Elation Sixbar 1000

ROAD TEST

Elation Sixbar 1000

By Thomas Cox.

Thomas is the Senior Lighting technician at Sydney’s Audio Visual Events (AVE). Based in St Leonards, AVE has been providing production and equipment for everything from small boardroom meetings through to large scale events for 16 years. Thomas has over 10 years’ experience across multiple disciplines including audio and video, with lighting being his speciality.

“I highly recommend the Elation sixbar as a flexible, easy-to-use, high quality fixture that covers a huge variety of applications”

AVE recently purchased 60 units of Elation Sixbar 1000s. It was time to make a decent sized investment,  and it solved some issues we’d been having. The Elation Sixbar 1000s are a popular product in the market, which is important to us as we do a lot of cross-hiring. But they’re also incredibly bright and great for pixel mapping, which we also do a lot of.

APPLICATIONS
As we do a lot of corporate work, we often use the Sixbars for uplighting drapes and wall washing, as they’re brilliant in that application. I’ve used them once or twice as uplighting on the front of stage to illuminate faces, which has come in handy when doing a stage wash was a bit difficult.

Elation Sixbar 1000 with frost filter and shield (included)

I’ve been using them extensively for band effects, as they make very effective eye candy. Typically I’ve mounted them vertically on truss behind the band. I map every pixel, and run effects that I make myself on our console. I don’t tend to use content running on an external media server,  I prefer to make my own dimmer and colour effects.

On a recent show we ran control via ArtNet to DMX distribution, and we had  24 Sixbar 1000s mounted in the rig. The full pixel map on each fixture uses 72 channels, so the channels really added up. But the effect is so good that it’s why I personally choose to use Elation Sixbar 1000s.

RIGGING AND HANDLING
The rigging on the Sixbars makes our job much easier. Our old stock of LED strips was a bit hard to get up on the truss, but the Sixbar’s yoke makes them very easy to use. Attaching clamps is refreshingly easy, no matter if you’re working off truss or a lighting bar. You can make them fit where they need to go with very little trouble.

On each end of the Sixbar there’s a little magnetic plate, so when you butt them together as a ground row they actually line-up and fit perfectly flush with each other. It’s the simplest of things and it makes lining them up a lot easier. It’s all about the ease of use, and they are just so versatile.

COLOUR AND ACCESSORIES
The colours we’re getting out of the Sixbar’s RGBAW+UV LEDs are deep and true. Having the frost filter and glare shield included was of great value to us at AVE, particularly the glare shield, as we’ll often set up the  Sixbars under a projection screen. The glare shield really helps us keep unwanted light from bleeding out.

SUGGESTIONS
One thing I would have liked to see included on the Sixbars is powerCON True1, as they ship with standard powerCON. Most of our stock uses it, as do a lot of fixtures on the market. I thought Elation would have implemented it, but it’s not a big deal.

I highly recommend the Elation Sixbar as a flexible, easy-to-use, high quality fixture that covers a huge variety of applications.

Brand:  Elation
Model: Sixbar 1000
Pricing: Trade price $990 ex GST
Product Info:  www.elationlighting.com
Distributor: www.lexair.com.au

ELATION SIXBAR 1000 – THE SPECS
• 12 x 12W 6-IN-1 RGBAW+UV LEDs with 100,000 average hour LED life
• 30° beam angle
• individual control of each LED
• variable dimming curve modes
• strobe and chase effects
• a UV wavelength of 395nm
• ArtNet, KlingNet and RDM protocol support
• 3pin and 5pin DMX
• powerCon and RJ45 in/out connections
• LCD menu display with 4 button control panel
• integrated dual rigging brackets
• multiple unit power linking
• rugged die-cast aluminium exterior
• frost filter and glare shield included
• flicker free operation for TV and Film
• 145W max power consumption
• multi-voltage universal auto switching powersupply (110-240v)

PHOTOMETRIC DATA
• 8,500 LUX 790 FC @3.3’ (1m) (30° Full ON)
• 3,660 LUX 340 FC @6.6’ (2m) (30° Full ON)
• 2,040 LUX 190 FC @9.8’ (3m) (30° Full ON)
• 1,290 LUX 120 FC @13.1’ (4m) (30° Full ON)
• 878 LUX 82 FC @16.4’ (5m) (30° Full ON)

DIMENSIONS
• Length: 900mm
• Width: 206.4mm with included glare shield
• Vertical Height: 155mm
• Weight: 7.3 kg

This article first appeared in the print edition of CX Magazine June 2018, pp.61-62. CX Magazine is Australia and New Zealand’s only publication dedicated to entertainment technology news and issues. Read all editions for free or search our archive www.cxnetwork.com.au