Constella Chameleons 5G DMX

I recently bought a pair of these British made effects (via Chris at Congleton Sound & light, of course), together with a DMX lead to link them together in a Master/Slave scenario (calm down Paula - it's not role-play).

As you'll read below, I've had a couple of initial disappointments with them, but their overall effect is superb and I would certainly consider buying another pair in due course.

Packaging seems not to be one of Constella's strong points. The plain brown cardboard boxes had only some bubble-wrap, together with an (adequate) assortment of polystyrene corners and flat pieces. From the outside of the box, you couldn't't tell (at least I couldn't) whether the contents were the 5G's or the 5C's. (We'll discuss the difference later).

Unfortunately, both the factory sealed boxes were missing the T-shaped handle thingy which slots through the hanging bracket enabling you to lock the effect at any angle eg: pointing down to a dance floor, level at a distant wall etc. Yet, Constella turned this slight disappointment into a(nother) positive point, they dispatched the missing T-handle's to me, and they arrived the very day after I emailed them. Given that I've emailed other companies for far less, and they've taken weeks even to acknowledge that they've ever received myemails, let alone act upon them, this was a very pleasant surprise.

The Chameleon 5 units were smaller, yet heavier than I expected, and have a reassuringlysolid feel to them. The (originally missing) T-handle has a very positivefeel to it, and held the unit at any angle between its minimum and maximumangles (about 100 degrees variation).

The back of the unit features an male 3 pin IEC (Kettle plug init?) EG:there are 3 pins visible, just waiting to "mate" with the three holes on thesupplied IEC lead.

(In case you didn't know, the IEC plug and the socketsare used this way around, so that your probing fingers cant easily touch 240volts, or drop a lead with 3 exposed pins, onto a conductive surface,like your mixer, or a puddle of beer, fizzy pop, or perspiration).

Also on the back, are a male, and female XLR connectors, for hooking the unit up to DMX controllers, or other Chameleon 5 etc. Finally, the rear panel also features a cut out rectangle allowing a bank of ten(?) DIP switches to be accessed, facilitating both DMX and Master Slave Set-ups. At least, that's the idea. Unfortunately, on one of my pair of Chameleon 5G DMX units, the recessed DIP switches don't quite line up with the cut-out, by about 2 cms. You can still adjust the DIPswitches, but you need to be able to look down into the unit from above, and have a precision screwdriver to hand. Still, you could look upon this as a blessing, as it will mean that the DIP switches cant get knocked onto another setting by accident, so erm, maybe it's the other units DIP switches that are mounted too close to the cut-out, instead...Hmm.

Before I cover the all important plugging in, switching on, and description of the effect (which is excellent by the way), let me finish the "tour" of the outside. The unit has an access hatch which allows quick and easy access to the bulb, for mid-show bulb changes (if you're "into" balancing ona chair, trying to change the bulb in-between showing the audience all thearm movements to YMCA). This access hatch is secured using a normal screw,so remember to grab a screwdriver before going chair-wards. Changing the 24volt 240volt ELC (is that the right three letters Chris?)shouldn't be too much of a regular occurrence (unless your vibrating your lights filaments to destruction by balancing them on top of your bass cabs, Doh!)
due to two design inclusions. Firstly, the units have a lamp-life extender, which basically drops about 10% (almost unnoticeable) of the bulb output, and virtually doubles the life expectancy of each bulb. Secondly, the bulb is kept switched off for about 15 seconds after each time power is applied to the unit, thereby eliminating any power-up surges zapping your bulbs on a coldwinters night, in a freezing village hall, after several days storage of theeffect in an unheated transit van... I digress, time to focus...

And spookily enough, lets talk about the focusing of the effect. The unit has two independent focusing screws (a left and a right) , which you simply loosen, slide forward or backward along their respective short (5 cm?) slot until you achieve the sharpest focus for your particular venue. Why have two focus adjustments? Well, it comes in very handy, if you're pointing the effect diagonally at a wall, eg: in a venue where the stage is at one end,and you're projecting the effect onto the two side walls. In suchsituations, part of the projected output is a far amount further away, than the part nearest the stage and will therefore (with a single focus adjuster) be out of focus, either at one end, or the other, or both - if you try to get the middle part of the projection focused. With the two adjusters,featured on each of these units, I was able to get a fairly uniform focus even at very extreme diagonal angles onto side walls.

OK, with my DIP switches poked into the correct settings for Master/Slave set up, and my DMX link lead in, I switched on, and quickly looked towardthe wall which I was projecting onto...Nothing.

11 seconds later, Iremembered the 10 second "no lamp output" safety feature. You could say that it dawned on me.The in-built mic picked up the sound at a sensible degree and both units stayed in sync perfectly...I guess you're gonna want to know what these looklike "going" don't you. Well, here's where all the silly niggles which I mentioned above, are swept aside.

Constella, in their brief, but well-written and informative information sheets/manual, describe the operation of the unit as a "stunning" show. To give them their due,they're not wrong. The Chameleon 5G's display a circle of 9 gobos, with nothing in the middle of the circle...if there were 12 gobo's I guess it would look like a clock-face. A 5C version is also available, which projects 9 open colour circles in a circle, rather than gobo's. The circle rotates at various speeds, changing speed and direction in timewith the beat (or to DMX command), the gobo's also change, from a selection of 10 (i think) plus Open/White.

Nothing too"unique" so far huh? Well, heres the BIG difference: The Chameleon 5 can also change the diameter of the circle of gobo's. One moment you'll have an entire sports hall wall filled floor to ceiling with a rotating circle of gobo's, next moment the circle of gobo's will be shrinking (whilst still rotating), spiralling into a tight cluster of 9 gobo's covering only one gobo's width/height in the middle of the wall. Dip switch settings allowyou to set the circle diameter scaling to be inverse on multiple units, so, as the circle on unit 1 expands, the circle on unit 2 contracts, and vice versa.

The motor/mechanism for this expand/contract party-piece is definitely not silent. Normal Disco volumes will cover the motor noise easily, but you wouldn't be able to leave these babies doing their thang over the raffle prizes whilst the Managing Director makes his speech about how well everyone has done, during a year of such difficult trading conditions, blah, blah...

For those without DMX controllers yet, eg: those still waiting for the new Behringer DMX controller to make it out of the Behringer factory in anythinglike sufficient numbers, each Chameleon 5 unit has a wide variety of automatic built-in programs, which show off the units features, by combining various rotation speeds, clock-wise and anti-clockwise rotation, expanding and contracting projection diameters, and of course, the full range of Gobo's or colours.

If there could be one extra option, I would like to have had an option to make the unit skip-over its split-projection modes (where it displays half of one gobo, and half of another). No doubt split projection looks great on the 5C version, where you would get 9 "half a red circle"s , pointing at 9 "half a yellow circle", but it looks a bit cheap, when the unit "appears" to have stopped halfway between gobos, and is therefore showing (very accurately) half a love heart, and half a star.

Obviously, with DMX control, split gobos/colours can be utilised or avoided at will, the instruction sheets even give you the values to avoid, to miss out split gobos.

Overall, dispite the missing T-handles, the "random" (but effective) polystyrene, the non-silent motor noise and the split gobos, I'd certainly have no hesitation in buying another pair of these great lights in the future - just need to make more room on the overhead double-bar first.

Great review Gazza.

I have 4 Chameleon 4's, another 2 on order and another 2 to come in a few weeks time, so 8 in total, controlled via the Constella Commando 2 controller, these are basically the same as the 5's but no gobo strinking, but it does have the half yellow, half red switching which I agree looks cheap, I have done several gigs in auto mode (no controller) and plenty with the controller, I paid £100 for the controller and is well worth it.
I have a gig coming up with 16 of these effects in total, will take along a photographer and try and get some piccys up.
In my humble opinion the Chameleon are the best value lighting effect around, in fact I now use my 4/6/8 Chameleons and leave my other 9 effects at home.