Road Test – Elation Proteus Hybrid

Road Test

Elation Proteus Hybrid

by Wesley Hiscock.

Wesley Hiscock is the Senior Project Manager – Lighting at Adelaide’s Novatech Creative Event Technology. In a career spanning over 25 years, he has worked as a freelance chief electrician and lighting designer across the corporate and entertainment markets, been Chief LX at the UK’s Grange Park Opera, and spent four years as a Senior Lighting Supervisor for Opera Australia.

The Elation Proteus Hybrid is an IP65 rated, moving head, three-in-one fixture; beam, spot and wash. Novatech had an outdoor project come up, and we needed something reasonably priced and reliable to sit outside and wash some buildings. We liked the look of the Proteus Hybrid on paper, and asked distributor Lexair to send us a demo unit. We rigged it up on the truss in our warehouse, and did a head-to-head comparison for our own benefit.

We were happy with what we saw, and decided to proceed. Lexair and Elation were very easy to deal with; the lead time for the order was very short and it was just a couple of weeks before we had the Proteus Hybrids in the warehouse. We were pretty happy about that, as it can take up to eight weeks to receive orders from some manufacturers.

The Proteus Hybrid provided us with that little extra we needed while staying within the budget’s range. You can spend a huge amount on an IP65 rated moving light, but the Proteus was a cost effective fixture that fitted the brief, could be rolled out ASAP, and didn’t need to be put in a dome.

Performance
For their first gig, they sat out on Adelaide’s North Terrace for over a month as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival’s ‘Parade of Light’, washing buildings with a lot of colour and movement, using some breakups and slow rotation. The gobo projection was really crisp, and the fixture is very bright, even when using the prism. There was a lot of ambient light, and we were projecting across a six lane road in the CBD onto an LED wash, but they really cut through, and you could see everything we intended.
They are a decent fixture with good optics, and the zoom is brilliant. We didn’t have a single problem with any of them for the duration of the event, even though it rained quite a bit.

Build Quality
Their next test was at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, sitting on the foreshore for four weeks. The weather was terrible; the rain was coming in sideways and there was literally water dripping off these units, and again, not a single problem. It’s a testament to the quality of their construction; build quality is a major factor on anything IP65 rated. We had other gear come back which was full of salt and needed to be properly stripped down and rebuilt, whereas the Proteus Hybrids needed only very minor cleaning.

Flexibility
We’re now heading into the summer season, and we’ll definitely be using the Proteus Hybrids on
all our outdoor gigs, including New Year’ Eve and Australia Day. I’ll be hanging them on the front trusses of all of the stages that are a bit more exposed to the elements. I’m confident that they’re reliable enough to use on WOMADelaide next year. I’ve found that they’re just as good indoors as well. They’re a very bright fixture for the size, and versatile. I recently took them to the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Star Wars concerts at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, rigged them over the stage, and employed them as both a wash and a profile.

Improvements
The one thing that I think should be incorporated, and not just on the Proteus Hybrids, but most fixtures, is handles on the yolks. Sometimes when you pick lights up from the base and they’re sitting flat, they become very top heavy. With yolk handles, you can just pick them up and they’re much easier to move around, especially when they’re sitting on the deck.

Brand: Elation
Model: Proteus Hybrid
Product Info: www.elationlighting.com
Australia: www.lexair.com.au
New Zealand: www.lexair.nz

The Specs

Source: Philips MSD 21R 470W 8,000K Lamp, 1,000 Hour Average Lamp Life

Photometric Data: 80CRI | >23,000 Lumens, 13,375 LUX 1,243 FC @49.2’ (15m) (3.0° Spot), 233,000 LUX 21,646 FC @49.2’ (15m) (2.0° Beam), 11,500 LUX 1,068 FC @16.4’ (15m) (4.0° Wash)

Effects: Full 360° Bi-Directional Animation Wheel, Rotating Prisms and Prism Macros, Frost Filter Hybrid Wash Effect, Motorised Focus and Auto-Focus, High Speed Mechanical Shutter and Strobe

Colour: 14 Dichroic colours Including CTB, CTO, and UV. Full CMY colour Mixing and Linear CTO colour correction

Gobos: 8 Interchangeable Rotating / Indexing Glass Gobos, 14 Static-Stamped Metal Gobos

Control / Connections: (3) DMX Channel Modes (24 / 26 / 37), 6 Button
Touch Control Panel, Full Colour 180° Reversible LCD Menu Display, 8 / 16 Bit Resolution Adjustable Movement, DMX, RDM, Art-NET, and sACN Protocol Support, Elation’s E-FLY Internal Wireless DMX Transceiver, IP65 5pin DMX In/Out, IP65 RJ45 etherCON In/Out, IP65 powerCON TRUE1 Power In, Wired Digital Communication Network

Dimensions: Length 445mm, Width 572mm, Height: 800mm, Weight 38 kg

Electrical / Thermal: AC 100-240V – 50/60Hz, 700W Max Power Consumption, -10°C to 45°C]

This article first appeared in the October 2018 edition of CX Magazine – in print and online. 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

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