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Under the Hood: The X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Laser Fixtures

Speaking with X-Laser CEO, Adam Raugh, on how X-Laser engineered these new fixtures to meet the demands of production professionals


After 18 months of design and development, X-Laser recently released its Triton T Series IP64 laser fixtures: the Triton T-5 (five watts) and Triton T-2 (two watts). X-Laser CEO, Adam Raugh, and CTO, Andrew Berry, spent that time incorporating the features they felt were most important for lighting professionals to have in a laser fixture, and made key engineering decisions based on feedback from X-Laser clients.



The development time and the decision to start with a true “clean sheet” design culminated in X-Laser’s most advanced fixture line yet.


Starting Fresh

“There’s a lot in the laser industry that feels like things are done a certain way because they always have been done that way. So by going with a clean slate for the Triton T Series, we threw away the conventional wisdom,” Raugh explained. “It was freeing to start fresh, but also meant we had a lot more to figure out than we normally would with a new projector design.”


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

The mechanical design of the Triton T Series offers benefits reflective of the feedback X-Laser has received from its clients in the professional lighting field. Starting with that clean slate during initial design modeling, Raugh and Berry considered input from the folks who are out touring the world with X-Laser gear; the live event pros who patch, program, zone and rig these things every day.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers
X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers


Speed, Size, and Staying Power

With the complexity and scale of today’s touring productions, lighting crews are asked to handle more than ever, faster than ever, to ensure that they stay on schedule throughout load-in and load-out. A small but significant example of how the X-Laser team kept lighting crews in mind while designing the Triton T Series is the fixture’s handle.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

“One of the most important things for our clients is ease and speed of deployment,” Raugh said. “That’s why the Triton T Series’ main yoke is also its integrated handle, so someone can just pull it out of a road case with one hand and hang it very quickly.”


Raugh added that is also why the Triton T Series incorporates an integrated EtherStop (remote stop) switch, unlike most other laser manufacturers, as well as PowerCON TRUE1 throughput. Of course, also integrated is X-Laser’s Mercury firmware so the designer can patch the fixture straight into their console via Art-Net or sACN with full RDM capabilities.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

X-Laser intentionally implemented those connectivity solutions in the new Triton T Series to make it easier and faster for lighting technicians to deploy their lasers. As a result, crews can loom power, remote stop and data together with fewer cable runs, saving invaluable time and effort while out on the road. Not to mention the space, weight and environmental benefits of simply needing fewer cables on the truck.


Relatedly, the Triton T Series fits within an astonishingly small footprint. The Triton T-5 and Triton T-2 each share the same housing, which measures approximately 15” tall by 10” deep by just 6” wide. Each weighs about 20 pounds. Raugh said that making the fixture that compact was a direct result of X-Laser clients wanting to be able to fit more systems onto truss and truss carts where space is at a premium, especially alongside today’s hefty “traditional” fixtures.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

“Part of why we designed the vertical orientation to be the default is so users can put these systems just eight inches apart on centers. Even that tightly together, the units will have sufficient airflow around them and designers get the flexibility to rig and swing a moving head fixture near it without issue. Or they can rig it in the flat orientation at a lower profile and not need to worry about impeding the view of the performers” Raugh added.


When it’s showtime for the Triton T Series, rounding out its key features is IP64 durability. X-Laser is the first to offer an IP64 laser fixture line that is fully engineered and built in the U.S. Aside from the firm’s renowned support, production clients purchasing the Triton T Series get added peace of mind when adding these lasers to their inventories and knowing they will perform capably in various outdoor environments.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

“Weather isn’t just rain,” Raugh noted. “Heat is weather. Sunlight is weather. Dust is weather. So with those things in mind, especially moisture and heat management, the biggest challenge was making the Triton T Series  function as IP64 in both vertical and horizontal rigging orientations. As far as lasers go, nobody else does that.”


‘A Holistic Look’ At Problem Solving

“We take a holistic look at system design here, where we’re not just looking at the mechanical,” Raugh said. “We’re also looking at how our electronics integrate with the mechanical components such as the circuit boards and supervisory systems. There was a lot of back and forth between myself on the mechanical side and Andrew on the electrical side as we eventually got closer to the target.”


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

Raugh and Berry also drew on their own experience designing other Triton models, such as the Triton 10 and Triton 36 that X-Laser designed and built for the Coldplay's Music of the Spheres Tour. For example, in order to use the supervisory system found in those higher-power Triton models, they had to redesign the circuit board to work with the mechanical components inside the new Triton T Series housing.


Successfully meeting the new fixture’s electronic and mechanical demands reflects that holistic approach. And even with much simpler components like the T Series’ aforementioned handle, X-Laser looked at the whole picture and designed with the whole crew in mind, from the designers to the stagehands.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

“[The handle is] one of my favorite design elements to be honest,” Raugh said. “The fact that it works as both a yoke and a handle with nice, smooth rounded edges so you can just grab it and deploy it, we designed that with users in mind.”


Benefits Seen And Unseen

Most Triton T Series users won’t see the shared componentry from other Triton systems or the nitty gritty internals with their own eyes. However, their audiences will experience the benefits of those design and engineering details show after show.


“Some of the improvements we made with the newest Triton models are things that our customers are never going to see,” Raugh said. “But they make the systems more consistent from unit to unit so designers know what they’ll get from every fixture.”


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

One such improvement within the Triton T Series is that the diode modules—the heart of any laser projector— are mounted directly to the heatsink, as opposed to on an intermediary optical deck. X-Laser explained that this arrangement reduces the amount of mating surfaces for the diodes, essentially making thermal management easier inside the unit and the fixtures better able to withstand warmer environments. Keeping the diodes cool and happy means that the units will last longer and the colors they produce will remain consistent. 


As technology advances, laser diodes aren’t just getting more compact, but also more precise. X-Laser harnessed this for the Triton T Series, inside the T-5 (five-watt model) specifically.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

“Compared to competitors’ systems, in the T-5 we use cylindrical corrected multimode red diodes instead of single-mode red diodes,” Raugh explained. “The arrays within those diodes produce a beam that is actually four points in a square, but in the modules used in the T-5, the red beam is the same profile as the blue and green diodes. That means the beam specs are the same across all three colors, so you don’t end up with any aberrations or weak spots when color mixing, which can occur with single-mode diodes.”


Another laser-specific improvement X-Laser implemented inside the Triton T Series was using precision ground locating pins when installing the diodes and galvanometer scanners. Rather than using simple screws, the precision locating pins make beam alignment both faster and more consistent across fixtures.


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

Engineered For Production Professionals

Since its inception, X-Laser’s mission has been to make life as simple as possible for people who want to add lasers to their shows. And what started on the compliance side has evolved to include hardware made specifically for production professionals.


“Our clients aren’t just people who are into lasers. They’re lighting people,” Raugh said. “That’s why so many of the core design and development decisions we’ve made, from the launch of Mercury Laser Control in 2017 to today with the Triton T Series, are focused on the needs of lighting designers and technicians.”


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

X-Laser has adopted the understanding that live production professionals want fixtures that deploy rapidly and easily, take up less space on truss and don’t require a separate operator or inelegant control workarounds. And part of the genesis of the new IP64 Triton T Series was knowing that production companies choose IP fixtures over non-IP ones because they keep life simple and provide a better long-term value for the investment.


“We’re excited about the Triton T Series because we think it checks all of those boxes lighting people look for: fixture size, reliability, flexibility, simplicity, IP rating,” Raugh said. “It’s meant to tie in with your existing system and be a seamless addition for anyone used to working with movers.”


X-Laser Triton T Series IP64 Lasers

For anyone used to traditional lighting fixtures, these lasers are worth a look—especially now that we’ve taken a deeper look under the hood. To get more information about X-Laser’s Triton T Series lasers, and to request a quote or live demo, visit www.x-laser.com/triton


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