CS332 Magic Lantern Controller

Until now, to achieve high screen brightness has involved an illumination system producing excessive amounts of heat. Of course, oil lamps, acetylene and lime-lights are no longer safe or possible. But even modern quartz halogen and projector lamps focus more heat than light on to the lantern slide. LEDs are now widely used for general lighting and being solid state devices produce little heat and infra-red compared with filament lamps.

New flood lighting LEDs have resulted in COB lamp devices being produced at 100 watts with 9000 to 10000+ lumens of light output. These are suitable for magic lantern use because they are an array of 100 tiny LEDs arranged in 10 x 10 grid. Unlike ordinary lamps, the lantern condenser focuses the light evenly over the slide area with no vignetting (shading or high spots) and almost no forward infra-red to fry your valuable slides.

The light output is as bright as a 250 - 300 watt QI lamp or an old fashioned 500 watt projector lamp. Such LEDs need a special low voltage constant current power supply and controller.

Celsun has been able to harness this LED technology by developing a bespoke controller for Magic Lantern users which takes care of the special power requirements of 100 watt LEDs. Also Celsun has developed a special LED lime-light unit to house and mount the special LED devices to allow simple 'plug and play' installation into vintage lanterns.

The Celsun CS332 features smooth dimmers on three channels plus a master for group dimming or to set maximum brightness. One, two or three outputs can be used according to lantern type.

Dimming rates or cross fade transitions can be variably timed by an additional speed slider. The brightness can be dimmed right down to fully black and without visible steps. There are indicator LEDs on the control panel to show output status and these can be dimmed too for the darkest environment.

A lanternists reading light USB socket gives dimmable illumination for the panel controls or lecture notes. The unit is solidly built from powder coated aluminium and has a standard mains inlet socket.