What Speed Ring should I get?

Speed Rings can be a tricky thing, but Chimera offers a wide range of options to help provide you the best and most versatile option.

For Strobes and most continuous lights under 2,000W you’ll be opting for Super Pro and Video Pro lightbanks, and their associated speed rings. These are available in four styles:

– Poly / Polycarbonate: Considered the ‘standard’ or basic ring, a durable black plastic frame and aluminum mount-specific insert. 4 pole sockets to support strip, rectangular (standard), and lantern lightbanks. Economical, and perfect for most strobes. For continuous lights, stay below 650W as anything more can damage or the ring.

– Metal / AL: If you see an “AL” at the end of the model number, its one of our great metal speed rings! These rings have a durable metal body and are great for rental, studio, or stage environments when toughness is critical. These rings are also designed to take the heat of continuous fixtures, often up to 1600W or 2000W. Also has four pole sockets for rectangular, strip, and lantern lightbanks.

– Quick Release / QR: One of Chimera’s most clever products, giving ease of use to the lightbank. Aluminum construction for the heat of continuous lights, and four pole sockets to support rectangular, strip, and lantern lightbanks. Quick Release Speed Rings have pole sockets that can pivot forward 90 degrees and lock in to place, allowing a Lightbank to be set up and taken down with much less effort and time.

– OctaPlus / OP: Similar to the Metal/AL rings, except with four extra pole sockets to support our OctaPlus and Octa Beauty lightbanks. They’re still backwards compatible with all rectangular, strip, and lantern lightbanks.

When it comes to larger continuous fixtures, you’ll be faced with a “Daylite” option across all wattages. Daylite simply refers to a series of banks that have an increased depth to support narrow-beam fixtures. As a result, these banks have poles that are on a bit of an angle and need a specific pole socket.

For fixtures below 2000W, separate Daylite Junior rings are available as counterparts to standard Video Pro-sized rings.

For fixtures from 2K to 12K – most circular speed rings feature dual-block Q/D pole sockets, that will support either a Quartz or Daylite Standard lightbank.

For fixtures from 12 to 24K – these large fixtures are meant to be with the Daylite Senior rings, which match up to our legendary Daylite Senior lightbank. The only bank in the world that can take up to 240000W tungsten or 18,000W HMI!