The Wasp has a ballast mounted onto the yoke, as in the first picture below. The DC power supply is vertically mounted on the side of the yoke. So there's no ballast hanging below the light stand. All electronics, short of the power cord, are contained in the photos you see directly below. The yoke accepts a standard 5/8" c-stand stud, so mounting it was a breeze for us. The light turns on with a switch placed mid-way on along the power cord, just as you would expect from a tungsten fixture.
The Wasp takes about 90 seconds to fully illuminate and come up to the correct color temperature, which is fixed at daylight - or about 5600K. There is no dimming control on this fixture. If you want to dim you need to use scrims. Power off and re-strike can happen instantly, unlike an HMI which needs a few minutes after you press the stop button on the ballast.
There is an external XLR type connection from the DC power supply to the ballast. The unit we have in rental also has DMX control. Hive has a battery pack adapter to use standard Anton Bauer packs, but we currently don't have that in rental inventory. The Hive rep told us to expect about a two hour battery life with a typical Anton Bauer battery pack...however he didn't specify what size of pack that equates to. Still, if you are working remotely any chance of having these lights keep going for two hours on battery is a very good alternative to a gas generator driving your audio person nuts. Which reminds me, this light is completely silent. No fan, hums, buzzes, or other audio issues.
The rep also told us that light output equates to about the same as a 400W Joker. However this light only consumes about 275W.
The front fixture frame accepts standard Arri 6.5" scrims and barn doors. As you can see in the photo below there is a standard set of ten scrims along with four lenses that come with our rental kit for the Wasp.
Below are some behinds the scenes photos I took from my last cooking show shoot with the plasma lights. I used the Wasp to punch through a window and provide a hair light on the talent, even in mid-day southern California sunshine. The light was out on the back patio all day in 85 degree heat and operated without issue. You can see some screen captures of the production footage on my personal blog.
If you have technical questions about this light I would encourage you to call Michael or Jeff at the shop. Since the lights are brand new to our business we're still coming up to speed on in depth knowledge, but we'll do our best to help.
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