Damian Jay

Apologies for the delay in logging back in here. Work kinda got in the way for a while. Thank you everyone for even more input on this. Sunray - 'The fly lines will need to over some guides or pullies to control the position or else the tabs will travel acros the stage as the line winds along the shaft.' Notes made as I had not thought of that. I would have kicked myself over that detail. I was playing about with using micro switches in the guides for the safety curtain which would be activated by the curtain when fully in or out. But that won'r solve the start stop positions of any bars flying scenery in / out. I was hoping that I could control all of this using DMX as I'm familiar with using that. I could then program everything lighting, flying etc and take my time programming each scene and effect and save the cues for later playback. I would need to learn how to set up a motor for DMX control. Plus with using RGBW LED strip lighting for most of the onstage lighting ... that's probably going to run to two universes alone. But it's doable. Also I keep looking at Arduino or PI as the control systems. These seem to be able to do everything I need, however I'm not sure if you can use more than one Arduino board in the same project. I'd also have to learn coding too (but hey, that's a useful skill to have anyway) Can I get the same level of control / playback with Arduino ? I think at present my understanding of Klingon is far superior to my understanding of Arduio and Pi. Tom Howard - Thank you that's very kind of you and I am interested in taking you up on your offer. But I need to wrap my head around which will be the best control system first of all. I think I need to get some serious playtime in with both Arduino AND the DMX stuff that Musht linked to. I best spend some money and get a few bits in to play with :-) Thank you all again for your advice and thoughts :-)

Wow, a lot of info there thank you. And a big thank you to @Ontoprigger for the formula :-) The point about the acceleration and deceleration of the tabs is fantastic and one that I hadn't thought about. The proscenium opening is based on the size of A3 paper (as that's the largest printer I have for printing the scenery that I can't make) A3 size is 420 mm x 297 mm in portrait mode. Allowing for tabs overlap at the sides of the proscenium (10 mm per side) .. the size drops to 400mm width And allowing for the overlap at the top of the pros of 17mm So at scale 1:25 my pros opening will be 400mm wide by 280 mm high = 10m wide by 7m high (the tabs actual size would be 420 mm x 297 mm at 1:25 scale and 10.5m wide and 7.42m high at 1:1) @Tom Howard - I don't have a winch drum as such, I was planning on attaching a long shaft onto the shaft of the motor. This would run longer than the pros opening and up in the flytower. I would then attach my fly lines (probably 3 lines) to this shaft at the appropriate place. As the shaft rotates it would wind the lines up round it raising the tabs. When changing direction the lines would unroll and lower the tabs. The shaft of the motor is 2.5 mm diameter, so the shaft I would fix onto that would probably be around the 4.5 mm or 5mm diameter mark. Your tip on sail winches I am looking into as well. Thank you @Ontoprigger - I like the idea of variable speed control..... that would give me options for a faster IN, and would also (hopefully) give me the the slightly slower start to the fly OUT and the slowdown of the IN to avoid bounce. I'm hoping I can find a way to rig up and control the motors via DMX and set up a profile for the motors in my DMX program. that way I can 'play' with speeds and program them for each production. Not yet sure if making a motor DMXable in miniature is possible. More research is needed on this. Hope the above info was helpful.

Truthfully, I was hoping to be a little lazy and find out a decent speed of movement that could be scaled down to a model size. Then just find a motor that moves at that speed. The reality of converting RPM to feet per second is proving to be a challenge for my mathematically challenged brain. When the local college is open again I can go chat to one of the engineering lecturers. As for wiring up a speed control to vary the speed .... that may be beyond me for a good while yet.

I wasn't sure where to ask my question so I've popped into the general topic. House tabs - I was wondering what is a general speed that house tabs fly out / in - how many feet per second to they raise / lower and is the speed dependant on how far they have travel? So I'm asking a few general questions relating to house tabs: - How fast / slow do your venues house tabs raise or lower? - Is the speed variable? (when I worked at the Kings Theatre in Southsea many years ago, there were two of us on the house tab winch, we had 35 turns each on our own with both of us doing the middle 12 turns. 82 turns of the winch to fly out completely) - What do you consider a reasonable speed? The reason behind my ponderances .... I was attempting to work out what speed I'd need a motor to run at to fly out / in a set of house tabs on a model theatre. Then I realised that I don't generally have a clue what an appropriate speed would be. As my local theatres are currently closed :-( this is the perfect place to ask. Thank you for any information you are happy to share :-)

Sunray - That's part of what I've opted to do on one of the bars. The other bar will have a heavily torn / ripped muslin drape on it.

Wow, so much to think of. I think I'm going to take the really easy option, and think of a different staging idea completely. Math is not my strong point so for me, It's better to be safe than sorry. Thank you all so much for your assistance with this. It's greatly appreciated. Have a great weekend all :-)

Hi Ramps, I'm not familiar with the 'Bomb' weight system. Could you elaborate or guide me to some more info please. Typing into Google 'Bomb weight systems' came up with various websites for calculating weights of bombs ... I'm sure I've raised a few red flags with my searches ** laughs out loud **

Sunray .... Thank you :-) No wonder my doodles and thoughts were not working. I was waaaaay over complicating things.

Hello all. Firstly apologies for the rather lame topic title. I didn't know how to explain myself in a short title. I'm after a little bit of knowledge and 'how to' please. I'll use Phantom of the Opera as my example as I suspect most members are familiar with the show in some way or another. I'm trying to recreate an effect I saw on a YouTube video (a fair few years ago now, and I have not managed to track down the video) The effect, and it's brilliantly executed during Phantom, is that of drapes hanging at odd angles, as though one or more of the fly lines have snapped. the drapes hang with one end on the stage and the other up in the air as it's still attached to the fly lines. When these drapes are flown out the effect is of the drapes righting themselves and hanging correctly in their horizontal position. From what I remember the real fly bay is masked and a false fly bar is visible to the audience, somehow righting itself as the two are flown How would I achieve this effect please? And, a real longshot here, does anyone know of the YouTube video I'm on about? I think the video was of a production in a school or college and the SM was explaining how they created the effect. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you Damo