SeaChanger Color Engine

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SeaChanger Color Engine is an electro-mechanical lighting device that adds color to stage lights. It uses four overlapping color filter wheels placed right in front of the lamp to color the beam. Unlike color scrollers that use filter ribbons, this engine sits between the light source and the optics.

It was released in 2005 by Ocean Thin Films and is designed to fit ETC’s Source Four ellipsoidal fixtures. The unit mounts between the reflector and lens barrel, replacing the gobo/accessory slot, and it can be installed without tools. It comes in two main versions: Profile and Wash. The Profile uses the Source Four lens barrel and reflector; the Wash uses only the reflector (with an optional lens assembly). There are also HID (high-intensity discharge) versions where the lamp barrel is used in the profile, and a standalone Wash HID unit that doesn’t rely on Source Four components.

The Color Engine includes its own power supply and control interface and sits directly in front of the lamp, before any optics. Inside are four dichroic color filters that you can saturate from 0 to about 95% (with optional Studio Dichroic filters reaching 0 to 100%). The wheels provide standard CMY colors (cyan, magenta, yellow) plus a green wheel. The Profile version’s green filter expands the color gamut to deep blues, reds, and greens that are hard to achieve with simple dichroic mixing. The green wheel can be replaced with black for mechanical dimming when external dimmers aren’t available.

Wheels are driven by stepper motors, and their position, color, and speed are controlled by a four-channel DMX512 or RDM signal from a lighting console.