-rated, meaning It's also worth they’re both waterproof and dust diffuser runs proof, so you can use them in an front of the outdoor setting too. They are also bottom, so battery powered and feature both or battery wireless and wired DMX options the tube. This (more on these later), although the the front, the Spectra Tubes can still be operated allowing you whilst plugged in if needed. tubes end-to-end silver end caps Design and build quality tubes) – great The Spectra Tubes boast a sleek, Battery and modern design that is both lightweight and durable.

The tube When it comes is housed in a sturdy, translucent Spectra Tubes casing that diffuses light evenly tube features across its surface, resulting in removeable) a smooth, consistent glow. One which is quite thing I did try was to grab the power. Their tube and give it a good squeeze, hours on as some similar effects use a 20 hours on cheap LED diffuser that pops in colour, however and out. These did not!

Instead, seemed to get the plastic diffuser and casing took the strong grip like a pro. The review was used on Overall, the build-quality is solid, charged the kit with all components feeling wellit and we sent constructed and reliable. The tubes having around are quite chunky – with a diameter the tubes. This of 55mm and a per-tube weight of of total use and 2.2kg – but that’s not a bad thing, DMX, with as their size and weight make them using static feel really robust and sturdy. achievement.

It's worth have three (named ‘limiter’ where each brightness of a considerable the tubes set for the duration this was still for what we have been enough we’d go for the In terms of Tubes, I love completely flight case, so between charging the case. AFX-LIGHT SPECTRA-TUBES-FC AFX-LIGHT SPECTRA-TUBES-FC noting that the It ’s also nice to see both the full length in PowerCon in and thru connectors LEDs from top to on the charger, so you can link there’s no handle multiple chargers together if section at the end of you have multiple systems.

The means that, from outputs are via DC jacks which whole tube is lit, are linked to the tubes using the to position multiple included DC cables (these have (with just the plenty of length on them to make separating the charging as easy as possible). for aesthetics! Each output of the charger also has an indicator light to help you charging know when the port is in charging or non-charging state. to battery life, the impressed me. Each Control options an in-built (non- 8000mah battery, The Spectra Tubes offer us a a hefty supply of variety of control methods: the stats specify 4-8 menu system, the IR remote, and multi-colour or up to wireless or wired DMX. a single unmixed our tests actually The menu system is great and more! proved easy to navigate, offering the standard arrangement of up/ system we received down/enter/menu buttons around two events.

We fully a small full-colour display that’s when we received easy to see and read in most them back still environments. The buttons are 40-50% on most of touch buttons that do not require was after 7 hours lots of force to operate. The whilst on wireless screen and menu system are very in-built modes but not straight forward, with everything colours – quite an indicated in clear text with icons for easy navigation. adding that the tubes In the menu system you can battery-power modes set each light to auto, sound or in the menu) static.

Both automatic and sound option reduces the modes have 20 programs and a the LEDs but not by speed/sound sensitivity setting amount. We had from 0-99. In static mode you into M2 (mode 2) can control the dimmer, strobe, of our testing and colours (either RGBW values plenty bright enough individually or via a colour-macro wanted. M3 would option) and also a fade/jump but we thought setting. middle ground!

You can set up each light charging the Spectra individually to do its own thing, that the charger is or link them together in a master/ removeable from the slave configuration so that the you have the choice slave tubes follow whatever in or outside of setting the master tube is set to. 85 afx-light spectra-tubes-fc On the second event we opted to use the IR remote, so we didn’t have to bring a DMX controller, which also meant we could be in and out in minutes (as we were demoing them at the SEDA ShowNight!).

We had all if the lights linked in master/slave mode, which took a few minutes to set up after we’d had them on wireless DMX mode the night before. It was just a case of relinking each tube to the master via the menu system. After this, each light simply mirrored the master tube. The only main downside with the IR remote is that the sensor is on the rear of the tube next to the display, so the remote does not work from the front of the light – not a major issue for DJs because it’s likely the lights is will be next to you or in front of you in your setup.

The IR remote has quite a few buttons, but the main functions are: on/off, brightness/speed, preset colour or adjustable colour mode, as well as the effect buttons that let you change between flash, strobe, fade and smooth modes (the buttons could be better In named, as ‘smooth’ is really sound mode and ‘flash’ is really auto mode). It is also worth stating that the IR remote control will override all other modes, so if you are using DMX and then decide to press a button on the remote, the tubes will automatically go into IR mode and you can’t set them back to DMX with the remote.

If DMX Speaking of DMX, the Spectra Tubes can be controlled by either wired or wireless DMX. On first glance you will notice there are no XLR sockets on the tubes, so you may wonder how they can be on wired DMX. Quite cleverly AFX have used a 3.5mm socket to input and output DMX from the tubes, and each tube comes with a set of 3.5mm to 3-pin XLR adapters (both a male and female for input/output). 86 You simply plug the adapters into the tube and connect your DMX cabling to the XLRs on the adapter cables.

I haven’t tried it myself but I do also wonder you can wire DMX into one unit and use that tube as a transmitter to the rest. I also wonder if you can use the DMX output to carry on a DMX line, basically using the tube as a wireless transceiver – definitely something I’ll need to test! The Spectra Tubes also have two wireless DMX modes – Guangzhou and Sweden. Sweden is standard W-DMX and Guangzhou is compatible with Chinesetype wireless systems such as the Donner DMX.

It worth noting that no wireless transmitters are included with the Spectra Tubes, so it may be a bit of trial and error to see which ones work, although AFX does offer its own transceiver too. We used one of the W-DMX transmitters that we already had in our events stock, and the tubes synced perfectly. the manual it also mentions using groups for wireless DMX, which looks like it means you could have up to seven different groups running at once over wireless – but only in Guangzhou mode.

This would be handy if you are master/slaving the lights and wanted to control multiple groups of tubes. you want to control the AFX Spectra Tubes via DMX then you have three different DMX channel modes to choose from: 9-, 21- or 69-channel modes. The 9-channel mode gives you control over dimmer, strobe, RGBW, CTO (variable colour temperature), colour chase and chase speed. 21-channel mode offers dimmer, strobe, zone 1 through 16 in macro mode, CTO, colour chase and chase speed.

And the 69-channel mode is where it gets interesting, as you can control each individual RGBW value of each of the 16 zones, along with a master dimmer, strobe, variable CTO, and colour chase and chase speed. AFX -LIGHT SPECTRA-TUBES-FC The latter is the mode we opted for, because we wanted to use them with our pixel mapper on our lighting desk. One thing we quickly realised is that in 69-channel mode you can’t put all 10 tubes on a single DMX universe, as that would be 690 channels (which exceeds the 512 channels a single universe).

With that in mind, you could fit seven tubes one universe if you wanted control of each tube individually, or we’d need two universes and two transmitters if we wanted to control them all individually. So instead we just paired the lights up and had pairs of the tubes set to the same DMX addresses. Mounting and setup The included small tripods are very simple to use; they simply screw into the end of a tube and the legs pull out. The tripods are made of metal and are quite sturdy, although you can bend them with a bit of force, so it is something to be careful with.

Our AFX rep also mentioned you could use the tripod stands to push into the ground if you wanted to (for example, to use them as an anchor into grass). The included M8 eyelets also affix in the same way as the tripods, so you can suspend the AFX Spectra Tubes using a suitable wire system. I have sent feedback to AFX saying that I would like to see some sort of U-shaped clip system that would fix to the tube, so you could lay the tubes down without them rolling or clamp them onto something.

I hope they take this feedback on board and come up with a solution, as that would really expand the mounting options. AFX-LIGHT SPECTRA-TUBES-FC AFX-LIGHT SPECTRA-TUBES-FC Final thoughts We loved having the Spectra Tubes on demo. Many of you will know that we love ‘eye-candy’ products that we really get to play with and put through their in paces, so these really interested us when they were first mentioned by our rep at ISE in Barcelona. Little did we know that I and a friend who runs another in local production company would partner up and order 50 tubes (five sets!) between us, after we finally saw the finished product!

In summary, the AFX Light Spectra Tubes FC is a lighting system that delivers on all fronts, making it a worthwhile addition to any lighting rig. One of the real standout features of the Spectra Tubes is their versatility. You can see them being used as part of a stage set, as ambient lighting, or as part of a more complex installation – they adapt well to all environments. The ability to link multiple units together expands its creative potential, allowing for intricate designs and synchronised effects across multiple tubes.

And while it may be on the higher end of the price spectrum, the performance and reliability it offers does justify the cost. I’d also like to mention that a comparable product to this system would be the Astera Titan Tube Kit, which is nearly twice the price (around £7,). That kit only has 8 tubes per kit, but does have a few more accessories. It seems as if AFX Light has designed the Spectra Tubes to be a similar sort of product but at a more affordable price, bringing such a product into ‘our market’ without aiming to replace or out-do the Astera.

I personally think AFX Light has hit the nail on the head. ZZ XX -- JJ DD XX JJ DD rr ee ee nn oo ii PP 87