Power Requirements for 2000w lamp house

[Morry Clark]

Hi,

I'm in Australia and have acquired a CFS SX2000E lamp housing (I know, they were not very popular). The specification plate says it runs on 380 volts, 50 amps at 50hz. That's 33kva? Does that sound correct for a 2000W xenon lamp housing?

I'm wondering if I'm misinterpreting the specs?

Thanks,

Morry

[Steve Guttag]

If it is a console, then part of the power spec is handling the other things in the console. If it is just the lamphouse/power supply, it seems high.

[Morry Clark]

Just the lamphouse. PXL_20210809_020008356.jpg

[Fraser Falconer]

Hi Guys,
As Steve says it seems high. Perhaps that is 50A total, so per phase you are looking at just under 17A which seems more logical. It still seems high for 2kw lamp house. I would be expecting under 10A per phase to drive a lamp of that size

Cheers Fraser

[Stefan Scholz]

It's a console, so the internal distribution panel is wired for a 50A max capacity. The rectifier unit at 2 kW would be around 8 to 10 Amp per phase at 400 (380) Volts primary 3 phase.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Since your standard there is 220 volts @ 50 hz, I would reccomend looking for a different option that runs on that voltage. CFS lamphouses also literally suck, and 380 volts @ 50HZ is lethal. I serviced a location here in the States that had Strong carbon arc lamps running off rectifiers connected to 440 volts 60 hz. Luckily, there was a large 220 volt 60 hz circuit available to us when we converted the booth to xenon.

[Gordon McLeod]

There is nothing wrong with running it as specced as the 330 is the delta 3 phase. Nothing unsafe about that used all over the world

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Better you than me! Even.Canada uses the USA power standards.

[Gordon McLeod]

I had several theatres that european rectifiers that required 330-440 3 phase and the electrical authorities had no issues with it at all. I suspect there are more nations used the higher voltage than use 120/208

[Morry Clark]

3 phase 418v is common here. We even had 3 phase 418v on our boat to run the scuba compressors.
Thanks for your help everyone, there is probably another tag somewhere for the actual lamp supply? (or it fell off)

[John Eickhof]

you may want to check the manual and look at power taps on the transformer, rentec (dick niccum) used multi tap transformers made by leonard pincus, there may indeed be 418 V taps on it. The rating plate for the euopean versions show max combined phase current draw and thus it would draw approx 17 amps per phase under a 3000 watt load. contrary to what others say, the cfs rentec lamp is a well made and very dependable unit, you will get excellent bulb life! (because of the vertical lamp), and thge field of light is very good with a very cool aperture! (because of the cold 45 degree mirrors) by the way mark 12 volts can be lethal under the righ circumstances! i wired the ac mains from the pole in my shop and have 120/240/460 volt three phase power with thransformers for y as well as delta, im still kickin ! plus i saved a lot of money running underground for 750ft on the 460v line!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

John, E... They were built just so-so. And the light efficiency is just awful. But Dick and Ron were really nice guys! While I was at Claco we developed a retrofit kit to put the Christie plenum kit in them. The plenum kit cost a bit less than the two CFS reflectors. Then they put out light, like 4x as much. The other branch of Rentech that built many of the Iwerks 15/70 lamphpuses, platter systems, etc., were a whole other ball game and that stuff was built like a tank.

[Sean McKinnon]

Its funny I was just messing around with an L.P. power supply today. L.P. made the power supplies (or atleast the guts) for ORC, CFS, some strong supplies and possibly more

[John Eickhof]

Leonard started his business designing and building heavy duty battery charger power supplies for the military, he also supplied many transformers for McColpin-Christie! Christie ended up copying his transformer design later on, Pincus started in the xenon biz with Rank Labs and marketed the Megaron lamphouse that later became Xelamp. I knew him for decades he was an electrical engineer and really loved the projection biz. Mark G, all cfs rentec products were built in the same facility only the specs were different, and not by much.The great thing I admired about Ron Offerman and Dick Niccum is they were not 'stuufed shirts' like a lot of others in this industry, they were just ordinary 'joes'! Anytime I was in so-cal I spent many a night at their homes, never had to stay at a motel... Ron was an old time RCA serviceman from DesMoines IA and met Dick when testing one of Dick's early ORC M1000 lamps in a Des Moines theatre...they partnered up for over 35 years. I miss them both as well as Leonard.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

John, Dick later ran a company that sold used projection gear. Can't remember the name of it but I bought a lot of stuff from him when he was doing that. Christie also got their start making heavy duty power supplies. Except they were used to start airplane engines.