I've always declined and stayed with Calmat/Lenco, who supply us with Osram lamps.

If you are to consider trying another supplier who's lamps you're not sure of ask for a demo lamp to run for a while.

In our case we have cold mirrors in two screens which cost £1500 each!! So the math don't work out. No supplier will guarantee your mirror if a lamp explodes on you. So assuming you save £50 on a lamp and it does fail... you may get a new lamp, which is fine but it would take 30 lamp purchases to get back to square one and start to get some benefit of the £50 saving!! Hardly worth the risk especially if a £50 saving is THAT attractive to you how you gonna feel with a bill for a new mirror. Even if your mirrors are not as expensive as our's you still have to purchase a fair number of lamps to start making any saving.

My advice is to stick with arguably the best lamp available, Osram, or with your current supplier who you've build a relationship with.
A good relationship with a supplier is worth its weight in gold!

I have used a number of different lamps and always come back to Osram.

Note:- I am in no way connected with Osram lamps and receive no payments from them.... however I am open to offers

We've been approached by LTI, we're not changing ! we use TLS UK for our Osram's and never ever had any problems.

Apparently - (according to one source) LTI are quite obnoxious !
 

George at Calmat is very helpful and supportive giving first class service to me at all times. Thats worth a great deal to me and I'm sure to everyone who deals with him.

Osram found that virtually everyone was running lamps beyond the original warrenty life of the lamps with no pattern of increased lamp failures so increased their warrenty to match the performance of the lamps.... from what I gather there has been no change in the manufacture of the lamps.

Stick with what/who you know is my advice.

Regards Ken.

Alternatively you could propose to the rep that you'll buy one on a trial basis IF LTI will guarantee the entire cost of repairing the lamphouse (including mirror and electronics), should it blow up within the warranty period.

Technologies do improve over time - someone told me once that the first xenon bulbs in the late 50s/early 60s lasted only a few hundred hours. Now it's routine to run lamps to 2-3,000. I wouldn't rule out trying anything new on principle, but given the potential cost of it exploding during a show, I'd say that it was entirely reasonable to ask for guarantees over and above the usual, to start with. If LTI want to establish a market share in the UK, the best way for them to do it is to back up the claims about their product with a cast iron guarantee.
 

Dave

 

Projectors are purchased with a long term view taken of how long they will be there. They are generally very reliable and seldom suffer catastrophic failure....

Xenon lamps however have a finite life and require regular replacment. Osram may not be the cheapest but they have been around for a long long time.

Stratford used ORC when it first opened.... I just loved the way the end caps became loose as they aged... made changing a lamp fun!!

Its the only part of the equipment that you have to handle that requires protective clothing...... I'll stick with a tried and trusted manufacturer. I may not be good looking but its the only face I've got... thank you very much

I belive i got the Superior Quartz lamps from
Future Projections LTD.London. (020 7358 0606/ Fax 020 7358 0909)

Also the superior quartz 2k's are guarnteed for 2600 hours straight off!

Darren
 

Seriously though, I once tried an ORC lamp cuz it was cheap, once was enough. Had success with Ushio, but generally I've always stuck with Osram, and tell my customers the same.
 

=============================================
I belive i got the Superior Quartz lamps from
=============================================

either you got them from Peter or you didn't... why bullshit!!
You know where you got them from!
 

But if £75 average saving on 1 1/2 lamps) is important to you then consider this, NO manufacturer will warrenty you against lost shows.

Not only that but you have to refund and the lost good will that goes with it. Also if the lamp failure has damaged your lamp house you could be off screen for the rest of the day, or the weekend!!

ALL lamps have a failure rate. That's a fact of life that you cannot get away from. However, you can reduce the risk by using quality lamps....

U having a bad day at Stratford?

Have fun!
Speak soon.

Darren
 

I've not had any of those problems with Osram lamps, we turn our lamps off at the end of each show and they strike first time every time. Stability hasn't been a problem either, the odd lamp but no pattern.
I run our 3k lamps to their hours in the £1500 glass mirrors and then use them in a metal mirror lamp house for as long as I am happy with their performance. Whilst not ideal, if the lamp failed in a metal mirror it's not quite the disaster. The 2k lamps are run in a glass mirror lamp house and will run for about 3000 hours with no problem. But again mindful of the possibility of a lamp failure I don't push any lamp too far for the reasons given in my earlier postings above.

I feel that if you are too greedy and run them too long, any gains will be lost with just one failure and lost show.

Take them out at 'life' and you're wrong.... leave them in and they fail and you're wrong. No win!!

I suppose there will always be the odd lamp or batch that may be less than perfect. Are the lamps manufactured in one factory? It's quite interesting to hear very opposite views of the same brand of lamp from here in the UK and America.

====================================================================

Darren

I tend not to have bad day's anymore, just bad people! I won't work with, or for, 'bad' people anymore so problem solved. So no dig intended to you personally.

If you get your lamps from Peter then say so... it's no secret and not a problem anyway. I value the service and relationship I have with George at Calmat so I'll stick with him. That's my opinion, which is after all what William was asking everyone for when he posted the question.

George Taylor can be contacted on:-
=====================================
Phone 01371872677 Fax 01371872351
Email GeorgeTaylor@Calmat.co.uk
Web site http://www.calmat.co.uk

Although the price was good for these, I was a bit dubious on the QC with these lamps and that we were using Ushio, was impressed with their technical service and the advice to well away from LTI (ORC) Xenons.

Since I was made redundant there early this year, the Management (Bean Counters) have opted for these cheap Xenons, say no more!

I wonder what a 15kw 400A Xenon explosion is like
 

Also, I arrived at work one morning, not Stratford, to find a note that a lamp had exploded and they lost the last show. When I inspected the lamphouse the positive support had been blowen apart where it was welded to its mounting, this was a Morganite Peerless conversion. We lost a further two shows that day waiting for a part to be removed from another lamphouse and sent over to me to fit.

Makes me very dubious of some of the lamp houses I've seen in the last couple of years with very thin side panels....

Does anyone know of someone thats suffered any injury when these things go bang?

In my opinion, the Christie lamps are the best I have worked with.

Bill
 

Perhaps I am just lucky, but I had three lamps blow on me this year alone (no, that isn't the lucky part). Two were LTI...one with about 70 hours and one with 900 (2K lamps). One was Osram with 700 hours (3K). Both companies replaced our reflectors. I just sent the remains of the old lamp, and in one case some of the reflector to them.

This was a seriously unpleasant experience and I felt the need of a stiff Scotch afterwards, but the bottom line is that if you're wearing all the protective gear, you'll stay safe. I dread to think what state I would have been in if I wasn't. I spent an hour the following morning hoovering up the shrapnel, and was discovering quartz fragments in unusual places for a week or two afterwards.

For the record, the lamp which blew up was an Osram, but I really don't think that is an issue at all - no xenon designed to be run at 70 amps is going to withstand being run at 120 for very long. When we eventually discovered the incorrect ammeter, we worked out that we must have been putting 110-120 amps through it. It also explained why the picture was so beaufifully bright!
 

Re your post "I was inserting the lamp into its reinforced plastic 'condom' after having taken it out of the lamphouse. There was a huge bang and fragments of the envelope went all over the projection box. You could see pitting on the face visor looking at it later on. This was a seriously unpleasant experience and I felt the need of a stiff Scotch afterwards"

Reinforced plastic condoms, (!?), after having taken "it" out of the lamphouse ! I'll say a "seriously unpleasant experience " - I'd say that anyone involved in such a session would need a stiff scotch afterwards !

Peter

 

OPPS!!