I ever seen to this day, it appear to be in the shape of a Ram's(animal) horn, and then some, I still haven't seen or figure that one out yet & it's been 20 years ago since I seen anything like that, I should have kept that horn when we replaced the speaker system, but then I would not had a place to park my car in the garage due to the size if the horn.....I am so glad I work in today times instead of in the 30's, at age 47 I couldn't even lift those monster horns, but I got to admitt, they did sound good for their age.....
Posted by Robert Golding (Member # 746) on 10-17-2001, 03:26 AM:
I've tried many different types of lamps in my X60D strong and have found that Christie bulbs are the only way to go. I average 3500 to 4000 hrs with a 4500 watt bulb. As for ORC's, as far as I'm concerned they are the worst out there. I personally have not tried any of the chinese bulb as they scare me.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-17-2001, 01:11 PM:
Ditto on the Christie/Ushio bulbs for us. Never a failure on them, only life spans way past their rating.
Mark @ GTS