Chauvet Professional is a top name in entertainment lighting, and the company continues to deliver new and innovative products to the market. Joining the existing Maverick series of spots, washes, and a beam is the brightest of the washes, the Maverick MK3 Wash. In this Road Test, we’ll travel in and around the full-featured MK3 Wash moving head fixture to learn all about it.
Fixture Head
The MK3 Wash is exactly that, a wash light. Albeit, an extremely bright wash light! You certainly can’t miss the 15-inch diameter head filled with an array of 27 40W Osram RGBW multi-chips, with a rated life expectancy of 50,000 hours. That’s over 1,000 watts of LED power! I think it is bright enough, and flexible enough, to be used in any application you would need a 1,200W to 2,000W discharge moving head. If you’re a numbers guy, the illuminance is 89,200 lux @ 5m for 7° and 2,814 lux @ 5m for 45°.
The fixture has a variable color temperature correction (CTC) channel, which adjusts the white color temperature from 2,800K all the way to 10,000K. What’s great is, once you set the color temperature, it remains when using the color mixing channels. Also included is a background color wheel channel, which has a ton of preprogrammed colors including preset values of CTC (2700K/3200K/4200K/5600K/
8000K). The red diode has some orange in it, closer to a Rosco R19 than a medium red like Rosco R27. The blue diode is a primary blue, close to Rosco R80.
The 7°-45° (field angle) motorized zoom was speedy and can be used as an effect in itself, changing from narrow to wide in under one second. The beam angle is listed at 5°-29°. It is impressive to see an extremely bright thick colored beam transform quickly — almost disappearing — into a soft wash. Or the other way — a beam quickly appearing out of a soft wash. Zoomed in to a narrow beam, the fixture reveals the LED multi-chips spaced apart. Zoomed out to wide wash, the multi-chips disappear and each honeycomb lens becomes the large pixel. Both scenarios offer a useful piece of eye candy.
Control Options
Chauvet has given users a number of control options. First, you can select one of the four “Single Control” modes like Basic (21-channel), Standard (129-channel), Advanced (243-channel), or Tour (297-channel). The single control allows the fixture to be solely controlled from DMX, W-DMX, sACN, or Art-Net (all versions are supported). Or, you can use two of the “Dual Control” modes, one for movement, and one for pixels: Basic Movement (9-channel), Standard Movement (21-channel), or Advanced Movement (27-channel) and Basic Pixels (81-channel), Standard Pixels (108-channel), or Advanced Pixels (216-channel).
In dual control, you can set movement to be controlled via one protocol and pixels to be controlled from a second protocol. For example, I can set my MK3 Washes to dual control basic movement via DMX and Advanced Pixels via Kling-Net. That way, my lighting console can control the movement, zoom, master dimmer, and control while a media server (outputting Kling-Net) can send pixel mapped content to the fixtures.
But remember, we can keep the fixture in Single Control mode and use all the on-board built-in effects and pixel content — of which the MK3 Wash does remarkably well. Using the gobo channel, there are 255 different patterns you can display on the fixture head. And, you can change the gobo color and rotation. You might ask, does the gobo channel fade and cycle through each gobo? It’s not something the fixture does or doesn’t do, as it just responds to DMX. You would handle this in the lighting console by setting your cue or chase to snap, rather than fade. This allows you to immediately get to the desired gobo. For gobos with negative space (pixels that are not lit), you have the option to set a background color and intensity. This allows for easy two-color gobos and effects. Or, run a color effect on the background and/or foreground, and you have an infinite number of color mixes.
It’s important to note that each fixture can act as an Ethernet-to-DMX node. The fixture has the option to turn on/off “Ether to DMX,” which determines if an Ethernet protocol (sACN/Art-Net) coming in is outputted to the next fixture in line via hardline DMX.
On the Move
The 16-bit pan and tilt are smooth and accurate. It doesn’t have continuous pan/tilt, but it’s consistent with other fixtures on the market, with 540° pan and 270° tilt, which is the norm. The pan and tilt speeds are fast, panning 540° in just over 3 seconds and tilting 270° in less than 2 seconds. If you’re running movement effects, the fixture is quick to respond and can immediately change direction. There are plenty of user options in the control channel, like the ability to change default pan/tilt values, turn the display on/off, change the dimmer curve, adjust the cooling fan speed, change between RGBW and CMY color modes, or home pan/tilt/zoom individually, and set the fixture to blackout on pan/tilt. That is, to blackout while the fixture is moving — useful for theatrical applications.
Both dimming and strobe are electronic. The strobe flashes at a maximum 20Hz (times per second). It can also pulse or be set to a random flash pattern. The dimming curve was flawless and smoothly faded out all the way to 0 percent, and there are four different dimming curves to choose from. If you are using Tour Mode, there is a 16-bit dimmer channel for each pixel. This allows for quick intensity effects for each pixel, with color independent. If you are using Advanced Mode, you lose the pixel dimmer channel, so it’ll require intensity effects to be programmed by using the RGBW channels.
The MK3 Wash weighs in at 68 pounds, requires 9.51 amps at 120V, and offers multiple frequency settings for LED control — so you can be sure it’ll look great on camera. Its covers are matte black and have a rubberized finish, made from a high-impact flame-retardant polymer, which seems durable. It reminds me of the chocolate coating you can get your ice cream cone dipped in. (Don’t dip it in chocolate, though, it has an IP rating of 20, which means dry locations only.)
Packing It Up
If you are looking for a low wattage LED fixture for a garage band, this isn’t the product for you — and in that case, you should check out the other fixtures in the Maverick and Rogue lines. But, if you are looking for a super bright full-featured wash light that can be the workhorse of your rig, then this IS the product for you. With an attractive price tag of $5,999.99 (MSRP), Chauvet Professional’s Maverick MK3 Wash is sure to be a high demand fixture for a wide range of events, designers, users, and tours.
At a Glance:
Power and Versatility
Maverick MK3 Wash is a full-sized moving wash luminaire. Output is generated from 27 powerful 40W RGBW LED multi-chips. Shaping the bright beam is a motorized 7°-45° zoom. The fixture offers a blend of versatility and illumination, filling in rigs that require long throws, bright output, or pixel mapping.
Maverick MK3 Wash
- PROS: Wash and beam fixture, bright, pixel-mappable. RGBW LED multichips, LED source, fast movements.
- CONS: None
FEATURES
- 27 x 40W Osram RGBW LED multichips
- 7°-45° Zoom
- Variable CTC (2.8K-10K)
- Seetronic Powerkon power input (Neutrik PowerCON True1 compatible)
- Network in/out RJ-45 etherCON compatible (sACN, Art-Net, Kling-Net)
- 3- and 5-Pin DMX in/out
- Wireless W-DMX
- RDM compliant
- Built-in webserver
STATS
- Size: 22.93” x 18.7” x 11.49” (HxWxD)
- Weight: 68.2 lbs.
- Wattage: 1,141W
- Voltage: 100-240, 50/60Hz (auto-ranging)
- MSRP: $5,999.99
- Manufacturer: Chauvet Professional
- More Info: www.chauvetprofessional.com
