We have just taken delivery of 2 new Coollights LED600 panels fitted with V-Lock battery adapter and a T-Bar to use both lights together.

Congratulations Richard! my first impressions are very positive, they are well made, and that really is a nice little carry case they come in. We put them on to the T-bar and fitted IDX 7s batteries and they powered up just fine with all the switches working as they should.

They will be going out on a number of jobs shortly (from industrial to interviews) so we will take some pics of them in action and add them to a review we have done of the Lite Panels and Kelvin Tyle LED products we demoed in the studio recently.

Well done Richard, I really think you have a real winner with these, they are a very nice size with a very useable light source - in fact, my first impressions are that you really have got that size (8x8) just right, particularly for air travel. Perhaps one thing you may want to think of is, supplying a protective front screen (like the 1X1 LP) - I can see that being useful in dirty/dusty conditions. Anyway... this looks like a great product.

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

Thanks for your comments Stewart!

I answered your email about the protective panel but I'll answer here as well. We know about the plastic protection panel on the 1x1 but didn't include it because we were somewhat worried about heat buildup between the panel and the plastic sheet protection. One thing is, we drive our LEDs to just below spec for them to get the output we get. Most other panels and products on the market underdrive the LEDs so they run cooler than ours do but are also weaker in output. We did put our LEDs well back into the case as one measure of protection. And you might consider a sheet of thick acetate if you are really worried about it, or a sheet of cracked ice diffusion panel which should not cut too much light but should actually help make the output a bit less hard than it is now.

I have never understood how to determine the comparable light from LED set ups. I currently shoot content with 3 seperate tungsten lights with 1000 watt bulbs and silk diffusers on softboxes. How does the light from an LED panel compare? How many of these would I need to equal each of my current lights?

Thanks!

Bill

You just take the lux or footcandle measured output of the LED fixture and compare it to the lux or footcandle measured output of other existing fixtures such as tungsten or hmi fresnels. That's what we did when we said our LED panel was about equivalent of a 650w tungsten fresnel. I took the photometrics for an Arri, then ran my own readings at equivalent distances and compared them. The assumption was supported in this way.

makes sense. Now i just have to figure out how to measure that for my current lights and then compare it to your LED panels. :-) Do you provide the output information for your panels on the website? I didnt notice it anywhere.

Thanks!

Bill

Having been using two of these panels in an industrial location both via V-Lock battery and mains power, we have been very surprised at the light output, they have exceeded our expectations. We planned to use them as fill lights along with conventional open faced Arri 2Ks and ended up keeping the Arris in the box!

We will have a link available to a review we have done on these lights in a day or two and you will see from the pics some of the set ups.

So far we are very impressed…

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

Looking forward to read your review!

Me too! Please post here as soon as it is up.

Thanks!

Bill

I added photometrics specs to the product page now:

CL-LED600 600 LED Panel - Cool Lights USA (http://www.coollights.biz/clled600-panel-p-114.html)

But will post here as well...

Lux output of the panels (2 feet, 4 feet and 6 feet respectively for each fixture):

Cool Lights 5600K spot 40 degree 7200L 2610L 740L
Cool Lights 5600K flood 60 degree 6000L 1900L 600L
Cool Lights 3200K spot 40 degree 7100L 2510L 690L

For comparison sake here are the specs of an Arri 650w fresnel...

Arri 650 12 degree spot 7694L 2770L 693L
Arri 650 30 degree medium 2542L 915L 229L
Arri 650 52 degree flood 1417L 510L 128L

wow... impressive specs Richard!

Cool Lights 5600K flood 60 degree 6000L 1900L 600L
Arri 650 52 degree flood 1417L 510L 128L

Am I reading this right?

Richard's lights at 60 degrees puts out more than 4 times the light than a 650-watt light with 52 degrees of coverage?

If so, then, "wow".

Was that because the 650-watt light was gelled with a full CTB to get a 5200K light?

Hi Dean,

I can't answer specifically how they tested them but no gels were used as it was just a standard photometrics spec for the Arri 650w by itself. I just took the specs from Arri's website for comparison purposes.

OK. Thanks, Richard.

I was wondering how well these might do as a replacement for my Lowell Tota Lights.

I generally use them with a 750 W lamp to light up a green screen that's 10 feet wide. In which case I'd need two floods.

Not sure what I'd use as a key since I generally try to simulate sunlight. Although I could use a tungsten light and gel it.

Wow Richard those specs are impressive. Once I get done with school and get a real job(hopefully) I'll have to get more of your stuff.

By the way, your 150W HID worked great in a cave with a car battery and a 400W inverter. Unfortunately I didn't bring a light for fill so my video didn't turn out well enough to post. I will post the final product when I get it done.

Thanks again for making great products!

Hehe, Eric you're always crawling around in tight and claustrophobic spaces with our lights. You may be the first to have used the CDM with an inverter on a battery like that. I hope at some point we can make a DC version of the ballast which would alleviate the need for that inverter.

Thanks for the kind words, I'm still out here with much more planned. We're still on it and we're not slowing down.

For those interested here is the link to the promised review of various makes of LED lighting products brought to our studio. The main part tends to focus more on the Cool Lights LED600 panels and you can see them in various environments from interior, exterior sets and from industrial to studio use.

http://www.studioscotland.com/litepan_review.htm

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

I currently use a 500W worklight for my productions and weddings, will this product be a good replacement? Does it match a softbox? Will I be able to place it 4 meters from a subject and get enough light? I'm new to AB, V-Mount batteries, I'm not quite sure what this means or what I should buy, could anyone please explain this to me, maybe even advise what would be the cheapest/best for me to buy.

Stewart thanks for the review, much appreciated. I also noticed you use a ladder as a dolly, this is genius! I've been struggling to find a transport solution my aluminium build dolly, that ladder takes the cake!

Thank you for your review Stewart.

I am very happy to see the lights having an impact in outdoor scenes.

I realize they are not the sun, but they look as if they can add some fill when shooting people outside.

That really helps when the alternative is no light or bringing out the generator.

Nicholas, an AB mount stands for Anton Bauer. Here is a link to the battery that I think would fit an AB mount.
Anton Bauer | Digital HyTRON 140, NiMH Battery | HYTRON140 | B&H (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/380683-REG/Anton_Bauer_HYTRON140_Digital_HyTRON_140_NiMH.html#features)
With this version of the battery I would assume it should power the LED fixture for roughly 2.9 hours.
This a a link to a V-mount style battery.
IDX | ELITE Endura Lithium-Ion V-Mount Battery - 14.4 | ELITE (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/481040-REG/IDX_ELITE_ELITE_Endura_Lithium_Ion_V_Mount.html)

It looks like both options are about the same cost and have the same number of Watt Hours.


I see that there is also a 4 pin XLR on this light. I'm wondering if someone has a 12v battery and puts a male 4 pin XLR connector on the battery, if that could then power the light. On the specs it says 4 pin XLR output so I assume trying this would mess up the light.


Oh yeah Richard, I can't believe you remember I took one of your fresnels into a crawl space. I completely forgot about that.

Sorry I can't be more help about answering your question about how these will compare to a worklight. Richard did post specs about how these compare to a 650W fresnel which should be much more directional than your worklight, and when the fresnel is flooded out some it appears that the LEDs are brighter.

Stewart, Great review, I am also very happy with the kit Richard sold me. I too really like the Litepanels and in time may get one or two, but these Coolights will form the bulk of my lighting rig. As for smaller lights I have a combination of LPMicro, Vidleds and IDX lights but am going to try the IKAN unit, do you have any experience with that one?

Richard, instead of using gels do you think you can perhaps make a more rigid colour correcting filter that could be left in place as a kind of protector as well? It would make life that little bit easier.

Dan

Stewart,

Thanks so much! We appreciate the time you spent on that. Your's must be one of the first reviews of the Kelvin Tile also.

Nicholas,

All good questions. I would say the LED600 should be a bit brighter than your 500w work light and is native daylight so doesn't need to be gelled to match daylight. Available in tungsten color too. Eric gave a good explanation of battery technology but you can also use just about anything that can be adapted out through a 4 pin XLR connector into our fixture and puts out between 10VDC and 24VDC. That really opens up a lot of possibilities for battery powering.

Eric,

Thanks for the info on batteries. The batteries I tested with so far were my RED Vmount 140wh, and I also have two batteries from the same company that makes batteries for the website batteries4broadcast.com--a 160wh ab mount and a 190wh v mount. All these work fine because those standards are so well implemented that you can pretty much just count on them working.

Dan,

Yes I have thought about the filters and am going to look into that for next production cycle. At least a 1/8 minus green and a full CTO would be great to have in a 1/16" thick acrylic panel. Maybe also a plastic fresnel lens and a prismatic diffusion panel also. What a great set to have to go along with the LED 600 and paired with a flat nylon carring case.

You are all very welcome to the review, pictures speak a thousand words and I hope many will be able to see what can be achieved with these units. We will be shooting out in the Middle East shortly and the Cool Lights are going with us to all kinds of outdoor and indoor environments. We are still trying to work out our ultimate LED travel package that will be feasible to take onto an aircraft.

Richard: So far we have had no issues whatsoever with these units and in fact, today we are off to a photo shoot (product photography) and we were about to pack some strobes and soft boxes when I thought.. “Hey lets take the Cool Lights and give them a try”. Took us minutes to pack what we need and you could throw the amount of kit in the back seat of a small car compared to the back of a pick up truck. I just love it when people make my life easier… :-)

Tim: They really do work outside! have no fear...

Dan: – Not used IKAN lights… have you tried the 1X1s?, we have decided not to get them because the LED600s are doing the job very well and are brighter. The Lite Panels Mini Plus is fabulous and far more useable than the Micro - but expensive.

Nicholas: – In my experience, 20 years ago I used work lights to very good effect, however, when you can afford it, pro built lighting is far user friendly. The Cool Lights do indeed kick out more light than a 500w TH and the light quality is far easier to deal with in regards to colour temperature – it all depends what you’re doing. Heat is another issue you would not miss. Battery power as explained by …. is very useful. A reason we use V-Lock batteries is because they also fit our cameras and field monitors – it’s all part of a system…; however that kind of convenience does come at a price if you are just starting out.

As you can see from the pics – those LED600s are a good distance from the subject matter –and they needed to be because grit blasting was being done!

And oh yes... the ladder dolly is a great little invention...

Richard has delivered a super product at a fantastic price point.

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

Thanks for all the replies to my questions. Richard you have done it once again, you should be awarded an innovation award for yet another superb "working" idea. I've been dreaming about 5600K light, however always out of my budgets reach (HMI, Litepanels). I'm looking forward to owning two units.

Richard do you think you could add a radio controlled switch into the mix for distance on/off control? I would try modding mine for this however it would be great if you designed them into the lights.

The option to run these lights from batteries is very attractive eg flexibility and fast set-up times. However I was horrified at what the batteries cost.
Richard - I use a Tamiya rechargeable battery for my Fostex FR2 LE sound recorder. It's the sort of battery they sell in model shops for toy cars etc. Would one of these work as well as the AB and V mount batteries (sorry, I know absolutely nothing about these batteries)?
If so do you know if it is possible to buy a caddy to drop the battery into so that you can plug the light into it. And if there isn't such a thing would it be an attractive idea for you to make one? I'm happy not to mount the battery on the light itself. At the foot of the lighting stand would work fine for me. Makes the light more stable too.
I've already got quite a bit of money tied up in batteries and chargers for my Sony and Canon cameras etc and don't want to spend more, particularly at these prices.

Hi Richard,

The power draw in your Fostex recorder is very low so the batteries used for it wouldn't work for long at all with the LED600. Our panel draws almost 50w at 12VDC so its much more power hungry and thus you need a more serious battery to power it. Thats why we went with the AB or V mount types which are typically 14.5 to 16 volts and can be found easily up to 190WH. To get the time such a battery would drive our panel, you simply divide the 190 / 50 and you get 3.8 hours. In actual practice, its a bit less but this is close enough for figuring out the rough capacity. My 160WH AB battery powers the unit for about 3 hours (160/50 = 3.2).

Your Fostex can work for 4 hours on 4 AA batteries so the two are worlds apart in power usage. You can power the panel off of a cigarette lighter or power tap in a car as long as its rated for at least 50w or so.

Cars have lead acid batteries in them which are very reliable but also very big and heavy. The lithium types like the v and ab are so much more compact and lightweight compared to lead acid technology and more complicated too so they draw a premium in price. Portability does usually equate to a more complex setup and more cost as well.

Thanks Richard
I sorry. I am completely hopeless when it comes to anything to do with electricity. It's a complete blind spot with me. My Tamiya battery has got 4300 written on it. I've no idea what that means but I get the message that it is too underpowered.
It sounds like the only way to run the light off a battery without paying more for the battery than the light is to use a car battery with an inverter? Until you bring out a DC option. I can't imagine myself doing it very often but it might be useful on the odd occasion.

Richard,

Not necessary to use an inverter with any battery or with our panel. The input of the LED600 is DC 10V to 24V so anything in that range will work which includes car batteries (12vdc). The panel comes with an AC to DC power supply so thats how you power it from the wall.

The main thing is to rig up a 4 pin XLR cable from the battery to our unit. For instance you would need a cigarette lighter connector on one side for use in a car and a 4 pin XLR female on the other side (pin 1 ground / pin 4 + voltage -- pin 2 and 3 open). If you're not sure how to do that, I'm sure its possible to find that cable or get someone to make one for you.

Hi Richard
Many thanks. That's very helpful.

Stewart, nice review; thanks. If I may ask, what was the price range of the Kelvin Tile?

Thanks again...

Hey Richard (from the UK) here's a website that has lead acid sealed batteries.
AP-1250F1 - Amstron 12V/5AH Sealed Lead Acid Battery w/ F1 Terminal (http://www.atbatt.com/product/20763.asp)

The link I gave you is for a 60 watt hour (Whr) so it would be able to power one of the LED lights for probably an hour and a few minutes.

I don't know anything at all about this company and by no means recommend or not recommend this site. I just wanted to let you know that you can make your own battery pack on the cheap, and would only weigh about 4lbs. If you do want to go the route of making your own batteries make sure the lead acid battery is a sealed type. I assume most of the small ones will be like that.

Combine that or a similar battery with these three items and you should have an inexpensive portable power option.

Bescor | XLR-CP 4-pin XLR Female to Cigarette Male | XLRCP | B&H (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/92973-REG/Bescor_XLRCP_XLR_CP_4_pin_XLR_Female.html)

Bescor | XLR-12MF 4-pin XLR Male to 4-pin Female Power | XLR10MF (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/133705-REG/Bescor_XLR10MF_XLR_12MF_4_pin_XLR_Male.html)

Bass Pro Shops Battery Clip Cigarette Lighter Plug Adapter (http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&partNumber=864&cm_ven=bazaarvoice&cm_cat=RLP&cm_pla=864&cm_ite=description_link)

total cost for materials to run the light for about an hour $70 plus however much shipping would be.

To make a setup that would last as long as the pro batteries I mentioned earlier would be about $100 since all you would have to do would buy two more of the above batteries.

The hidden cost of saving all this money would be that you pay for it in weight and inconvenience. The pro battery costs about 5 times as much as the home made version....however the pro battery weighs 5.5lbs and the home made version would weigh in at about 13 pounds and take up much more space. Another advantage to the home made version is that you could charge these batteries with pretty much any car charger set on low....then you could make a wire connecting all the batteries in parallel and charge them all at once. Basically if you get somewhere and you need light to last longer I believe you can find 12V batteries just about anywhere in the world.

Everything is a trade off.

Hi Eric
Many thanks. Just the kind of practical information I needed. Invaluable.

Thanks for posting this as well Eric.

BTW, can one extend the cable length without affecting the current flow?

Maybe a 16' cigarette to 4-pin XLR + 20' 4-pin XLR to 4-pin XLR?

16' would be a bit short in certain situations.

I think as long as you use like a 16 gauge zip cord as your cable, it shouldn't be a problem. Even 18g might work but I think 16 gauge would give much less drop over that length.

*disclaimer* It's been years since I've performed a voltage drop test. If something or everything I mention below is wrong please let me know so I can fix my mistakes or delete parts of my post.

I'm not nearly so good on this part. If you want to run a longer cable and not have much of a voltage drop you will need a thicker gauge wire (make sure its the wire gauge that is thicker, along with having more strands. In other words make sure the shielding is not the only thing that is thicker.).
To determine if you need a bigger gauge wire(wire will be listed with by the smaller the wire gauge the larger the conductor....example a 16 gauge wire has a thicker conductor than a 20 gauge wire) perform a voltage drop test. Take a volt meter and put one of the probes on say, the positive terminal of the battery, and put the other probe right before the load which would be the light in this case(still on the same positive cable). If you see a reading of more than .4 according to How To Perform A Voltage Drop Test - Help With Automotive Circuit Diagnosis (http://www.engine-light-help.com/voltage-drop.html) you have to much resistance in your wiring and need to step up to a larger gauge wire.

Wow, maybe I shouldn't have given all this information out, it looks like I could have started selling my own DC 4 pin XLR power supplies. Well, Bescor already sells the battery belts with a 4pin XLR.


Hope this helps.

Edit: Richard beat me to the post with a much simpler answer.

All good information Eric. I definitely wouldn't bother with shielded cable for a power run since this is DC there's no high frequency to protect against thus no noise to worry about. That would be wasted so just the 16g unshielded zip cord should be fine.

On the subject of voltage drop, you definitely want to make sure it doesn't drop much below 10VDC if you're making a custom cable, as that's the base where the panel wouldn't function anymore. We'll go down to 10VDC but not much lower than that.

I would plan on using this LED off of the cigarette plug on my Bescor battery belt as the 4-pin would be in use powering the camera.

Richard,

Would you be able to make a 30' cigarette plug to 4-pin XLR cable?

(Probably) not a problem Tim. I would of course want to test that to make sure the voltage drop wasn't too severe but I'm betting its okay. Would be an interesting experiment anyway.

For anyone interested in cobbling together their own 12-volt batteries, here's how I created my own.

The pack consists of four A123 Systems batteries taken from a DeWalt nano-phosphate battery pack. You can also get these batteries directly from A123 Systems as a "developers kit": Developer Kit, ANR26650M1 High Power Lithium Ion Cells (http://yhst-65588400267125.stores.yahoo.net/prdeki.html)

A developers kit comes with six batteries. To get an hour of light for the CoolLights LED, you'll need eight to provide enough watt-hours.

These batteries have high energy density, allow a lot of charge/recharge cycles (more than 1,000) and are much safer than lithium-ion or lithium polymer batteries. There was a demonstration where a drill was driven right through a fully charged battery. Any other lithium battery would have burst into flames and possibly explode. But the A123 battery just smoked a bit.

I built a pack of four batteries, connected in series, for a total voltage of 13.2 volts, 2.3 amp-hours. These batteries can provide up to 120 amps for 10 seconds so be very, very careful not to short them! It's also possible to combine two packs of four batteries to get 13.2 volts and 4.6 amp-hours.

There are "balance taps" for each cell. A balance charger from FMA Direct charges each cell individually and monitors voltage for a precise charge. This maximizes battery life. I'm using a Cellpro charger: FMA Direct : Product Detail (http://www.fmadirect.com/detail.htm?item=2218&section=45)

There's also a Cellpro charger that can handle up to 10 cells: FMA Direct : Cellpro 10s Charger (http://www.fmadirect.com/new_applications/10s_charger.htm)

After soldering the tabs and connecting the balance taps, I wrapped the pack with thin foam sheet and heat shrink. I built two of these and power a variety of things including a small LCD monitor and an on-camera LED light.

Much of this comes from the radio-controlled airplane/helicoper industry. They're always looking for solutions that provide a lot of power with the least amount of weight.

The pack consists of four A123 Systems batteries taken from a DeWalt nano-phosphate battery pack. You can also get these batteries directly from A123 Systems as a "developers kit": Developer Kit, ANR26650M1 High Power Lithium Ion Cells (http://yhst-65588400267125.stores.yahoo.net/prdeki.html)

A developers kit comes with six batteries. To get an hour of light for the CoolLights LED, you'll need eight to provide enough watt-hours.

Just to clarify. You will need 8 batteries, not 8 developer kits.
Four batteries wired together in series would give you about 30.36Whr and weigh in at 70g or 0.62lbs....plus weight of the case.

For a setup that would last about 2 hours or have 91.08Whr this would run $220(for two developer kits) + extra for the charger, and would weigh 840g or 1.85lbs.


Going this route would be cheaper and lighter than buying a pro battery. You won't get the LCD power meter like the pro batteries have unless you make one yourself though.

Actually, you might want to look at the Bescor battery belts at B&H.

They have one that goes up to 288 watt hours for $199

Bescor | PRB-24XLRATM Heavy Duty Starved | PRB24XLRATM | B&H (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/111548-REG/Bescor_PRB24XLRATM_PRB_24XLRATM_Heavy_Duty_Starved.html)

I have used a smaller version for 4 years now for 1/10th the price of an Anton Bauer setup and longer running times.

For anyone interested in cobbling together their own 12-volt batteries, here's how I created my own.

The pack consists of four A123 Systems batteries taken from a DeWalt nano-phosphate battery pack. You can also get these batteries directly from A123 Systems as a "developers kit": Developer Kit, ANR26650M1 High Power Lithium Ion Cells (http://yhst-65588400267125.stores.yahoo.net/prdeki.html)



I ordered two of the LED600's and like Dean said I have alot of A123 batteries in various configurations from RC Helicopters. What I wonder is, if an 8S 28.8v (29.2V hot off the charger) will be more efficient than a 4S 14.4v battery. Higher voltage should reduce the amp draw but then there might be a loss of energy from the voltage being regulated to whatever the native voltage is. Any thoughts?

The DC to DC converter is only good up to 24v so I wouldn't run it past that.

Kevin...

I'm messing around a little with RC helicopters, too. That's how I came across the nano phosphate batteries.

These LED lights don't draw amps like helicopters. So higher voltages don't really buy you any additional efficiency advantages. In theory, you don't get something for nothing. So it's either amps and volts, or volts and amps. The transitive properties of multiplication is the same in either direction. So with a given wattage, it won't matter which is which. Just keep in mind that there is a voltage limit.

The DC to DC converter is only good up to 24v so I wouldn't run it past that.

Is the input voltage exactly 12V to 24V? This would rule out the use of 24V batteries. A 24V SLA battery charges to 29.4V and settles around 26-27V which is slightly higher than the voltage from an 8S A123 pack.


Thanks

These LED lights don't draw amps like helicopters. So higher voltages don't really buy you any additional efficiency advantages. In theory, you don't get something for nothing. So it's either amps and volts, or volts and amps. The transitive properties of multiplication is the same in either direction. So with a given wattage, it won't matter which is which. Just keep in mind that there is a voltage limit.

Actually at the design level a higher voltage could be advantageous for various reasons of efficiency but once the design is locked in, its set in stone what the input voltage is to such a panel. In this case, 10vdc to 24vdc is the range you can input, which is already not too bad. Otherwise, you're absolutely right on the explanations about how everything equalizes out.

Actually, that's right regarding the higher voltage.

Some aircraft have 28 volt systems and that allows the use of thinner wires since fewer amps need to be carried. Thinner wires, of course, means less weight.

My LED's are on the FedEx truck and I should have them on Monday 2/23. Can hardly wait!

One power alternative is the Tekkeon MP3400. I use Tekkeon's with the Zylight (in fact, Zylight markets them as well as a custom tip), my Firestore (when I was in the P2 world) and just a ton of other applications.

I've contacted Tekkeon for pin-outs to construct a custom cable from Tekkeon to light. This would provide an excellent power option. With a capacity to power anything up to 20V (Tekkeon 3700), 50 watt, and 4100 mAh @ 12v, I'll let Richard do the math to determine how long this battery would power the light.

Ned Soltz

Acording to Tekkeon's website MP3450 gives 50Wh, so you should get an hour or just over an hour for one light....I never saw an MP3400 version.

Oh and Richard I understand why you charged the way you charged for shipping the MAM1, since I think I recall seeing it was out of stock...sorry for my complaint on that, I wish you nothing but the best.

Hopefully I'll have my LED light in a week or two also.

*is excited also*

I meant MP3450... Thanks

I think Eric's right. About an hour or so of use would be my calculation.