Advanced Lighting Systems LiveLED 100

Written by Len Woelfel

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The LiveLED 100 is a LED wash fixture made by Advanced Lighting Systems of Sauk Centre, Minnesota (USA). If you need a good quality wash fixture in a light weight package, and minimal power draw, this is a good choice.

The LiveLED produces 1,400 lumens, yet weighs only 13 pounds. However, the best feature is that it draws a measly 117 watts of electricity. It’s plenty bright for most applications. The case is made of extruded, powder coated black aluminum, and has a hanging yoke which allows for positioning over 1800 range. Surrounding the fixture on top and bottom are what appear to be cooling fins. The back has a permanently attached power cord, dmx input and output, and dmx address knobs (more on inputs and knobs later). The guts of the fixture are 44 LED, 22 red, 11 green, and 11 blue.

The fixture has plenty of output and even field distribution. I didn’t measure it with any instruments, but to the naked eye there were no discernable hot spots, or other irregularities. Colors, especially in the red and blue range, were very intense and rich.

DMX control is five channels. One, two, and three, are red, green, and blue, respectively, with typical range of 0 - 255 equaling 1 - 100% intensity of those colors. Using all three channels produces white. The one show I used these fixtures on (four fixtures hung about 30 feet downstage from the stage lip, and about 14 feet in the air) was also videotaped, and the white was nice and cool for good video coverage. Channel 4 has a series of preset color macros, from warm and cool white, to magenta, salmon, turquoise, and even some yellow and ambers. There are other color choices available as well. Channel 5 has some macros including red, green, blue crossfades of different lengths, some red, magenta, yellow crossfades of various lengths, some color snaps, and some strobe macros in red, blue, green and cool white. These can be very handy in some applications. I didn’t get to experiment with them as they weren’t appropriate for the show. Finally, there are some standalone settings, as well as some master/slave programs. These would likely be used a lot in areas where dmx control isn’t needed or possible.

The dmx input and output is by three-pin xlr. Instead of having panel mounted connectors, the LiveLED uses approximately one-foot cables hanging off the back of the fixture. The advantage in doing this is that if one is wiring more than one of these fixtures together in close proximity no additional cable is needed. Setting the dmx address is done via three small knobs. The knobs have a decent feel, but were too close together for my fingers, and I found it easier to use a multi-tool to change addresses. Also, the digits are very small and can be difficult to read in low light settings.

As for options, there are two. One is a set of lenses which affect the beam spread. The lenses are rectangular and fit into one of two slots at the front of the fixture. I did not have sufficient time to try different lens combinations, but the one I did use created a flatter, wide beam. I recommend handling lenses with care as they seemed somewhat fragile. The other option is barndoors. I didn’t have the barndoors in time for the show so I can’t comment on them.

Overall, I like this fixture. It seemed very well built and well thought out, except for the address knobs. Yes, it’s a lot more money than traditional color mixing floods. But considering the lifespan of an led is thousands of times more than any other lamp, that cost is justified.