From the 1960s, Chen continued to improve stage lighting for costume dramas, contemporary plays and children's puppetry, adapting his work to each new production.
In the 1970s, the troupe sought to reduce the weight of its equipment for performances in rural communities, factories and military units. Chen, who also captained the rod-puppet performance team, reworked the heavy suspended iron frames. He redesigned the existing lighting equipment as smaller fixtures and replaced large slide projectors with compact ones.
There was little machining equipment and no comparable product to use as a reference. He made fixtures with scissors and hammers, repeatedly testing and revising them. To create foreground, middle-distance and background scenery with the small projectors, he worked with Liao Bingxiong on projected stage designs. The rebuilt equipment used less electricity and was easier to transport. It was then used for productions including Sun Wukong's Three Battles with the White Bone Demon and Xiangyang Flower.
In November 1975, the troupe performed at the national puppetry festival in Beijing. Its small-projector lighting received praise from fellow practitioners and audiences, and other performing groups visited to learn about the changes. Over the years, productions for which Chen worked on stage lighting received municipal, provincial and national awards.
After retirement, he founded Guangzhou Nanyi Electronic Lighting Factory to continue developing the lighting equipment. The factory made large, medium and small stage fixtures, and some products received provincial and national awards. The products reached performing arts groups and overseas customers. The biographical account recalls that he was still working in lighting beyond the age of eighty.
