Gotta switch to LED

If your church, school or theatre is working hard to keep up with technology and to save money for your organization, then you are surely considering swapping out your incandescent fixtures for LED fixtures. As you know, LEDs offer a lot of fantastic improvements: physically cooler temperature, much less energy use, less maintenance, easy control and sometimes added functionality like limitless color mixing. LEDs are definitely the wave of the future!

There are several ways to switch your system to LED:

• -Swap out the whole fixture
• -Change the light source (lamp or light engine) to LED-only available on some fixtures
• -Use a retrofit kit like the ETC S4WRD

Important! When you switch to LED you will need to make sure the new LEDs will work with your dimming system. Many LEDs will NOT work with older dimming systems. . .but that’s a story for another blog!

We have been receiving many calls from folks with the incandescent version of the incredibly versatile ETC Source 4 Junior ellipsoidal fixture. To make a long story short, if you want to switch these fixtures to LED, the best option is to replace the entire fixture. You can not change the light source and you can not use the ETC S4WRD retrofit (this only works with full sized ETC Source 4 fixtures).

Winner! ETC ColorSource Spot Jr.

So, what fixture should you choose? The most direct replacement is the ETC ColorSource Spot Jr. https://goknight.com/etc-csspotjr2550-colorsource-spot-jr-original/ This fixture is easy to use and offers color-mixing. It comes in the original configuration and also a “deep blue” configuration.

Larger full-size LED ellipsoidals will cost well over $1000.00/each. These are great and there are many from which to choose if you have the budget. If you don’t have the budget (or the need) to upgrade to a full-sized LED ellipsoidal, then it gets complicated. Most manufacturers do not offer a comparable “mid-size” LED ellipsoidal fixture. Smaller LED ellipsoidal fixtures will not live up to the punch of the original ETC Source 4 Junior. Again, the most “comparable” choice is the ETC ColorSource Spot Jr. which was designed as the direct replacement. IMPORTANT NOTE! This fixture will work with DMX control only and can not be used with line-voltage dimming. Your Source 4 Jrs. were most likely controlled with line-voltage dimming, so any new DMX fixtures will require separate DMX control.

Runner-Up

If you need to stick with line-voltage dimming, then you can purchase the ETC S4WRDT120FB (you will also need to purchase a lens tube). This will give you a full-sized LED fixture capable of working with line-voltage dimming. It’s actually still more affordable then buying most full-sized LED ellipsoidals.

Watch out!

We have many shoppers come to the site looking for an update, but they choose the current listing for the traditional, incandescent ETC Source 4 Junior (not LED). These fixtures are great, and certainly cost-effective, but they will not offer you the long-term savings and versatility of LEDs.

Folks will also consider the ETC Source 4 Mini. This is a tiny fixture that is amazing for accent lighting, but will certainly not be able to take the place of an ETC Source 4 Junior.

We like the Chauvet DJ EVE E-100Z LED Spot as another option, although this does not have color-mixing.