House Lighting

[david.elsbury]

Hi there

I'm designing the LX rig for my church's new auditoriums (2x, main and youth). For reference, it's a pentecostal church.

I'm thinking about house lighting. In our current small auditorium which seats 150-200 we just bounce 4x 500w floods off the roof, this is fine for that space. I will probably go with the same option for the new youth auditorium (similar size).

However for the main auditorium which seats approx 700, I am unsure which system to use. I'm thinking:

• 500w floods bounced off the ceiling
  
• 1 kW floods bouncing off the ceiling
  
• (Both these options require a white roof, something that is probably likely anyway)
  
• 500w floods pointing down (harsh light quality???)
  
• 4/6/8-lite 'blinders' pointing downwards. (short lamp life???)
  

Has anyone got any suggestions? I want to go for tungsten so that the colour temperature is the same between the stage and the house, plus I want dimmable control. I may get them to also install fluro tubes or HID fixtures for general working light.

 

Along the same lines, I want (obviously) to be able to patch the houselights over to the lighting board. Are there any solutions that people can recommend that have wall panels so that the lights can be controlled manually, by people who don't need the whole shebang and a LX op? I need the function to be able to lock-out the controls though, so that during a show/service, the house doesn't suddenly fade to full...!

 

Thank you

Regards

David

 

(crossposted to PSW)

 

Addendum: Since I'm in New Zealand, I will probably just go with a standard 12ch dimmer pack, e.g the Jands HP-12 (I think?) or something similar. Desk most likely something from the Frog range, or from LSC in Australia. Probably not ETC or anything fancy.

 

So I'm really after a DMX/ DMX interfaceable panel that I can merge with the DMX from the desk and disable. This makes it trickier, I guess. If I can't get anything that looks suitable, I may just go with the fluro option and leave the house lights out of the equation.

 

My old college just had a huge changeover switch that changed control of the houselights (also 500w floods) over from wall dimmer switches to 2 circuts on the dimmers. Is this the way to go? It just means that there can only be one location to control them from. Or should I wall-mount a tiny DMX desk and merge the signals??

 

Thanks

[paulears]

personally, I've always liked the results from a number of 500w flood that illuminate a white ceiling - lovely soft light for general cover.

 

The changeover switch works well, but the change from local to lighting contol has that nasty blackout. Another place had analogue control via two panels - this was great, but needs a remote inhibit for the 'public' control, so that people don't walk in and wreck what is going on by accident. A public DMX control, and a merge also is fine, but suffers from the same accidental use problem, and an inhibit still has to be provided. The architectural lighting people have many tools that may help. A dedicated panel or integration into control from the board is more an operator preference? I don't see that operationally it makes much difference. A dedicated house light system allows operation from a number of places with lockouts if required. They are, of course, more expensive.

 

One last comment. One place I saw that had 500W units pointing upwards made one major mistake - they used cheap, glass fronted units designed for short term use, outside. Overheating was common and burnt out lampholders became the norm.

[ben.suffolk]

David,

 

How about when they don't need the full lighting rig, they just turn the workers on? That way its a nice simple wall switch for them, and not integration issues for you.

 

Of will they need to be able to dim the lights as well as just have them on?

 

Ben

[david.elsbury]

David,

 

How about when they don't need the full lighting rig, they just turn the workers on? That way its a nice simple wall switch for them, and not integration issues for you.

 

Of will they need to be able to dim the lights as well as just have them on?

 

Ben

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fair point, that is something that I will consider (as the integration will obviously push up the price) however the objective I was going for was that for events such as a missions meeting, or an event where it needs to 'look good' it would not require an LX operator (I.E, me (at least for the first few months).

I see that Strand and Lightronics do architectural type control systems that I'm looking into.

 

I'm also trying to decide on a console, but that's a whole 'nother thread.

[Andrew C]

Couple of thoughts;

 

1) In the UK at least, the Building Regulations require energy efficient lighting. That is, unless the lighting is part of a "process" that precludes this. Obviously house-lighting is part of a process (the production) so can be incandescent and dimmed. However - lights for cleaning are not. You might look at your 500w floods for house and some mercuries/fluorescents for "non-performance" events/maintenance /cleaning/whatever. This would also give you an emergency back-up, in case of house-light failure. Two way switch in a cupboard FOH and at the control position, (maybe the SMs desk too!)

 

2) On the control front, many older design or higher spec dimmers will also take an analogue control. Older designs because they have a dmux in there somewhere and you can diode in a simple fader; modern "fully digital" systems just have this facility built in. Put a fader FOH somewhere with a local over-ride switch in the control position.

[sam.henderson]

If you used Chili dimmers (I'm sure others do it as well) you could use one of their smaller packs for the dimming of the house lights (and control of the workers as well maybe?) and then use ChiliNet and Chilli wall panels to control the house lights which can then also be overridden by DMX. You can also store other lx states to the wall panels from your chilli dimmers so if they wanted just some general cover on stage or house lights at half etc. then they could just press a button on the wall. Again all of this can be overridden by DMX. Have a look at the Zero88 Website for more information.

 

Sam

[david.elsbury]

Very cool Sam. That may well be the way to go, a zero88 dimmer controlled by both DMX and Chillinet for the house lights, and fluros or similar for the workers.

How do you programme a preset/scene into a wall panel? Do you need the master controller? The manual is not quite clear on that.

*note to self* must start console thread*.

Thanks :D please keep your suggestions coming.

David

 

Edit: also how do you lock the panel out? The manual says you can trigger an 'alarm' condition from the dimmer by contact closure, but that flashes all LEDs on the panel. Not ideal....

 

Edit2: And if anyone has the ChilliNet system and could give me a user review, that would be great ;)

Ta

[Modge]

What we do (which lacks in elegance but makes up for it by being cheap) is have a zero88 level 6 board in a box on the wall with idiot proof instructions. We leave that patched in to the the dimmers that do the house lights unless we're doing something, in which case we patch the tie line from the main board instead. We get away with it because there are also flories on motsion(sp?) detectors in the room so (switchable also, but hardwired, not dimmed) if we have the board patched in (because there is a show later in the day cleaners etc can still see.

[sam.henderson]

Very cool Sam. That may well be the way to go, a zero88 dimmer controlled by both DMX and Chillinet for the house lights, and fluros or similar for the workers.

How do you programme a preset/scene into a wall panel? Do you need the master controller? The manual is not quite clear on that. 

*note to self* must start console thread*.

Thanks :D please keep your suggestions coming.

David

 

Edit: also how do you lock the panel out? The manual says you can trigger an 'alarm' condition from the dimmer by contact closure, but that flashes all LEDs on the panel. Not ideal....

 

Ta

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You program the states on the dimmers, AFAIK you don't need a master control panel if you don't want however if you use several chilli pro dimmers together then having a master control panel may be advisable so you can soft patch, switch power type etc. on any of the dimmers from one place, the master control panel and touch control panels are connected to the dimmers using standard Cat5 Cable.

 

You can lock the panels by holding down the "1-6" buttons and "7-12" buttons simultaneously.

 

There are also other cool features like last man out which means you can have a switch by the door that when activated sends a signal to cut all power to all areas after 30 seconds.

 

Sam

[peternewman]

Another possible idea. I believe I'm correct in thinking most of the mergers have various settings (A+B, A Priority, A->B Failover etc). Therefore you could use a small multiplexer eg this from Milford Instruments which provides 4 channels of Muxing. Then you could have a basic analogue network, with diodes to merge, or switches or whatever.

 

Normally the merger would allow control from the desk and the wall, but you could switch it over when doing a show to only allow control from the desk.

 

NB These are only ideas and as such are completely untested.

 

HTH

 

PN

[Shaun Foster]

If you want to stay simple, and you can find dimmers with analogue control inputs as well as DMX (or 2 lots of analogue inputs), you could mount a small analogue desk somewhere in the auditorium and replace the blackout button with a keyswitch or ad a keyswitch to disconnect the ground. I'm not sure how dimmers with 2 inputs merge the signal though, you might need something else to merge the signal.

[Brian]

If you want to stay simple, and you can find dimmers with analogue control inputs as well as DMX (or 2 lots of analogue inputs), you could mount a small analogue desk somewhere in the auditorium and replace the blackout button with a keyswitch or ad a keyswitch to disconnect the ground. I'm not sure how dimmers with 2 inputs merge the signal though, you might need something else to merge the signal.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I do exactly this in one venue with Zero88 Betapacks. The DMX and analogue inputs work on an HTP basis - so turn off the anlaogue desk and the DMX will work on its own.

[P. Funk]

If you want to stay simple, and you can find dimmers with analogue control inputs as well as DMX (or 2 lots of analogue inputs), you could mount a small analogue desk somewhere in the auditorium and replace the blackout button with a keyswitch or ad a keyswitch to disconnect the ground. I'm not sure how dimmers with 2 inputs merge the signal though, you might need something else to merge the signal.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I do exactly this in one venue with Zero88 Betapacks. The DMX and analogue inputs work on an HTP basis - so turn off the anlaogue desk and the DMX will work on its own.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Or, route the analog cabling through the control room with a patch cable between them and you then have the facility to disconnect the patch cable (turns off analog desk), and also control house lights yourself on a seperate analog desk should you not want to have to patch in to the real console for whatever reason.

[KindredHyperion]

If you want to stay simple, and you can find dimmers with analogue control inputs as well as DMX (or 2 lots of analogue inputs), you could mount a small analogue desk somewhere in the auditorium and replace the blackout button with a keyswitch or ad a keyswitch to disconnect the ground. I'm not sure how dimmers with 2 inputs merge the signal though, you might need something else to merge the signal.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Z88 Betapack 2 plus have little local control faders on them, like a 6ch manual built into the front. Pehaps you could use this, although on the other hand you may not want your staff going near the dimmers.

 

Adam

[dbuckley]

Along the same lines, I want (obviously) to be able to patch the houselights over to the lighting board. Are there any solutions that people can recommend that have wall panels so that the lights can be controlled manually, by people who don't need the whole shebang and a LX op? I need the function to be able to lock-out the controls though, so that during a show/service, the house doesn't suddenly fade to full...!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The Clipsal 12 channel architectural dimmers have both DMX512 and CBus control, so you can configure up a system which has pretty wall panels for scenes, and then (if my memory is correct) configure a button to hand control of selected channels (which may be all) over to DMX512.