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4 replies

LED inconsistencies

G Guest
This is an interesting one.

I have 8 Mega Bar 50's, bought in 2 batches of 4 each, several months apart.

I noticed this issue because I had to aim the lights at a white surface, and unfortunately, I couldn't quite use them as footlights or uplights. I probably should have just left them off. But at any rate:

The older set, when at RGB values at 100% and dimmer 100%, sure appear "white". The other 4 appear more purple-ish. It's noticable because I numbered the lights. First batch is 1-4, because they were the first 4. The second are 5-8. When I lay them out, they go 1 and 5, 2 and 6, 3 and 7, 4 and 8 as pairs and addressed like the lower number(this will be resolved on my current lighting design).

Any thoughts as to why they'd be inconsistent? They are consistent within the batches.

Regardless of the answer, I'm contacting sales in a few days to order some replacement parts I need anyways. The end caps on these things break too easy, and I need to order some of the knobs as well. Always good to have a small inventory of these field-replacable parts.
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FM Former Member
Different manufacturing. I have noticed it with LED fixtures that have had LEDs replaced on them. They are off color as compared to the ones still using the original LEDs. Drives me nuts.

Best thing to do is as you have done, buy in batches and keep the batches together. I have noticed the same thing with the strobe feature as well on some LED fixtures. They will strobe at slightly different rates even though they are the same fixture and the console is outputting the same value. Just has to do with the manufacturing date and the type of LEDs used.
S Studio42 (Guest)
That's what I suspected. But I thought LED's should be immune to those issues.

At the time, as it typical, money only allowed so much to be purchased at a time.

When I buy the 2 sets of 8 LED cans(for a total of 16 cans), I'll definately buy them in a minimum of 1 type all at once, then the other type all at once later. Different models. 8 Opti Tri Pars and 8 RGB Zooms.
FM Former Member
Actually, it is just another area in which lamp technology is still ahead of LEDs. LED generate light based on the materials used and the amount. Light is emitted based on electrons 'falling into gaps or holes' on the materials used. Slightly different materials, slightly different gaps or holes, slightly different light generated. And anything can effect it really if you thing about it. It is like wallpaper, no two batches will ever be exactly the same.

Lamps age predictably and if you replace lamps at the same time in fixtures, they will look the same so long as the optic trains are the same. Tungsten lamps are even more predictable since they change very little if at all over the course of their life. They aren't really built on the microscopic level like LEDs are and thus the advantage.

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