Comments on: PAR 64 Bulbs – A Guide to PAR 64 Lamp Sizes

By: scott

scott — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:11:54 +0000

I ment medium and wide, they have lines on the glass about an inch

By: scott

scott — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:10:18 +0000

How can I tell if I have medium or narrow bulbs

By: mervin boyd

mervin boyd — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:34:41 +0000

does anyone have any idea where to buy replacement ray-lamp holders ? i cant find a supplier

By: Kjetil

Kjetil — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 19:20:24 +0000

I usually tell people that CP62 looks like the headlights of a VW bus from the 60s.
CP95, the flood bulb that spreads like a water balloon but gives very little light, looks about the same but finer.

And CP62 spreads 12*24 degrees, I believe.

LampieTheClown: I’m not sure they haven’t changed since then… I come across some old parcans now and then that are either an old design and we’ve had some bright ideas since then or they’re not old but just impractical.
-Most cans have three colour frame holders (both sides and at the bottom) with a spring to prevent the colour frame from falling out at the top, or a fourth spring-loaded holder at the top. These just have four holders, forcing you to bend the frame in and out with brute force and uncivil language.
-Instead of putting the bulb in the “tube,” placing a ring behind it to keep it in place, these have the bulb in the “lid”, with a ring in front of it. …Which makes the lid heavy when you’re on a ladder, and the lid has probably been dented at some point so you can’t get the bulb out. Or in.

By: eagletat

eagletat — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:05:04 +0000

Hi!
I wonder why the cost of a new wiring set for a parcan is about the same as buying a brand new fitting?
I have a store with loads of good fittings all in need of wiring sets.

By: Lighting Newb

Lighting Newb — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:28:52 +0000

@Dyl – yep helps alot thanks

By: Dyl Patel

Dyl Patel — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:10:34 +0000

As with all lamps and not just PAR’s they should be warmed up prior to use. The moment you power up your rig a surge of energy travels to all the lanterns that are plugged in and this is evident by the orange glow in the lens of the lantern. Depending on your board, i suggest moving all the faders to 10 (100%) and gradually brightening them all up together using the Master Fader/Grand Master in increments of two over ten minutes. That way your lanterns have had a moment to aclimatise to the working conditions. Admittedly, i no longer do this and instead i power up the rig a while before i start teching a show. This may seem pointless and silly but it’s been tried and tested and helps everytime with the amount of lamps you have to replace when it comes to Maintenance. I have 6 PAR cans and i have not had to change these lamps in over a year since i fitted them. The only ones that get used a lot are the Floors and they seem to be holding up nicely at the moment. A typical lamp life for a PAR is usually around 300 hrs but this depends on how much you use them, and in your case you seem to be a hardcore user of PAR cans! The same applies for a T26/T27 halogen that fits into a Fresnel, Profile, and Prism Convex lantern.

Hope this helps!

By: Lighting Newb

Lighting Newb — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:17:31 +0000

Sorry but I’m a complete lighting newb, We have 12 par64′s and we’ve blown 10 bulbs in the last 2 months. I’ve been told I should be warming them up. Does this make a difference to bulb life? How long should a bulb typically last?

By: LampieTheClown

LampieTheClown — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:32:14 +0000

Just thought I’d add a bit to the knowledge above on Par lamps.

Pars are measured in 1/8″ increments. Therefore a par 64 is 64/8 of an inch, or 8″ A Par 56 is 7″. This also works for the R-40, the par 38 and 36, all the way down to the MR-16 (2″).

Depending on who you talk to (and which coast you are nearest to) either Chip Monck or Bill McManus invented the “par can” as we know it.

R.A. Roth manufactured the only square par cans I know of.

Ray light kits suck. Oh wait, you said that. They came over from England as part of the Thomas invasion. You could put 4 on a 2.4K dimmer, and with the Thomas Aluminum, the rig became amazingly light.

Before Thomas, par cans were steel. A steel can with glass par 64 in it weighed easily 5X what a Thomas can with a ray kit did. That meant the British could hang a much bigger rig under the same grid, and power it with the same service. American lighting companies ate it up, and the Thomas truss, cans, ray kits, coupled with the Avo 72 way dimmer rack and a QM 500, became the standard touring rig.

Then everyone wised up and threw away the ray kits, LMI (now ETC) came up with their L-86 rack, and Tomcat copied the Thomas truss. Later, ETC developed the Source 4 line and got the fixtures to fit 4 to a dimmer again, but at this point Vari-lite put an end to the “how many pars can you hang in a day?” contest.

Pars have not changed since.

By: Coolgrot

Coolgrot — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:31:07 +0000

So now I know NOT to blame the crew for hitting my Par 64 with a flat. It exploded all by itself! And if you think a 4 metre grid is low ours is 3.4m! For the current show half the stage has been raised 40cm so it’s only 3m! And the tallest actor is 5′ 7″!(Don’t know what that is in metric but I do know it’s hard to light that high). Who can suggest the best light for that job? It’s complicated by the headers being low so the angle is awful. Yeah, I know, pull it down and build another one, not going to happen.