In the spot­light

The music starts up and the people rave. But what would a concert be without the atten­dant light show? Spot­lights shine with all kinds of brash colours, perform sophis­ti­cated light chore­og­raphy and cast spec­tac­ular images onto the wall. Light show special­ists can do all of this and more with the movable lamps and other lighting prod­ucts from Czech manu­fac­turer Robe. The prod­ucts have now gained a home world­wide: at trade fairs, on concert stages and even in tele­vi­sion shows such as Germany’s reality talent show “Deutsch­land sucht den Super­star”, the local version of “Pop Idol”. “With its many new devel­op­ments each year, this market is natu­rally very promising,” describes Aleš Jakubec, Managing Director of ebm-papst Czech for the lighting sector. “That is precisely what makes it inter­esting for us as well. For that reason, it was very impor­tant for us to gain Robe as a customer.”

Persua­sive perfor­mance

Even the Pussycat Dolls show doesn’t make the lamps from Robe over­heat

Contact with Robe arose in 2005 when the company was searching for some useable fan for the Light­Dome system. This outdoor lamp is surrounded by a weath­er­proof plastic foil. To prevent the foil from coming into direct contact with the hot lamp, it is kept under pres­sure by a fan. Robe wanted to work with an axial fan, but Jakubec analysed the appli­ca­tion and suggested using a centrifugal fan. At first Robe’s devel­opers were still a little scep­tical as to whether these AC fans would meet their require­ments. “Not only must they be high-perfor­mance and work without failing, they also must not nega­tively impact the func­tion of the sensi­tive spot­light elec­tronics,” explains Jakubec. “This is why Robe subjected some samples to rigourous testing.” Above all, the G 2 E140 scored points by oper­ating quietly with a minimum of vibra­tions. More­over, the fan won out because it is easy to inte­grate (and control), has a low overall height and is manu­fac­tured from a light­weight mate­rial similar to that of the lamps.

Since then, other DC compact fans have proven them­selves in these appli­ca­tions, primarily for cooling LED lamps in a wide variety of various spot­lights. Ales Jakubec is satis­fied: “We reckon that the lighting sector will grow into one of our most impor­tant busi­ness areas in the next years.”