Heptagon

Sorry - again I haven't given enough info. The lighting is all LED, but the actual units on each circuit are not documented. We don't have access to the luminaires at present. The distribution is via 3 LSC APS units (12 channel each but only about half of the channels are used (the bottleneck is the cabling to the patch points - there are very few, but more than enough for the steady load). Switching on is by a Crestron unit which causes the APSs to power up, and they do the sequencing of the individual channels (but not, of course the lights on a single channel). Switch off occurs when no DMX signal is detected for a configured time. The first occurrence was a large number of channels, but I didn't see which ones - they had been reset before I got there. I have only been able to document one case (out of 3 occurrences), but if there are any more I have asked the ASM to note the channel(s) he has to reset. We have no control of the set-up, but I was hoping to be able to provide a recommendation. If the luminaires provided a one cycle delay in the daisy-chain hardware, that would solve the problem. The reason this seems possible is that some luminaires have a statement that only luminaires of the same type should be daisy chained. Thanks again.

We are having trouble in the theatre we hire with some distribution unit channels tripping on power up. There is plenty of capacity for the wattage of the luminaires (the channels are running at less than 1/3 capacity) The lighting power supply is not daisy chained - it is all fed from a tree of piggy-back plugs. Is there any electrical advantage in daisy-chaining - e.g. does each luminaire impose some sort of delay on those further down the chain - which could prevent tripping?

Slight thread shift - I have some Pat 45s that I want to give away, but does anyone know if the cables are asbestos sheathed?

Thanks all, I found help locally, and it iw working a treat. We now have a USB with our own configuration for future shows.😃

Thanks David, But you are over-estimating my knowledge of sound gear. I assume there are a number of paths through the Yamaha from input ports to output ports. I can plug the Scarlett 4 outputs into Yamaha input ports (probably the first 4, but will take advice). Two of the Yamaha Rio outputs are (always) connected to the two speakers on the theatre walls. I can plug our speakers into any other outputs of the Rio, but probably 29 and 30. But my question is - how do I route the signal from the input ports to the output ports? (what words do I look for - Mix, Bus, ...) Remember, I don't have access to the gear until bump-in (apart from the computer and Scarlett), and don't have time to experiment and read manuals during bump-in. Can anyone help? Regards

The theatre we hire is equipped with a Yamaha QL5 desk, with Dante connection to the stage. What I want to do is very simple, but the Yamaha is written for sound experts, and I don't speak the language. (Lighting is more my thing). We have a Focusright Scarlett 4i4, and 2 powered speakers to be placed onstage. The theatre has two speakers mounted high on the walls. All we want to do is connect the 4 channels output from the Scarlett to the Yamaha, and the speakers to the onstage Dante. It is not always certain that the Yamaha will be in a standard state, so is it possible for us to set up a state on it, save that to a usb stick? And then during our limited bump-in time, just load up that state, plug it all in and go? If so, what words do I need to know to find in the manual how to do this.

Sorry - neglected to add, they are running in 9 channel mode.

The theatre we hire uses 4 of EK Eprofile (LEDPRO131 - LED Profile FC), controlled by a Hog4 lighting board. My problem is that if the lights are programmed for colour using the "colour directory", or the "colour picker", and a cool tint is chosen, the colour actually generated is way off the expected - even sometimes being a warm tint. We have resorted to building a table of RGBAW levels, and using them, but this is tedious, and the necessary corrections cut into our valuable bump-in time. Has anyone had this problem? Or a solution?

Just to be clear what I am asking - I will include a mud-map: I am aware that connection A is a no-no, and think I understand why - the fast ramp-up of voltage at the start of each cycle causes heavy currents in capacitive loads which are found in LED lighting luminaires. Connection B we have used in the past (but not in our current venue). It seems to me that it must be fairly safe - since any radio frequency (RF) signal sent up the line by the dimmer pack should be minor by the time it gets through the 3-phase wiring. I am interested in the connections C and D, where a small (single or 2 channel DMX dimmer is used to control a low wattage tungsten bulb (or 2) (or even a dimmable LED). This will be necessary when we have to drive a practical lamp or something similar on-stage. At present we are using a 12v DC DMX decoder and 12v bulbs - but they are inconvenient. Is there any risk of damage by the RF from the small dimmer to the LED luminaire?

Thank you all for your help. I am confident now that the failures are being caused by a combination of storm damage and worn/dirty fans - both problems exacerbated by the luminaires having being powered on 24/7 for years (even when the theatre was dark during Covid lockdown I think). This means that the failure rate should drop dramatically with the new protocol, but some damage may have occurred to the lights which hasn't shown up yet. I consider a hardware switch-off would be preferable, but the APS auto-switch off should give some protection from lightning, and certainly save the fans and reduce dust collection. I cannot see any reason that our lighting cannot be connected to the APS, and will agitate for that. I have further questions - but will start another thread to avoid thread creep 🙃

The blue arrows indicate leads which now provide protected power to the balconies. The red arrows are leads bringing unprotected power to the bridge for hirers equipment. The GPO's on the balconies are about halfway along the wall side, and there are profiles that have to be stepped over to reach them. I hope this helps.

Sorry for not making the situation clear - there are three parties - us as hirers, the venue owners (without a lot of theatrical expertise), and contractors who set up and maintain the lighting and AV. There are fairly inaccessible lights above the stage, a nice accessible bridge above the audience, and balconies in the back wall (behind the audience) with space for long-throw lights (no seating - just lighting battens). As things were set up, the distro racks only supplied the over-stage and bridge units - the balconies were fed by general power outlets - one on each balcony. As far as we can tell (we don't get much info) no-one has ever connected a LED unit to a dimmed output. Earlier on, we did use a 12 channel dimmer feeding up to 8 of our tungsten units using our own looms (2 four-way looms). This was connected to a different 3-phase outlet, and had no 240v connection with any venue equipment (only DMX). Since the venue brought in the no-dimmer rule, we have not used it again. We agitated for the switching off of the distro racks when the theatre is dark, and this was done recently, but the contractors realised that the balcony lights would not be protected, so they ran two leads from the bridge to feed the balconies. All should have been well, but they also ran two other leads feeding from the general outlets on the balconies to the bridge to be used for our lights. These are unprotected. I do not know for sure what is causing the high failure rate in the lights - but I suspect having them on 24/7 is the root cause. I do know what wiped out two of our lights on the night of a major storm (they were powered on). There has never been any documented case of an LED luminaire having been damaged by a dimmer in this venue (only pure speculation).

Well - we got through the play - I did it their way and sent our operator out to switch on and off each performance. Since we are committed to the venue, and another play is coming, do you think it is worth buying (about 4) of something like the "Belkin 4-outlet Surge Protection Strip" and inserting them between the general power outlets and our lights? Our storm season is not yet on us, but when it arrives, we can expect a violent electric storm about every 3 weeks. (One of these storms took our two of our EVE P130 lights last storm season).

Clunky it certainly is. Our operators (not riggers) have to climb out on a lighting balcony - stepping over the venue's profiles (without knocking them or unplugging them) twice per performance to switch off and on. But I don't see how it is any sort of solution. If hirers are prepared to violate the hire conditions by bringing in a dimmer pack, why would they go to the trouble of using the special extension leads?

Thank you all for your comments on this - we have had a partial win. After much pushing on our part, they have done something. They have set things up so that the APS cuts the power to the lighting on detecting zero DMX. While this is good - they claimed they had to load up the circuits to the point that they on the edge of tripping, and all the lights of our own we use (all DMX LED) will have to be run using extension leads to wall power outlets. This means of course we do not get any protection for our lighting, and have to send our operators out onto the lighting balconies to switch on/off between performances. When I gave them a set of numbers showing that none of the circuits were at even 1/3 capacity, we got this reply back (identifying info removed): "While there may be the capacity to connect more than four lights to a single power circuit, the main reason for separating hirers equipment from the XXXX equipment is to reduce the ongoing repair costs of broken fixtures. As we only access the room once a month for maintenance checks and cleaning, we cannot control what hirers do while they are in the space. XXXX has already spent $5550 repairing lighting fixtures since the venue was refurbished. We currently have another six fixtures waiting for spare parts. This will potentially add another $4000 to this total. As I am responsible for protecting these assets for XXXX, I see no other option than to ask all hirers to keep any additional fixtures separated from XXXX equipment. We are now requesting that all hirer equipment to be connected to separate power sources using the spare power cables supplied onsite. This will reduce the chance of hirers connecting dimmable power sources to the XXXX fixtures". There are multiple red signs saying that dimmable power sources MUST NEVER be used (even bringing a dimmer pack into the venue would be considered to be wilful damage) - is there any logic to his position?