gyro_gearloose

You could try running several instances of Screen Monkey. I'm not sure if you actually can, but the software is free so why not try it? The software is very simple to use, which might be a bonus depending on the skill-level of the end users.

*cough* working time directive *cough* :D

They don't have any dedicated LX bars over stage, just 12 three meter IWBs which they rig from any of their 26 usable counterweight bars. I'm not sure if they have a 'standard' rig which they use, or if they rig on a per-show basis. Front of house they have a square lighting rig in the roof, accessible by catwalks. They also have bars on the front of the two circles, which you can see in the photo on the page Bryson linked to. They don't (or didn't when I was last there 18 months ago) have any permanent follow spot positions. Hope this helps EDIT: Just found this 360 degree virtual tour of the auditorium. It seems they still haven't mastered the art of correctly hanging their IWBs :)

The problem in Lowestoft is a bit more complex than a simple merger or name change. Prior to the district council merging and becoming East Suffolk council, they created a town council and passed some of their assets on to them. It might be the case that the town council are now responsible for the land in question, but haven't got around to replacing the signage.

Good point, I hadn't spotted that. If anyone else has got some old tat fixtures they want to get rid of, drop me a PM :)

I might be interested in the washes for parts if you don’t want much for them/aren’t too far away for me to easily come and pick them up.

It should be fairly trivial to recreate the Anytronics unit with an Arduino and a few external components.

Solidworks CAD is a bit overkill for 2D laser cutting. For the plastic bits of my Miniscan LED conversion I created my designs in Inkscape using a temp,ate provided by the laser cutting company. Might be worth talking to whoever is doing your cutting and ask what file format they can work with.

We've got an ELC Focus Hand. It ought to do what you need, and its wireless too. It doesn't have a display though.

I'm not sure that they have a minimum order quantity. I just gave them a ring when I wanted to buy the fasteners for my Macs and they were happy to sell me individual parts.

The Prelude quarter turn fasteners appear to be from the Dzus Panex D8 range. I've worked through the Product Configurator page on the SouthCo website, and the correct fastener for Preludes seems to be the D8-314-328-191. The receptacle that clips to the front of the lamp is the D8-334-300-121, and the retainer is the D8-324-101-200. Hope this helps.

Something from the Dzus quarter turn fastener family should solve that problem. I've ordered some ages ago to replace the head shell fasteners on my old Mac 250s.

I would be amazed if any Preludes still around these days have decent reflectors anymore! Chrome plated Aluminium next to a heat source doesn't give the reflectors a long life. The same can be said for the bigger Strand fixtures too. Also, I've had to replace the lamp bases on a few of our Preludes. Rather than fannying about trying to drill through spot welds, I found it easier to drill the lamp base rivets out of both the old and new bases, and use thin bolts to fix the new lamp bases into the old trays.

Might be best to go with an automatic staged power up system. We’ve had an Emo switcher on our amp rack for years for this very reason

£100 minimum for a camera?? We've got a Hikvision CCTV camera on our balcony which cost around £30 and could do HD if we plugged it into a CCTV recorder. As it is, it also has a composite video output mode which we feed straight into an old LCD TV in prompt corner. Works well, has a built-in infra red lamp, and seems to have fairly low latency. As other have said, resolution isn't really important. We just need to be able to see the stage in a complete blackout.

It definitely sounds like the end-stop switch is the cause of the fault. It might be that the switch itself or its wiring loom is broken, which you can test with a multimeter, or it might be a motherboard/CPU fault which means the fixtures brain doesn't receive any signal from the switch. Thinking about it, your fixture might not have the optical feedback system like other movers do. I've got a Mac Maestro in my shed and it only has end-stop micro switches on pan and tilt.

Do they move smoothly? A feed back error could be caused by dying motor driver circuits (a common Martin problem), which can cause loss of torque, which in turn causes the lamp not to move as much as it should do(if at all). This will cause feedback errors. It could also be the optical sensors on the feedback wheel. The feedback system consists of a toothed wheel and a pair of optical sensors for both pan and tilt. If a sensor is broken, or covered in dust, then it will not detect the light pulses as the motor turns. This will also cause feedback errors. Its unlikely to be the end-stop micro switch. You can easily tell if it is that as the fixture will run itself up against the pan or tilt end-stop, and will then try and keep moving resulting a lot of noise and juddering. Hope this helps

Any reason for the LED upgrade? I had a look for the led replacements, and the only ones I could find at Stage Depot aren't rated for continuous use at full power!

Sounds like its blown one half of the stepper motor driver chip, meaning the motor will try to move but not have enough torque to actually move the light. Or it might be the same type of problem that plagues older Macs in that part of the circuit that controls motor current, and therefore torque, fails meaning the motors try to move but are too weak and feeble. Either way, barring a wiring loom fault, your problem is probably electronic. Hope this helps

Will powder coating stand up to the high temperatures and UV light inside a moving light? Also, there is always the option of Vantablack :D

VJ loops are what you need to look for. Here are a few. However, 10 by 5 pixels is probably far too low of a resolution to do anything meaningful with.

If the shape is not too intricate could you not just make a jig and then use a hand held router? Failing that, a small CNC machine might work. Unfortunately laser cutting is expensive.

As well as refitting the gel frame clips, you’ll also need to reform the ridge that runs around the end of the lamp body. It is there to strengthen the end of the lamp, and it will be a bit flimsy without it. You’ll need a roll-forming machine to do this. It might be cheaper and easier just to find some short body cans.

If the leaves are aluminium then you might find it difficult to get the paint to stick. Aluminium is notorious in this regard. The UV from the lamp doesn't help either. If you can get them spotlessly clean you could try anodizing them black.

If I had listened to you, I wouldn't have successfully converted some Miniscans to LED! :D You could in theory convert any discharge fixture to LED just by removing the ballast, ignitor, and lamp, and replacing them with an LED, its driver, and some means of cooling the LED. You don't need to worry about dimming the LED as discharge lamps aren't, in general, dimmed electronically (yes, I know some do, but by no means all of them). They most often use mechanical dimming, which will dim any type of light source. The biggest problem you'll have is how you capture the light from the LED. The Miniscans used condensing optics, so it was fairly easy to repackage the lenses so that they would work with the LEDs. If your Macs have reflectors around the lamp then you will almost certainly have to get rid of them as most high power LEDs won't fit inside them. In that case, you'll either have to make your own condensing optics, or use some off the shelf silicone optics which might not be as efficient as the lenses. I have been looking at fitting some LEDs to wash fixtures, and the LED/reflector/driver setup I've been considering are as follows: CREE CMA2550 LED : https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/cob-leds/1712932/ Carclo silicone optics : https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/led-lenses/1805456/ Optics holder : https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/led-reflectors/1241019/ LED driver (possibly) : https://www.meanwell-web.com/en-gb/ac-dc-single-output-led-driver-mix-mode-cv-cc-with-hlg--100h--36b Hope this helps