DJzone DJ Magazine

American DJ has added a scanner and a color spot to its revolutionary X-LED Series of 20W LED-powered mobile DJ/club effects. The company’s new X-Scan LED and X-Color LED produce dazzling gobo patterns and colored beams just like a traditional 250-watt lighting effect, however instead of a halogen or discharge lamp, they are powered by an energy-efficient, mega-bright 20W white LED light source.

In using an LED source as a hard edge beam, the X-Scan LED and X-Color LED join the first member of American DJ’s X-LED Series, the X-Move LED, as part of a major breakthrough in LED technology. “What’s so revolutionary about the X-Scan LED and X-Color LED is that they use an LED source the same way that lighting effects have traditionally used halogen or discharge lamps – as a ‘central lamp’ that projects colors and images,” explained Scott Davies, General Manager of the American DJ Group of Companies.

“Developing an LED source powerful enough to do this was a major breakthrough. We first implemented this technology in our X-Move LED moving head, and now we’ve expanded the series to include the X-Scan LED scanner and X-Color LED color spot. We truly believe this is the beginning of a major transformation in DJ/club effects, where you’ll see LEDs replacing conventional lamps as the light source,” said Davies.

Like the X-Move LED, the new X-Scan LED and X-Color LED each feature a single 20W white LED that shines a powerful beam through gobo wheels and/or color wheels to project razor-sharp images across floors, walls and ceilings. The effects they produce are virtually indistinguishable from what you get from conventional halogen scanners and color spots. Plus, you get better performance, increased efficiency, cooler operation, more portability and all the other great advantages of modern LED technology.

The X-Scan LED functions like a regular scanner with X/Y mirror movement. It has separate color and gobo wheels, with 8 colors plus white and 8 rotating gobos plus spot, so users can create a wide variety of exciting visuals on the dance floor. Or, they can let the scanner run according to its own eye-popping built-in programs. Other cool features include a gobo shake effect and a strobe effect in every color. With its 13° beam angle, the X-Scan LED is capable of wide, sweeping room coverage and is well suited for small clubs and rooms with low ceilings. It uses high-quality stepper motors to make smooth, fast, fluid movements.

Just as powerful an effect, the X-Color LED is a more basic, stationary color spot fixture with 8 brilliant colors plus white, strobe effect and manual focusing lens.

Options abound when it comes to controlling these two high-performance units. The 6-channel X-Scan LED and 3-channel X-Color LED are completely DMX-compatible and can be operated via a standard DMX controller. They can be run as stand-alone units while in Sound Active mode, and multiple units can be linked together Master-Slave. A 4-button menu system LED display makes them super easy to navigate. Both the X-Scan LED and X-Color LED can also be operated via American DJ’s UC3 universal remote controller, sold separately.

The X-Scan offers yet another innovation with its Pan/Tilt Inversion mode. When four units are running together Master-Slave, units 1 and 3 will automatically sync up, while units 2 and 4 move together in the opposite direction — in an exact mirror image of the other two. This effect makes it look like the scanners are “dancing” with each other and gives the appearance of a more sophisticated light show, one that would typically require DMX programming.

“With their many exciting features, 250-watt brightness, compact size and affordable price tags, both the X-Scan LED and X-Color LED are perfect for a wide range of lighting users — everyone from DJs, bands and traveling performers to nightclubs, bars and entertainment venues,” said Davies. “Their huge LEDs are bright enough to work with or without fog, which makes them great for weddings and other gigs where fog machines are taboo.”

Because their LED lamps generate very little heat, the X-Scan LED and X-Color LED can run continuously all night long with no duty cycles. Other LED advantages working in their favor include an extremely long lamp life (50,000 hours), high beam intensity and low power draw. They consume a fraction of the energy of a 250W halogen effect, saving clubs big-time on electricity and allowing more fixtures to be hooked up to a single circuit.

Both fixtures are smaller and lighter than comparable halogen and discharge effects, so they’re extremely portable. The X-Scan LED is 15”L x 7.87”W x 6”H and weighs 10 lbs. The X-Color LED measures 7.87”L x 6.7”W x 6”H and weighs just 5.3 lbs. The units come equipped with hanging brackets, so they’re ready to install right out of the box.

The MSRP of the X-Scan LED is $559.95. The MSRP of the X-Color LED is $399.95.