03.06.2016 | Creative Production & Design Aglow Over New Generation of UV LED Lights

A new generation of UV LED lights is not only changing the quality of UV light projection, it’s making it easier for designers and production houses to implement UV light into their projects. Elation Professional offers two new generation UV LED lighting products - the Antari UV Spot 670™ and the Antari UV Wash 2000™ - each with clear advantages over traditional UV LED lights. Because they use high-quality, medical grade LEDs that emit UV light in the 365nm range, virtually no visible light is emitted from the UV Spot 670 and UV Wash 2000, meaning only the UV reactive material glows and nothing else.

“When lighting for UV you only want the projection surface to glow without seeing any mid-air light,” explains Justin Jenkins, owner of Creative Production & Design (cpdaustin.com), one of the first companies to take advantage of the new possibilities in UV lighting after purchasing several Antari UV Spot 670 fixtures for their inventory. “The UV Spot 670 was really eye opening for us and really stood out compared to other UV LED fixtures on the market. With traditional UV LED lights you can still see the light, you still have purple ambient light coming out of it and that’s a problem. But the UV Spot 670 has eliminated a lot of that light.” 

Jenkins decided that the UV Spot 670 was the perfect fixture needed for an EDM show they were designing and producing called "A State of Color / Neon Riot Tour," a UV glow-in-the-dark paint show where the paint is the star of the show. Cannons fire UV paint into the crowd and fans purchase bottles of paint to cover themselves from head to toe. "The first show was held at the Austin Music Hall this past February and what a difference these fixtures made," said Dan Wyatt, Production Designer and GM of CPD Austin. "I have been doing paint shows for several years now and this is the first time the paint really stood out. The pictures taken from the shows say everything. I could see the paint glowing on fans as I walked throughout the venue. Before the Austin show, we were only able to obtain 12 units and used 8 onstage and 4 at FOH. Our clients at Oh Bleep Events were impressed by these units so much that we will be adding more units to the “State of Color Tour" in the fall as more shows are added across the US."

CPD has used UV lighting in the past but with the UV Spot 670 they hope to incorporate UV into more projects, also because of the unit’s easy handling. “The old UV lights were heavy and a pain to set up,” Jenkins says. “The UV Spot 670 is compact and lightweight at only just over five pounds and with universal power and daisy chain power they are easy to set up. Once people see it without the ambient lighting, and see how easy it is to set up, it’s very persuasive. Now we don’t hesitate to steer the client towards UV when appropriate.”

Besides using durable LEDs of the highest quality, both the Antari UV Spot 670 and Antari UV Wash 2000 use a special silicone lens that is UV resistant and slow to degrade. Most other plastic lenses will brown and deteriorate over a few years of use but these lenses will last for 25 years or more.

The UV Spot 670 features 9 x 1.9W high-powered UV LED's, 6760mW of power and a 15-degree beam angle while the UV Wash 2000 features 27 x 1.9W high-powered UV LED's, 20290mW of power and a 25-degree beam angle. Both units have DMX or manual control and peak wavelength at 365nm.