PV US Lab, Godox SL60W AC Power Consumption

I have 60W one but did not use yet exept one test with small softbox when arrived . Did not know about NG-10X option will order soon. thanks for sugestion

@webarchitect

Must be good.

Make sure to make some video with them and post here.

Thermal behavior

Initial quick test with fresnel attachment, US Lab.

1 minute run

20 minutes

Third party app

Grimor... you will need very very powerful lights for that. Hollywood films have giant HMIs and diffusers for that kind of thing. You just cannot compete with sun unless you are literally holding the panels 1M from them with no diffuser on their face.

I also have Aputure 672s and for whatever reason I prefer the color temp of those units to the Godox stuff... I know the tests above say 5500, but doesn't feel that way for the units I have. I used the free "aputure meter" to measure the light temp (I know.. probably not super accurate).

The Godox is good $/lux if you don't care about fan noise. The NG-10X works very well with the SL-60W but not as good with the 200W. Almost 10x the lux using NG-10X without moving the LED (but keep in mind the distance between the front of the lens and the meter is now less than 1M if you don't move the LED back.

Better and cheaper for sure!

I own Aputure 672S and Yongnuo 600 led, i need a light for a group of 6 persons, from 3 meters away during day, (outside take) and my panels seens to be not powerfull enought.

Well, i said lumen and want to say lux... My question is if single COB led fresnel outputs more power than multileds panels.

How is the output light compared with aputure 672S ? I have one 672S and found it not enought lumens for day use

Will make and publish measurements soon.

Yes I have dissembled and tried to replace with Noctua fans.

Lower noise but still noticeable (don't even bother for the 200W it's loud no matter what), the design is very open with no consideration for acoustics, only cooling. The 60W has fan directly behind the COB chip. The 200W has large heat sink connected to COB, on the heat sink are 2x 80mm fans. Noctua fans will not fit the 200W without modification (cutting off some plastic on the fans).

I tested months ago in quiet bedroom... picked up noise no matter what for the 200W. I tried to use fan controller on it, but you can't reduce the speed too much otherwise it will overheat. Good thing is you can see the temperature on the back... I think it shuts off around 70 or 75c

I'm waiting to see if the Aputure 300D fan noise is acceptable. 

Really depends on your threshold for noise. I don't like dealing with it so I don't use them, kind of wasted money on them. But lots of run and gun locations have AC you can't turn off etc so if you don't mind the noise they're pretty affordable for the light output, I put a review on DVX and some DB measurements.

[added from DVX by VK]

I have the SL-200W and SL-60W with me. My original intent was to try to save some $$$.
I was looking for a new key light I could use with Bowens mount octas and some back / rim lights.

Right off the bat - fan noise. Unmodded it's very noticeable, like a medium-loud PC. I did some tests AFTER my fan mods in my bathroom and bedroom - about 1m away from either light you can still pick up the sound of the fan. In my opinion they're too loud to bring on the interviews, at least with the people I work with. I made some test recordings with a lav mic and hyper cardiod mic and I could hear the fans playing back with my Zoom H6 so I didn't even bother to playback on PC.

I replaced the stock fans with Noctua NF-A8 PWM series fans with the restrictor cables @ 1750rpm.

The SL-60W is pretty quiet but you can still pick it up. The SL-200W has two fans and they're quite noticeable. That being said, if you are using them in a "noisier" environment with other fans, computers, AC etc around, they don't add too much noise. I measured about 38db (33db ambient) for the SL-200W about 1m away (it's a $30 db meter so don't expect much accuracy). Due to the design of the units there's just nothing you can really do about the noise.

In terms of light output... well they're pretty decent but throw about 1/2 the stated lux. The SL-200W I measured at about 6 or 7,000 lux @ 1m. The SL-60W was about 2,000 lux. Not sure what the beam angle is, probably around 120 deg like the Aputure. I have no idea where the manufacturer stated lux measurements are coming from. With the reflector on, the SL-200W threw about 18,000lux @ 1m.

With the SL-200W and the Godox 47 and 32 inch octas and double diffusion, I measured about 2,500lux @ 1m. I made some diffusers out of frosted shower curtains instead and almost double the output @ 1m.

The surprising thing was the Nanguang NG-10X "fresnel" and the SL-60W did about 25,000lux @ 1m at spot (beating the Nanguang CN-60F, $140 vs $400!). The SL-200W only managed around 32,000lux @ 1m at spot - but the NG-10X feels like a toy.

Unfortunately I do not have a spectrometer so I can't comment on the actual quality of the light, but I do want to note that the lights I have are about 6,000K. To my eye they don't render skin tones as nice as the Nanguangs or Aputure stuff, but they also seem a bit magenta instead of green (my guess).

I really wish I did some noise tests before I separated the head from the SL-60W. I feel like it was just a whole bunch of wasted effort since I don't think I'll actually use these lights on any interviews. Live and learn.

Conclusion:

Lux per $ these are still pretty good considering the price (about 50% of the average cost), BUT, might be useless for interviews due to the fan noise, and still have untested CRI / TLCI. I regret my purchase - they aren't bad lights (at least so far) but I'm more adverse to fan noise than I thought. However if you are doing music videos or don't need audio, they're pretty cheap so why not. The modded SL-60W actually isn't that bad in terms of noise (can barely hear it), but it's still there so if you need a quiet set these are a no go.

Good:

• Cheap.
• Great remote system (even shows you the light output % on the remote!)
• Bowen mount

Bad:

• Fan noise
• Unknown CRI TLCI

Other:

• Around 6000K temp and hard to gel

Sidenote: I picked up a Nanguang CN-30F. The spot is very tight which is actually pretty cool, but for interviews it's almost too small. They really worked their fresnel well - without the fresnel the light only measured 1,300lux @ 1m - only average output for 30W!

So I'm guessing the Nanguang CN-200F which costs about $1,300USD probably puts out the same amount of light as the $380USD Godox SL-200W... The pluses are the fresnel is well made and it's fanless. However the remote system is so silly. Godox really killed it there, too bad the fan noise is so bad!

I really hoped these would work out for me considering the price. I don't know what I'm going to do next.

I have this and the 200W version.

Fan is noticeable. 200W is quite loud. If you are in a quiet space it will definitely show up on recordings.

NG-10x works well on the 60W but doesn't have the same performance on the 200W.