It's been a while since there has been any mention of the acme Dynamo Scanners so i thought i would shed some more light on them.

I used to have a set of 4 100w scanners but sold these due to only using 2 on a regular basis, and bought a pair of 250w instead.

The brightness is the first thing i noticed and along side a pair of 250w gobo flower effects they certainly perfromed well.

The lights - Ok they are relatively cheap but they are compact, lightweigh with a sturdy build quality. my 100w's took a battering and survived a complete truss fall after a cleaner decided to try and move it, with only 1 broken mirror.

The big bonus is they use the ACME ca-8 for easy control. I can blackout, strobe, gobo change and slow down all from the simple controller, what more would you want.

With smoke the effect is great and without you get pleanty of movement around a room. Hook up a dedicated dmx controller and you have endless options.

Spec


Average cost £250 with CA-8 controller if you shop about.

Im after getting either 4 of these or 2 dynatwins, I always think that scanners look better with four heads. I currently have the winners and a pair of chauvet intimidators, very bright very good master slave programming but they are getting too heavy for me in my old age ;-)

I run 2 x DynaTwins (250W versions), good effects for the price.

I did break a mirror on one, but found a genuine replacement mirror on ebay for about £15.
I normally use the DynaRoll in the middle, as can easily use a DMX scene for a slow open gobo roll (ideal for 1st dances). When the party kicks off, the DynaTwins as master-slaved, with the DynaRoll running standalone.


Also some moonflowers are worth adding - the DynaTwins+Roll look exciting, but don't really light the dancefloor that much.
Moonflowers fit the role very well..

I have 4 of the chauvet equivalent although I generally only use 2 with 2 moonflowers and an impossibled pointing at the ceiling, this is generally enough for most venues.

The chauvet intimidators have been brilliant I have had them for about 5 or 6 years now and have never let me down.........even the bulbs seem to last a long while......I haven't replaced one this year at all and they have been used a lot ! I just wish they wouldn't strobe so much on sound to light mode.......shame as most lights tend to do this. I seem to spend most of the night pressing the middle button on the CA8 controller to stop them strobing.

Out of curiosity whilst on the subject *Could* Dynamo / Dynatwin 100s be upgraded to 250s simply by upgrading the bulbs, or are they a completely different beast altogether?

250w bulbs won't work as a direct replacement. You'll need to at least upgrade the PSU for the lamp (which is a switch-mode type), that'll be about 40-50 quid in its own right. Potentially you'll have to upgrade the lamp holder too, and potentially change the lamp holder itself (where the bulb physically "sits" in the spring-loaded frame). Potentially would have to upgrade the switching relay for the bulb too.

Basically Its not really economical to upgrade at all, although the main control circuit board is probably the same...

It also might not focus correctly - as the optics would have most likely been factory-adjusted/set to suit a 100w bulb vs a 250w one..



Cheers,

David

Cheers David I thought as much. If it were that simple I imagine the price difference between the two specs would be much less.

I normally stay away from cheap gear but I have to say from the videos on youtube these Dynamo scanners dont look too bad at all. I'd rather have a 4 head Martin SCX600 scanner system but jeez, thats pricey, and a 4 head Dynamo system only costs £435 from here :

http://www.getinthemix.co.uk/4-Head-ACME-D...att-Package.htm

So I really dont think you can argue at all. Add some haze and they would look nice. In fact these are probably the scanners i'll get next year whehn I start doing parties again until I can afford 4 Martin SCX600 scanners.

The Dyna* series have very fast gobo wheels... but then I am comparing them with old geni spinmasters, which were quite slow to switch gobo.

"strobing" looks alright on them too...

The only oddball I foundwith the dynaroll (and probably the dynatwins). That if you do a blackout on one side of it, the bulbs don't switch off unless both halves are blacked out... It appears there's just the one relay that controls the lamp on/off internally...

Must admit, the dynarolls first outing had a very bright output - and was brighter than the Datamoons (however now I think the datamoons were in bulb saving mode!)

Cheers,

David