Episode 47 - Buying LED Lighting on Aliexpress

How to go abouit selecting and ordering events, music and theatre type lighting from Aliexpress. What to watch for, and an explanation of how these things are created and the 'stores' who sell them. We touch on reliability - buying additional units and what might go wrong.

[@Butlinsgvn6]

Immensely useful video! Thanks for sharing your knowledge about buying from Aliexpress - I wasn't aware that consistency was such an issue.

[@eastanglianradio]

It's not really inconsistency - if you buy from the same batch, all is well. However, you might buy 2 of the last of batch one, and they run out - so they go to the same suppliers and re-order/ two weeks later they have new stock, but the focus might be reversed, or the red LEDs a little darker, or really silly things like the menu system is in a different order. Some trivial, but some quite annoying. Most LED moving heads have an effects bank. A DMX value of say, 56 might on your first order produce a nice slow change from blue to red and back, but on second order - 56 could be something very different. I'm just taking about a dozen out of a venue - two different batches of the same one, and they're on the ground, all mixed up! I need to find 4 that are batch 2 and separate them! Annoying but livable with. They're always excellent value.

[@Butlinsgvn6]

@@eastanglianradio Thank you. It's really invaluable since I'm putting on shows on a small budget, I think I can live with the potential hassle :)

[@eastanglianradio]

@@Butlinsgvn6 My view has always been that I could buy two or perhaps 4 expensive fixtures but I could buy a dozen cheaper ones, and even if they become obsolete quickly, the results are so much better - 12 beams or 4, that is a VERY difficult question. I'll go with the 12!