Dimming house lights

[lonfire]

hi,

I'm currently trying to spec some kits for our church hall.. (still!)..

 

I'm looking into dimmer house lights.. we have 4 rows of 4 300w lights.. which are on 4 breakers on the main circuit board..

 

my question is this: I need to have the on off switch by the door still but I would also like to be able to turn on some dimming system so I can dim the house lights when needed..

 

any thoughts on kit that might do this? or a DMX dimmer perhaps? perhaps 4 single channel DMX dimmers?

 

any thoughts?

 

thanks

chris

[djw1981]

Could you have one of those multi state switches so that there is an "ALL ON" "50%" and "ALL OFF" option thus allowing it to be a simple on off switch but also dimable when required this could mean that you sue the dimmers when you want a full fade to black, but for normal use there are 2 switches which non-tech people can use.

IE the switches feed into the dimmers.

 

I know a few lecture rooms in Uni have got them. It means that all the dimming for the building is in one room. The uni ones have 4 buttons - "All ON" "ALL OFF" and an up and down key which if held increase the brightness or decrease it. They display this as a percentage in a small LCD screen.

[nickb12345]

If you got a single channel dimmer at 5 amps or more you could run them all from the one.

 

If you get one that holds the state when DMX is lost then wire a switch in either before or after the dimmer and your sorted.

 

Use the DMX to control your fades and leave the channel up when you turn your desk off and then just use the switch to isolate the supply when needed!

 

If you also want to be able to dim them without the desk on you could get a dimmer that also has analogue 0-10v control and put a 1ch fader on that!

 

Maybe someone else can suggest a model of dimmer that can do this, I can never remember product names!

 

hth

 

Nick

[Brian]

If you also want to be able to dim them without the desk on you could get a dimmer that also has analogue 0-10v control and put a 1ch fader on that!

The Soundlab 4-channel dimmers found on ebay have both analogue and DMX inputs.

[GreyBadger]

If you got a single channel dimmer at 5 amps or more you could run them all from the one.

 

Umm, OP says '4 rows of 4 300w' - that's just about bang on 20A at 240v...

[nickb12345]

If you got a single channel dimmer at 5 amps or more you could run them all from the one.

 

Umm, OP says '4 rows of 4 300w' - that's just about bang on 20A at 240v...

 

 

Oops my bad. I read that as 4x 300w. No wounder it seemed strange that he suggested 4 seperate dimmers ** laughs out loud **.

 

In that case then maybe 4 seperate ones whould be more like it!

 

Nick

[Ben Langfeld]

Why not just wall-mount a small DMX controller for the channels with the house lights on?

[lonfire]

hi guys,

thanks for the suggestions.. I would like it as simple as possible.. so as far as the majority of people think the switchs on the wall just operate the lights..

 

I wonder if I could have a relay system.. so the lights either switch between dimmers or the power from the switchs..

 

the sparky doesn't know much about this stuff.. so want to say.. just do x, y and z..

 

thanks

 

rgds

chris

[Rich newby]

hi guys,

thanks for the suggestions.. I would like it as simple as possible.. so as far as the majority of people think the switch's on the wall just operate the lights..

 

Or do both At the same time. So you could dim them or switch without having to do any circuit setting. Just wire in series, so if the lights are dimmed it will only work at that level, then if there switched they will come back on at the level the dimmers are set at.

 

My suggestion would be something like 4 of these from thomann, 1 dimmer to control every row.

 

If you want to control them without your desk you could use something like a 4 channel desk with a master to dim the whole lot at once. Something like the liteputer C-401.

 

Rich

[KindredHyperion]

Don't know if this might be a little OTT, but you could look into one of the smaller Chilli systems from Zero88 - this would enable you to have certain states recorded and availiable from a control panel where you just press a button to activate that state. You could just get the two button version, with an 'on' state and blackout. It can, of course, be overridden by DMX.

 

Also, many merge units will have override settings, so you could get a little 6ch DMX control desk, and set it so your main desk overrides this when neccesary.

 

More discussion on houselights here. :P

 

Adam

[Ekij]

Most house lights are fluorescent.

There are additional complications with dimming if the lamps are fluorescent.

Can the OP confirm what sort the lamps are?

[pritch]

I doubt they're fluorescent if they're 300W each!

[Simon Lewis]

Chris,

 

At our church we have several Paradime dimmer racks. Most are wired up for stage lights, but one rack is connected to the house lighting circuits. We have a Paradime wall plate by the entrance door which can recall states saved on the houselights rack. "Normal users" just touch one of the buttons on this wall plate to get the set of lights they want on. The last button turns off all of the house lights. Some of these circuits are either fluorescent, discharge or run from relays (I didn't wire it up, so can't be specific) and the dimmer channel is programmed / connected accordingly.

 

In addition to this, the houselights rack also responds to DMX. Given that the dimmer works on the HTP principle, we have to hit the "off" patch on the wall plate to control the house lights from the lighting desk, but this is OK.

 

The overall effect is to give general users a very easy to use light switch, and to allow the lighting guys to dim the house lights as and when necessary.

 

HTH,

 

Simon

 

The wall plate can be seen half way down here The dimmers are also shown on this page.

[Meduza]

If you want to buy cheap dimmer packs from thomann, then you should maybe choose this from showtec insted of the botex one:

 

http://www.thomann.de/thoiw2_artikel-171656.html

 

It is £2 more and got a dimmer slider if you want to set a specific level when people use the the switch at the door, and you can still control it via DMX

[lonfire]

hi guys,

thanks for the help.. they are 300w giant ES bulbs, so no not fluroscents..

 

that system looks good simon.. not sure we'll be able to stretch the budget to that though..

 

what I'm not thinking of is this..

 

using two way light switchs.. making sure the common runs to the lights. then on one side of the two way have 240v and on the other side connect it back to my dimmer units.. I've already got two of those cheap DMX sound lab dimmers, so just get another two.. or find some 1 channel hardwire ones..

 

or possibly having another set of 2 way switchs before the main ones so that I can switch off the power to the main switchs and control them from the dimmers, that way stopping somebody turning the lights back on full.. might be better.. especialy in our church.. "oooo its too dark lets turn all the lights on so we can't see any of the nice lighting stuff somebody has spent hours setting up" ;-)

 

so if the dimmers are off then the lights will be on or off.. and if the dimmers are on it'll be on or dim..

 

how does that sound? means no relays or fancy control stuff..

 

rgds

chris

 

ps. I like those single channel dimmers Meduza.. if I got the sparky to wire it back to the dimmer room/store room ;-) we could dim or set the levels manualy if needed, without DMX.