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Video
June 2007
Product Review: ELATION POWER SPOT 700
By Stephen Ellison
I just finished playing with the Power Spot 700 from Elation Professional. I use the word playing because this product ended up being a lot of fun.
The unit has a very impressive output from the MSR 700 lamp at a very reasonable current draw, only 7.5 amps. I ran the fixture through its paces and found that it will be a good functional fixture for the larger church venues. With a price point of only $8,999.00 MSRP for the CMY unit and $7995.00 for the standard unit, I think this fixture will find its way into a number of installations.
The fixture weighs in at 63 lbs. and is 19” x 14” x 29”. The power supply is an electronic ballast and will run on a range of incoming power from 90 to 260 volts and 50 or 60 Hz. The lamp is an MSR 700 watt 1000 hour lamp at 7500 Kelvin. The unit is rated at 900 watts at 120 volts for a draw of 7.5 amps. The reflector is made of glass with a dichroic coating for optimum reflectivity. They use two lenses to provide a range from 14 to 32 degrees and sharp focus-ability.
The unit is a moving yoke so that you can rotate the unit 530 degrees and tilt it 280 degrees. The Standard fixture uses 21 channels of DMX and the CMY unit uses 24 channels. The unit is described as a Hybrid fixture, “spot and wash in one”. They achieve the wash with two pieces of frost to change the hard edge to a soft edge with some variability. This feature would be more useful with the CMY unit which provides a greater choice of colors.
The choice of which fixture to choose will come down to how many gobos you want vs. color choices. When you add CMY you drop a color wheel and a rotating gobo wheel. A benefit of the CMY unit, other than the color mixing is the addition of an effects wheel. This wheel is useful to create effects like water or fire. When you purchase the unit you receive several extra effects wheels which are very easy to change out.
The unit comes with two color wheels for your color mixing pleasure. The first wheel has eight colors to pick from; they have arranged the colors so that when you spin the wheel it produces a rainbow effect. The second wheel has six more colors, and also two color temperature correction filters. In the CMY unit you get one additional color wheel and the Color correction is done with the CMY module.
I always like to have at least two gobo wheels with one rotating to create effects. Well the standard unit comes with not one, but two rotating wheels, while the CMY unit has at least the one. The static gobo wheel will hold nine gobos which are interchangeable, and can be spun in either direction. The indexing rotating wheel accepts seven gobos and they come loaded with an interesting array. The gobos would not be as much fun if you didn’t have an adjustable focus. All of the gobos are interchangeable so if you don’t like what they provide, or want to add your logo to the mix, it is not difficult.
I spoke with Eric Loader at Elation about the fixtures serviceability, and he encouraged me to remove the Gobo/Color Wheel Module while on the phone. They have made the removal of this module very easy, once the cover was off, the removal took 30 seconds. With the module out of the fixture, three captive screws allow the module to open in the middle like a book for quick change of any gobo or color.
The unit also has a variable motorized iris, and a motorized dimmer. The dimmer provided a nice fade and the iris, while not very sexy, is useful to have available. The last two features are the shutter for the strobe effect and a rotating prism to make the psychedelic effects even more fun. I also have to mention the display, it is so cool. Never having seen the fixture or literature prior to receiving the unit, I went looking for the display and couldn’t find it. They have placed it on the top of the side and when not turned on it is very hard to see. When on, the letters are in blue so this display will not be as distracting as most which are in red. The location is nice because you can easily read it from the ground.
I had a chance to set up the unit and let it run through a cue list for several hours which involved changing position and color along with gobo changes and rotation. I found that the unit was easy to program and moved through the cues very well. I tested the unit for sound and thought that the initial startup had only one attribute that clicked on a hard stop, and at the height this fixture would hang, noise would not be a serious issue. The fan has three settings so that you can cut the fan noise down if you find the normal setting to loud.
Based on the price and features, I would rate this fixture as worth seriously considering.
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