Moving Head Recommendations

[jem5136]

I'm looking to add some moving heads to the display, either this year or next. But I'm having trouble finding one that I like and that's affordable.

I'm looking for either a spot or beam moving head, one without a color wheel and costs less than $400. So far I've only found 1 that fits what I'm looking for. I'm wondering if anyone has used or seen something that will fit my budget.

I bought a couple of cheap moving heads from eBay (just to play around with), but looking for something with a little more quality.

[TypingOffKey]

http://www.prosoundrock.com/SL-1016A.html

These are an excellent bang for the buck. They're just slightly above your price range, but are quite powerful and have a lot of features that I think you'd appreciate. I used 4 of them in a display last year, all controlled with xlights, and everyone loved them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8K5gHBPwpU

You mention wanting something without a color wheel - do you want something with an LED light source that you can mix RGB values to create your own color, or do you want something that's literally just always a preset, solid color? Powerful LED light sources currently are not small enough to give you a good "laser beam"-like visible beam effect, so with an LED moving head you will be stuck with more of a wash effect. For true visible beams in the sky you will need something with a short-arc, metal halide lamp, and in my experience, at least in the 200 watt range.

You can still get true RGB color mixing in moving heads without a color wheel, it's just accomplished with sliding dichroic gradient filters between the light source and the focusing optics. Attached are a couple pictures from the inside of a Clay Paky Alpha Beam 700. The first shows the dichroic filter assembly (with static color wheel) just in front of the lamp housing / reflector at the bottom / back of the moving head (right side of picture). The second photo shows the assembly removed from the head, so you can get an idea for how they work. Each pair of shutters is designed with a gradient so that they insert more or less of the particular color as they're slid in and out of the path of light. Each of the 3 sets of filters are independently controllable with DMX channels (Just like RGB LEDs) so you can mix and create any color you want.

The biggest issue for any moving head in a outdoor application is keeping them clean and dry. The 4 in my display were elevated off the ground with bricks, and covered with plastic trash cans every night after the show. If it was raining or snowing, we would leave them covered and they would not be part of the show that night.

There are several manufacturers of full clear plastic enclosures (hard plastic or inflatable) but they often times cost as much, or more, than the fixtures themselves.