Audio Visual Events take great pride in being able to offer their clients the latest in AV equipment and so it was no surprise that they were the first production company in Australia to welcome a fleet of eight Claypaky Axcor Profile 900, Claypaky’s first spotlight to use an LED light source instead of a traditional discharge lamp.
“Essentially we purchased the Axcor Profile 900s because we were after a larger profile fixture and it was a massive bonus that they also offer a framing system,” commented David Campbell, Managing Director at AVE. “None of our lights in our stock do framing so it was quite a big deal.”
The patented framing system works on four different focal planes and can generate sharp shapes of different sizes and proportions. The system is not affected by any shaping distortions even at wide beam angles, where significant distortions normally occur.
Of course, the fact that the Axcor 900 utilises an LED light source means that it is environmental friendly as it uses less power consumption – little more than 1 kW. Plus an LED source means less maintenance and less globe costs. As the only time the light source is being used is when the shutter is opened, the light engine should keep working for the full life of the fixture and not need to be replaced.
“They’re really, really bright even for an LED fixture,” added David. “The beam output is very clean and the fixtures are almost silent in operation. They haven’t disappointed and have performed brilliantly. It’s no wonder that they’re proving to be very popular in our stock.”
The beam produced by the Axcor Profile 900 is dense and evenly distributed for the entire length of the beam, at any beam angle in its zoom range of 7-40 degrees, and its CMY colour mixing system uses gradual-insertion dichroic wheels, supported by a linear CTO correction device, to produce perfectly smooth transitions between colours. In addition, a separate colour wheel carries six carefully selected professional colour filters, including a custom-designed CRI enhancement filter.
The Axcor Profile 900, with its’ bright LED engine lamp source and flat field, has all the functions a designer requires in a profile fixture. Thompson Cox, Senior Lighting Tech at AVE, has used the fixtures on several large corporate gala dinners and he has been very impressed.
“The optics are incredible,” he remarked. “For example, when you’re doing a large gobo through a band they stay clean and crisp. Their brightness is amazing especially when compared to all of our other fixtures. I did a show where I had them on my front truss to do a lot of spot work and framing in and to be honest, they were unbelievable.
“As well as being able to shape their beams any way I want, I have control over the shutters and can use them to produce cool aerial effects. There are no shaping distortions that you usually see on hard edge lights when the beam is shaped to be a blade of light. The zoom is quick enough to be used as a beam effect and the iris comes packed with macros for more effects.”
Claypaky has come up with an innovative and efficient cooling system that dissipates the heat with intelligent speed-controlled fans and through tubular heat ducts made of heat conductive material. The other thing to remember about this fixture is that the dimmer and strobe mechanisms are all electronic, and the dimmer is perfectly linear.
“We are proud to provide the Claypay Axcor Profile 900, the leading high output LED Profile fixture, to one of the leading audio visual rental houses in Australia,” added Show Technology’s Mike Gearin. “It’s the only true discharge replacement in the old 1500w category, a beautiful source with no compromises.”
