PLASA 2012: SGM LED-based strobes arrive

31 August 2012

UK - Following a highly successful summer, SGM's two LED-based strobes will arrive at PLASA 2012 (on stand #1-G28) where they will join a suite of other innovations.

These 'world first' X-5 (white) and XC-5 (RGB) LED strobes have redefined the art of the lighting designer this summer, says the company. From the Hacienda's historic 30th birthday in Manchester, where X-5's provided an explosive, low-level 'white out' (resting in cable trays in an underground concrete car park) to rocking the 25,000 who attended Mayday Festival in Dortmund, clubbers and LD's alike have been seduced by the creative options and low energy draw of a product which is traditionally power-hungry.

The XC-5 colour strobe utilises 1200 RGB Welly Power LED's, boasting just 360W power consumption (with 6W standby power) and a lamp life of 50,000 hours. Housed in a black, slim aluminium chassis, it contains 160° lens as standard, tilt of 0°-180°, 4 or 8 DMX channels, and set up is via OLED 5-button graphic display.

Meanwhile the X-5 is a white LED strobe, with 3,000 Welly Power LED's, power consumption of 360W (standby power of 6W), with lamp life of 50,000 hours. Housed in a black, slim aluminium chassis, it contains 160° lens as standard, tilt of 0°-180°, 1 or 4 DMX channels and set up via OLED 5-button graphic display.

Said SGM's CEO, Peter Johansen, "Strobes have traditionally proved a problem for many tours - they are such high wattage that they need extra generators to power them. In fact, for rental companies this equates to a saving on two gensets of 150kW when replacing 100 conventional strobes with the SGM versions. It also represents a huge cost saving on trucking."

He adds, "The reality is that we are delivering the same output as conventional strobes from one fifth of the power. With our new devices we can overdrive the LED 20 times without destroying it to produce different flash combinations."

As with all SGM's new LED models, cooling methods have been improved via rectangular heatsinks, set-up and address procedures improved with the aid of internal diagnostics, and control procedures implemented to ensure that lamps run flicker-free.

(Jim Evans)