If you’re looking for the best moonflowers on the planet that will improve your show,

this is the solution ………

and if you think this is just another moonflower ….. read on 

This is our personal opinion, but you will see we are big, big fans of this effect.

 Anyway on with the show ……….. 

We’ve been in this business a long time now and it’s not often that something new comes along that really impresses us. We were all pretty gob smacked when we saw them in action for the first time. They are quite magnificent, and have shot straight to the top of our “recommended without haste” list. 

What are they? 

The lights are the EVL Spin. Here’s a quick overview:- 

 〈         250w fan cooled unit

〈         6 Gobo’s / Colours

〈         Datamoon style shape

〈         DMX controllable

〈         Premier Optics

Blah, blah, blah

 We know by the above that it probably appears like one of a zillion other 250w goboflowers on the market, but there are many things that make this unit what we personally consider to be the best moonflower effect on the planet!

 Question. What makes these lights so special?

Answer. Loads of little features and a few major ones

 Let me explain some of the little features ……….

We’re assuming you know the NJD Datamoon, a landmark lighting effect that has been established for many years now, and became the benchmark by which other 250w moonflowers were measured. The look is similar from the outside, but if you had to improve on this we’re sure there are a few changes that you would make to further improve things. 

1. Firstly there’s the hanging bracket, without removing it you can flip it over to turn the lights into floorstanders. If like us you ever need to flip the bracket, it’s one of those pain in the ass jobs, where you need an allen key, so you usually don’t bother!  We’ve used these lights as a set of four with two on the top rig, and two on the floor and the effect is spectacular. You’ll see why later.

2. The ELV Spin is dimmable. So what? you may say. Well it uses dimming as part of it’s effect, and this is not found on any other effect as far as we know – it certainly isn’t at this price. And it does look amazingly good in action.

It has the lamp saving feature as found on the Datamoon which increases lamp life enormously. Talking of lamp life, most 250w fan cooled effects quote 50 – 75 hours lamp life, We’re told the Spin is nearer 1000 hours! We don’t know if We’ll ever find this out, as us mobile’s tend to break lamps before they wear out, but even allowing for some excitable sales patter, it does seem the lamp life is extraordinary.

 There are more little features but let’s look at a some big developments ……..

 Sound To Light or Not Sound To Light …. That is the question

99% of lights on the market work sound to light. This is a very general term for an on board mic that picks up the sound and does it’s best to emulate an average of what it hears. The ELV SPIN is different. It actually counts the BPM of the music and recalculates it every 8 seconds, and works to that beat. It’s on board memory chip holds this information and this is where it really excels.

Unlike conventional sound to light units, the ELV Spin operates on 3 levels, Ambient, Mid Fast, & Superfast.

Mid fast is how you’d picture a normal effect, chugging along quite merrily.

Superfast is where the Spin gets it’s name. It spins at an unbelievable speed which is quite mesmerizing, and unlike most sound to like effects, it has an ambient slow mode.

This is a simple, but great improvement. When there is no sound or no beat, rather than stand still, it reverts to a slow movement, still with fades, colour changes, and so on.

This is particularly good on two levels, when the music stops and you need to chat, it is far less distracting and before you start a gig they offer you the chance to have some ambient lighting without “wasting” the good effects.

Our favourite time this comes into action is on a dance track, where it all stops and has an ambient bit (like Tori Amos’s Professional Widow) and then the beat kicks back in. And guess what, the on-board memory chip knows what the BPM was, so it’s straight back in sync with the beat!!!!!

Complete on board light show

Most DMX lighting can operate to their own light show and most can be sync’d together, or set to do opposites. The Spin’s go a whole lot further. On board is a preset 28 hour light show (no we haven’t timed it!) but it gets better than that. In a pair or sets of pairs you can set them to mimic the master (nothing new here), or to dual head.

Dual head mode is where these lights excel and leave the rest for dead. A complete lightshow takes place with synchronisation, opposites, alternating and catch up light shows. Naturally being 3ch DMX you can control them from any decent DMX controller, but with this dual head light show you really have more than you’ll ever do yourself. It is different, it is impressive and I it is the best thing we’ve seen in a long, long time. Too much to put into words. 

We mentioned earlier that we’d used 4 of these recently, We put two on the rig, two on the floor. We set the two on the top to master, and the two on the floor to dual head. The effect was stunning. Total interaction between the lights, not just in sync (though sometimes they were), but fading from floor to overhead, rapid spins up top, to rapid spins from the floor. Quite fantastic. And when we say rapid spins, we mean rapid.

 We could waffle on about more smaller features …………. 

but let's tell you about one feature that is a bit tasty  …………….

Removable gobo

This is a great feature, but there is a little sting financially which we personally think is a bit naughty of EVL but we’ll come on to this and give you an honest and fair way round it. But first the feature.

One of the gobos is removable, and can be changed with others that are available as a separate pack. The pack has 4 extra gobos – Hearts, Best Wishes, Happy New Year and Happy Birthday. With the gobo pack you can customise the night to the most popular events or leave the hearts in for standard use.

The unit is shipped with the Merry Christmas gobo, which except for December is no use, so it almost forces you to buy the gobopack. The multi-hearts would be the generic use gobo. That said, the retail price for the 4 additional gobos is only just over £20.00 (a fiver each), where they would cost you over £55 each to have made individually.

We are INCLUDING THE GOBO PACK FREE within the price. Why? Simply because we think they are essential and we think shipping the unit with the Christmas Gobo is a little bit underhanded.

With the above gobo’s you can customise most nights with an effect that customers actually notice.

And it gets even better …….. 

EVL have arranged with gobo makers DHA, a deal where if you want you can have your own gobo made directly with them for around £55. (and less than £10 each for additional copies if ordered at the same time). The info is easily available on the web (search google for DHA gobos), you don’t have to deal with any middlemen – you go straight to DHA. You can do this whenever you like.

The obvious use is the name of your own disco, but there is also potential to use the Spin as a advertising projector. Put it into ambient mode, on the custom gobo, and you’ll hire these out at a great price to corporate people. Last year we did a similar thing (but with a different unit) with the hotel foyer where we do work over Christmas, a one off charge for the gobo, and £20 a day hire for the unit – this was for the whole of December – we got through about 6 lamps (remember this wasn’t a Spin unit) but either way I’ll let you do the maths!!

There is more to tell, like the fact that this unit strobes better than any other moonflower unit on the planet, that it is amazingly bright, but most of the good stuff is covered above.

There are some extra bits available to compliment the EVL Spins. (these are available from us at all times)

The EVL Micro Controller

Totally optional, this 4 button controller gives you manual control over the units if you so desire. A simple 4 button controller with button 1 controlling colour/gobo, button 2 puts all lamps into synchronised strobing, button 4 puts it in ambient mode, and button 3, if you push it quick sets all the lights to independent, hold it for 3 secs and they revert to the mode depending how you have the dip switches set. A nifty little controller, that is worth the extra money if you like a hands on approach.

The colour/gobo select button is really useful. At Christmas you can set the unit to hold “Merry Christmas” whilst no one is dancing an smother the walls or ceilings with the message and when you start to play, flick it to beat mode and away you go. New Year Eve? – At Midnight switch it to static “Happy New Year” for great effect. Similarly “Best Wishes” and “Happy Birthday” can be used in a similar way.

 The Micro Controller  is available on it’s own or as with a nifty 19” rack adapter for easy mounting.

 The Spin Twin Cases

Firstly is EVL’s own full spec, aluminium flight case designed to take two Spins with a central compartment for associated leads, e.t.c. There’s not a lot to say about flight case, apart from this is a proper job and is designed specifically for this purpose. Like most full flight cases it is quite expensive so we had BiDezign come up with a cheaper alternative.

Carpet covered timber flight cases. In suitcase style, this offers full protection to the lights and offer a substantial cost saving on the full flight aluminium version .

 Many Other Features

It’s focusable from underneath, so when it’s up on a rig it’s easy to focus 

The cover is easily removed without the need for any tools so access to the lamp and gobo wheel is ultra quick 

Compatible with DMX Strobes – set your DMX strobe to channel 49, and link it through, and when you hit strobe on the E-Pod the strobe automatically kicks in.