ASL lamps

[Marcel Birgelen]

With the current global supply shortages, I'd simply be extra careful with switching to bulbs to a new supplier. If something goes wrong and damages your lamp house you're facing multiple weeks if not months of downtime on that screen. If you're running a big multiplex and have spare capacity, your bets may look differently, but it you're a single screen or twin, I wouldn't take the risk myself right now.

[Gordon McLeod]

We used alot of ASL back with film the 2000HSC was reliable. With digital we tried them as a alternate to the 1.8KW DTS lamp from Christie/Ushio as they were always flickering badley pre warranty. They did typically last to warranty and only 1 1.4K went bang (there were several in the 2K2 digital that went bang). But the kicker was that the cathode shoulder where it clamps was 4mil smaller in diameter than the Christie/ushio causeing the clamp in the 2210 to deform. Since then we use the Osram 1.8KDTS exclusively in the 2210s with out any issues and ushio in all the rest

[Jack Ondracek]

I used Superior Quartz in my Big Sky lamphouses... until we converted. Size-wise SPQ's 7kW bulb was a monster. One time, a former supplier (now passed) sent me a Chinese 4kW lamp that was sized more like a 2. All wattage ratings for this brand were the same size. This one lasted about 3 days before gassing out. I considered myself lucky & never allowed another one of those things in the booth.

[Steve Guttag]

Superior Quartz had some serious QC issues. We had out of round lamps, Lamps with electrode spacing issues and explosions. I agree with Gordon, that the XM1600HSC/G was a decent lamp. We never had problems on the XM2000-27 (special 2K lamp that is in the 1600-watt package...Osram has that size too). The XM4202 was a good lamp (extra bright 4KW). Generally, though, explosions tend to be more about the quality of manufacture than a specific lamp size. Bigger lamps and higher pressure will test that manufacture more.

[Gordon McLeod]

The other issue we had with ASL was that the warranty covered replacement reflectors which they could not provide (aka christie 2210 and serries 1's) and only offered a credit to buy extra bulbs based on the dealer cost of the reflector.