Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Christie or Osram bulbs in Xenex 1 Lamphouse's?

This is topic Christie or Osram bulbs in Xenex 1 Lamphouse's? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 06-04-2005, 09:30 PM:

I'm getting close to doing the Grainger blower upgrade to my Xenex 1's as soon as I can get the HVAC guy to do his part.

I have seen several post's that liked Christie lamps better in certain situations than Osrams. What about in my antique Xenex 1's after the Grainger Blower upgrade? I've been using 2000w bulbs, but I am going to downsize to a 1000W in one house. Which would perform the best all around? Christie or Osram?

I've used Osrams up to now. And at time's have had trouble with hard starting. After some experimenting, it appears this is most likely been due to lack of proper cooling.
Thanks!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-04-2005, 11:05 PM:

1. Osrams are very likely to give you arc over problems in that lamphouse because of the round envelope.

2. Osram is the WORST at paying warranty claims no holds barred!

3. I see more problems with Osram Lamps over their life span than I do with Christie(Ushio).

Mark

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-05-2005, 02:02 AM:

..Hey Marko - What about those LTI bulbs? I've heard that they are not to bad to sneeze at. Something about the gas inside that elliptical bulb that can give out 30 percent more light to where one can reduce the bulb wattage for their lamphouse and with that increase of light output can still match the FL requirements of the old wattage bulb.

-thx Monte

Posted by Dylan Marchetti (Member # 2764) on 06-05-2005, 02:13 AM:

That's a great big negative on the LTIs...not only do they have terrible quality control (I frequently had at least one or two bulbs out of ten fail within 50 hours), the "gap-shortened" bulbs that promise more light with less wattage are simply atrocious. They had a very strong blue shift, and I found they were prone to failure far earlier than their standard gap counterparts.

I remember knocking a 6k house down to 4.5k because the GS bulbs were supposed to equal the light output. Two weeks later, we had to move a show print of Sky Captain out of the house because nobody could see anything.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-05-2005, 10:56 AM:

I have never had a warranty problem with an Osram bulb. Many were warranteed even though I was SURE they would not be. The factory even helps with technical assistance when a chronic problem persists. FYI: I sell Osram and Christie.

BTW: I have seen instances (in the distant past) where Osram issued the credit, but the dealer did not forward it on to the theatre.

Louis

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-05-2005, 03:30 PM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
I have never had a warranty problem with an Osram bulb. Many were warranteed even though I was SURE they would not be. The factory even helps with technical assistance when a chronic problem persists. FYI: I sell Osram and Christie.

Well Lou, then you are practically all by yourself in the warranty game. I at least several dealers that cut back selling Osram or completely quit selling them for that very reason. We were among those dealers for a while but when Osram cut us a better price we thought we'd give them another try. Nothing has changed in the warranty department either, thats for sure. We have few warranty claims with Osram because we sell so few(because of the piss poor claims). With Christie lamps we might have one claim every year, out of LOTS of lamps sold each year and thats about it. I can't knock Osrams tech asistance however, it is excellent if needed. I have not had to make use of it in over 15 years.... We just don't have all that many Xenon problems to begin with or that we have not been able to properly solve on our own.

Mark

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 06-06-2005, 07:58 AM:

I too can not fault OSRAM's warranty policy
they have honoured every legitimate warranty claim we made and those that were suspicious they gave a detailed report of what they found and they were usually right

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 06-06-2005, 11:10 AM:

i never had a warranty problem with Osram's either.