What is an Illuminator?

Often referred to as the light engine, light pump, light source and even transformer, the illuminator houses the lamp that provides the light for the fiber optics. The fiber is connected to the illuminator via a Fiberhead. On some models a color filter or color wheel with many different color filters is positioned in between the fiberhead and the lamp. The color wheel is connected to a motor that will turn and change the color at a pre-determined rate. For special effects a DMX system can be integrated with the illuminators to provide fast paced effects as well as dowsing. Dowsing is the stopping of light transmission through an opaque filter.

If you have more than one illuminator and you want the colors to change at the same time on all of the units then you need a synchronous controller. SV Lighting manufacturers two synchronous units : the 300C is an internal system that can synchronize up to ten illuminators and the 600C can sync up to 35 illuminators.

With a booster ( an extra SV600C ) an application can handle data cable lengths of 2000 feet, or another 35 illuminators whichever happens first.