Clay Paky ALPHA SPOT 300 User Manual download pdf

May 2008 •

Lighting&Sound

America

TECHNICAL FOCUS : PRODUCT IN DEPTH

This month, we are examining the Clay

Paky Alpha Spot 300 HPE (Fig. 1). That’s a

mouthful of a name for what is actually quite

a compact unit. At 300W, it’s a few watts up

from the more usual 250W units, but clearly

competes for the same market segment.

How does it compare with its many rivals?

You won’t be surprised that this review

follows the usual format. I take a single unit

supplied to me by the manufacturer and

measure everything on that unit as

accurately as I can, then give you the basic

facts and figures so you have the information

to draw your own conclusions. To try and

keep things logical, I always start at the lamp

and work forward, ending at the output lens.

The Alpha Spot 300 HPE is fitted with

universal power supplies and will run on the

standard worldwide voltages of 100-120V or

200-240V 50/60Hz. For these tests, it was

supplied with a nominal 118V 60Hz and

consumed 3.85A for 450W of power at a

0.99 power factor.

Lamp

This is the first time I’d seen this lamp, the

Philip’s MSR Gold 300/2 FastFit (Fig. 2). The

arc tube configuration is conventional, but it

uses a smaller variation of the fast-fit base

that we’ve seen on larger lamps. In this case,

the base is somewhat simpler than its larger

cousins and is symmetrical, so the lamp can

be fitted either way round. (The larger lamps

have one large pin and one small, so they

can only be inserted in one orientation). As

always with this system, the lamp change

was simple and quick. Remove some captive

screws, and the rear plate comes off,

exposing the lamp base (Fig. 3). As you can

see in the photograph, there are also three

lamp-adjustment screws for setting lamp

alignment. These screws are also accessible

through holes, without having to remove the

rear plate. Next is a conventional faceted

cold-mirror glass elliptical reflector, but this

was not followed by the usual hot mirror. I

guess that, at 300W, Clay Paky didn’t need it.

Right beside the reflector is the high-voltage

ignitor connected back to the electronic

ballast mounted in the top box (Fig. 4).

Uniform field lens

You would normally expect to see the dimmer

next in the chain, but Clay Paky has added a

novel optical element. The company calls it a

uniform field lens, and, as can be clearly seen

in Figure 5, it’s constructed as a piece of

textured glass with an aperture in the center.

Through a DMX512 channel you can select to

have this in the optical train or not. When

inserted, it does as its name suggests and

noticeably flattens the field. The photometrics

later in this review tell the story fully, but I

should mention now that one frustration with

Clay Paky Alpha

Spot 300 HPE

By: Mike Wood

Fig. 1: Unit as tested.

Fig. 2: Lamp.

Fig. 3: Lamp change.

Fig. 4: Reflector and cooling.

Fig. 5: Uniform field lens.

It’s been a while since we last looked at a Clay Paky luminaire,

but that’s not to say that the company has been idle. Clay

Paky has always been a prolific producer of new automated

lighting products ever since those first Golden Scans

appeared back in the mid-1980s. Back then, Clay Paky and

Coemar were two of the largest companies manufacturing

automated products (all mirror-based scanners at the time).

Both of them were, and still are, based in northern Italy and

had access to the innovative design engineering that centered

round Turin and the Italian automotive industry. The Italian

design flair is well-known, and their products have always

been distinctive. However, our concern here is, of course,

more performance-centered than aesthetic.

Lighting&Sound

America May 2008

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com

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Summary of Contents

Page 1 - Spot 300 HPE

May 2008 •Lighting&SoundAmericaTECHNICAL FOCUS : PRODUCT IN DEPTHThis month, we are examining the ClayPaky Alpha Spot 300 HPE (Fig. 1). That’s amo

Page 2 - Color systems

optics is that you never get something for nothing and, in this case,that more uniform field comes at the expense of some output. Withthe uniform fiel

Page 3 - Strobe shutter

TECHNICAL FOCUS : PRODUCT IN DEPTHClay Paky has gone for color-correction filters with theminus green and two CTOs, as well as some of the harder-to-m

Page 4 - Lenses and output

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • May 2008 Positioning and indexing accuracy on the rotating goboswas average. The measured hysteresis error was aroun

Page 5 - Electronics and control

May 2008 •Lighting&SoundAmericaTECHNICAL FOCUS : PRODUCT IN DEPTHoptics. The output was indeed as expected from ellipsoidaloptics, with something

Page 6 - Construction and service

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • May 2008 Construction and service-abilityConstruction is straightforward andfollows the common model of a rigidcentr