Buying from China ?

A

andrew gissing

Sophomore
Jan 11, 2011
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Perth Western Australia
www.stylusra.com.au
Hi,



I've got to cave in to some of my bar-band demands and get some lighting.



I'm thinking 8 or 16 led par can's on trees; pre-wire DMX cables to each other on a bar of 4; then link each bar together.



Something to throw light on the stage and be some simple kind of light show. Hey, if you want a real light show hire any number of lighting dudes in our town and they will bring lots of stuff to the gig.



Anyway.. so i've found led par cans in china cheap; $45 for the 188 10mm led variety and $90 for the 36 x 3w variety.



Reason i'm looking here is that prices in my city are way above that - $200 / 700 for the same items.



Has anyone had experience buying from china for this sort of thing ?



It does look like a lot of the branded led par cans are made in china anyway.. ?





andrew
 
Re: Buying from China ?

Hi Andrew-



Our shop just got 12 Blizzard RGBWA PAR fixtures, they're out on a corporate doing ''atmosphere'' tonight. Not sure under what name they might be sold down your way, but so far we're fairly happy with them. Not a 'theatre' quality light, but for everything else it looks promising.



A friend of ours bought some bulk LED fixtures from China. To say he's had an interesting time with them would be... putting a major spin on things. Chinese OEMs seem to have random protocols for what attributes work with one another, how they respond to DMX commands, etc. The build quality isn't terrible, but many parts seem thin and ding easily. I think plastic LED PARs are the future
icon_wink.gif




It took our friend many, many hours to get his lights working with the supplied controller, let alone a standard lighting desk. With the Blizzard fixtures, a couple of emails between them and Avo had fixture profiles in our email in about 24 hours. Stunning service from both vendors!



See if you can get a sample of whatever you're really interested in.



Have fun, good luck.



Tim Mc
 
Re: Buying from China ?

We bought both kinds at work, and honestly both work well for their intended use.



Par Can style 180x10mm : Never outside, handle gently (fragile)



Color Blast Style 36x1W : Very durable, mostly wateproof, the weak points are the wires which tend to break at the gromets, and are unfortunately very hard to change because the inside of the base is filled with epoxy (for IP65 rating apparently). Quite heavy in comparison with the cheaper cans, but much more durable and the output is much greater.





Look at your PMs, sent you something.
 
Re: Buying from China ?

Andrew Gissing wrote on Tue said:
Hi,



I've got to cave in to some of my bar-band demands and get some lighting.



I'm thinking 8 or 16 led par can's on trees; pre-wire DMX cables to each other on a bar of 4; then link each bar together.



Something to throw light on the stage and be some simple kind of light show. Hey, if you want a real light show hire any number of lighting dudes in our town and they will bring lots of stuff to the gig.



Anyway.. so i've found led par cans in china cheap; $45 for the 188 10mm led variety and $90 for the 36 x 3w variety.



Reason i'm looking here is that prices in my city are way above that - $200 / 700 for the same items.



Has anyone had experience buying from china for this sort of thing ?



It does look like a lot of the branded led par cans are made in china anyway.. ?





andrew
Click to expand...



Shane Presley had some issues with Blizzard Lighting quality control coming out of China. I saw the Propar 336 fixtures last week and they look exactly the same as many other Chinese fixtures. I think many are essentially churned out of the same factory with different labels attached at each company's respective warehouse. Many of the distributors for these are fly-by-night operations and do limited quality control themselves, so ordering from China may not be a significant disadvantage to buying from a distributor who may not offer much in the way of actual service.



That being said, the cheap pars are, often, VERY cheap. I have some Irradiant pars that are utter garbage. I can dent them with my pinky kind of thing. They did pay for themselves after 6 uses (Really!), but I'm now buying better pars that I can build of an inventory of.



If they are for your own use, I would suggest buying fewer better lights, even if they are from China. In my case, for rentals sometimes it's hard to get more for better quality but less quantity, so there is a need to strike a balance there.



Another thing to be aware of is if you have problems with your lights you will get NO service, and the fixtures will likely be worth less than it would cost to ship them back either way. If you don't mind having disposable equipment and can do enough shows to get use out of them in the near future, it might be worth it. If you want to keep them for five years I might consider a more reputable and established manufacturer and distributor.
 
Re: Buying from China ?

While the prices are cheap, the shipping is expensive. Also the payment is wire transfer (cash up front).



I have both Daisy & Longman lights; they've been solid and I haven't had any problems with them.



Which lights are you exactly looking like?



If you can afford it, start off with at least 1w bulbs. The color is much richer and the throw is much better than a 10mm.

 
Re: Buying from China ?

I read of Shane's issues, and must say that our experience is the exact opposite of his. Ours are RockLight 36 x 3w, RGBAW. Every one worked out of the box and so far have 3 shows on them.



The support we received from both Blizzard and AvoLites was exceptional, and we'll probably buy another dozen very soon, along with some Pucks.



Have fun, good luck.



Tim Mc
 
Re: Buying from China ?

Tim McCulloch wrote on Tue said:
I read of Shane's issues, and must say that our experience is the exact opposite of his. Ours are RockLight 36 x 3w, RGBAW. Every one worked out of the box and so far have 3 shows on them.



The support we received from both Blizzard and AvoLites was exceptional, and we'll probably buy another dozen very soon, along with some Pucks.



Have fun, good luck.



Tim Mc
Click to expand...





That's good to hear. What I saw of Shane's lights was just sloppy construction that wasn't caught by the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation. It sounded like Will was just trying to make everyone happy but in the process made promises that couldn't be kept. I take comfort in the fact that I can get my Colorado's serviced right here in Montreal by the Canadian distributor, which was the deciding factor for me.



 
Re: Buying from China ?

Thanks heaps guys !



So i'm understanding that cheap also means fragile. Got that.



I'll look into the other brands you've all mentioned.



The lights I was looking at are similar to the attached. THese are from one manufacturer but there are similar models by all I think.









Andrew
 
Re: Buying from China ?

I have some of the TyLed 3w RGBAW cast fixtures. I like them pretty well. They all worked out of the box. The shipping boxes were well made.



The 3 things I didn't like about them are:

1) No manual was supplied. The manual I got as a PDF when I complained was very poor. Lots of formatting errors. Doesn't even talk about some of the modes.



2) The cast units are heavier than I was expecting but I like them anyway. The dual yokes are great for floor use. I think I may buy some of the spun aluminum ones as well as they are lighter though they only have a single yoke.



3) The fans in them are loud in a quiet space. You don't notice them when there is a performance but since the units don't make hardly any heat, a couple of bucks for a variable speed fan would not have been a deal breaker.



What I like is:

1) Nice light output. The Amber and White really make it for front lighting the stage.



2) I like the idea of the lighter weight units for the next buy.



3) Shipping was included in the price.

 
Re: Buying from China ?

Hi Andrew,



I would assume that most of the branded lights are made in China. If anyone knows of any reasonably priced, high-powered LED PARs that are made in the USA please let me know and I'll buy some!



With that said, I've placed several orders with Daisy Lighting. I just received some 60*3watt RGBAW fixtures in yesterday. These lights are very solidly built and so far, I haven't had any issues with their products.



*SNIP*



Jeff
 
Re: Buying from China ?

Marlow Wilson wrote on Tue said:
Shane Presley had some issues with Blizzard Lighting quality control coming out of China. I saw the Propar 336 fixtures last week and they look exactly the same as many other Chinese fixtures. I think many are essentially churned out of the same factory with different labels attached at each company's respective warehouse. Many of the distributors for these are fly-by-night operations and do limited quality control themselves, so ordering from China may not be a significant disadvantage to buying from a distributor who may not offer much in the way of actual service..
Click to expand...



I think being from another country really injected some issues I've had with Blizzard. There are shipping delays / customs brokerage fees and requirements with paperwork that might be unfamiliar to them to date. I'm hoping that this process will continue to improve their customer service, and I will continue to support their product(s).



I just wanted to mention I just received 4 RGBAW rocklites from Blizzard, and at first impression they are a little underwhelming. 36 leds doing 5 colours leaves alot of area to cover. The white and amber leds (which is why I bought these for front lighting purposes, give about 50% of the output of what I think I'll need. So as a work around I'm going to use the red at 100%, green at 100% (to make yellow) and blue to taste to pump up the output of these fixtures...



Will did mention that they could produce strictly a 36 x AW LED only can - which I might look into - this would help for sure.



Also another minus which Tim had mentioned is the cooling fans on constantly. In fact I cannot use these fixtures for their intended purpose due to the fan drone of 4 fixtures(its a chruch basement turned into community room / poetry readings / small performance space)

I'll have to use them in my live situation, and install some par56 on a small dimmer pack.



I like these products, I just don't think they will work for the application that I chose them for, which will now cost me more money to supply something else.





 
Re: Buying from China ?

Irrespective of where you buy the parcans, look out for beam angle. A lot of the cheaper pars have a very tight beam angle. This can be a bit of a hindrance if you are trying to wash colour across a small stage. 10mm LEDs tend to be very beamy. We bought a batch of 24x1w Par 64 which are 45 deg, which is working pretty well for washing colour and uplighting.
 
Re: Buying from China ?

I've been using a few Colorkey LED (1 watt) pars for about 10 months now - bar to bar, although they travel in a road case - and they have performed and held up very well.



I'd suggest you consider this brand for 1 watt pars - if you want the housing to look like a traditional par can.



Terry
 
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