Junior8

Well yes but they pleaded guilty to a breach of the regulations. Deciding their liability is quite another matter, as the school's counsel points out. It may not be that flimsy at all. In that respect it will be an important case which, were I a headteacher, I would be watching with some interest.

Well with £1m in cash or cash equivs they ain't broke.

How nice to hear that youngsters are still entering the amateur radio field. You know I think that has helped make my day...

In a lot of non theatrical venues you'd be lucky to find anything more than a 13 amp socket to plug the vacuum cleaner into.

 

Sorry Mike but there is absolutely no point you coming on to a forum like this where people have for years, in my case for the best part of 50 years, been involved in this sort of work using this sort of equipment and not listening to the answers. In many cases you are benefiting from answers based on bitter experience of the real practicalities of using portable equipment in multi use venues. If I say don't bother I have a very good reason for saying it.

 

I refer you to Brian and Kerry's posts above and mine earlier.

Simple.

 

If they are traditional theatre floods with a Tungsten lamp you will need a cable rated for the current which can be plugged into a simple distro if you just want to switch them on and off or to a dimmer pack of some kind if you want to control the intensity. The load will be broadly 4 amps per kilowatt. The only control over colour will be whatever gel you put in the front.

 

If you are considering LED floods they will need a 240v mains cable and some kind of control cable as well unless you wish to go wireless.

 

In a sense the cabling for each type will involve the same run and the same security considerations.

 

I say again though. You are starting from the wrong question. How you are going to rig any lighting safely and acceptably for venues is the most important question. Cheap 3m stands and a few cheap floods with not do this job. Please feel free not to take any notice of the number of times this has been said above.

 

To be honest you'd be far far better off hiring a complete instal from a decent firm.Unless I was using this stuff at least weekly I would never buy it.

A chat with the promoters confirmed they prefer overhead flood. Next time I rigged a 1KW flood [normally used for uplighting the facade of the theatre] in addition, using a rope through a ventilation hole in the ceiling. The spread was far too wide and lit the audience and for the next show we got the chippy to build a 'tube' around it, maybe 3ft sq x 4ft tall. After that we got a chain and installed a hook,socket and dedicated extension lead in the 'loft' space, from the top we'd drop chain and cable down to floor level, rig light and box and lift to appropriate height.

Last time I went to a show there I noticed the box was hanging up at ceiling level so I imagine still in use.

 

This doesn't solve OP question but memory lane never hurts.

 

Many years ago Strand used to specify a rig of acting area floods or maybe Patt 35 Arena Floods pointing straight downwards over the ring for both Boxing & Wrestling!

Right Let's get down to basics of what you are asking. The lighting sources are only one consideration far more important is how you rig them. Assuming the mat is 1.06m off the ground and the average wrestler is around 1.8m then their eyes will be very nearly at the same height as any lighting source hanging off a 3.8 m lift stand (at its maximum) as will anybody in an audience sitting at the top of raked bleacher seating. To avoid dazzling contestants and light them and the ring from above that height you'll need something uber stable like a 5/6m Doughty Zenith stand which if memory serves me right come in at over £1100 a pop. Call it the best part of £5000 for the ironmongery. You simply can't do this sort of job properly on the cheap.

The equipment you want is readily available but if I've found the right website and your sports centre and town hall set up is in the round in the normal ambient lighting as shown on the youtube channel to be honest I wouldn't bother. Without the infrastructure you find in a theatre type venue and especially a decent blackout you'll be adding a lot of extra get in work and I suspect, given the average council venue, hassle in RA terms for very little gain as far as the product goes.

The one time I was asked to do this I used floods on short stands about 2 ft below the sill and six foot back. I didn't have any choice really about the position but it looked quite good provided you kept the intensity low. The plain fact is though that this is a very difficult task if the lighting has to be invisible inside. My first step would be to get a few sources and try things out - it may be that on looking from the street you find within two minutes that the whole idea is a waste of time. If the aim is to give a realistic impression you might be surprised just how little light is perceived through stained glass where there is any amount of ambient light outside.

It's probably too late for this for you but when we had a new studio built in my last school I had eight control access positions installed around the space and bought the cheapest 12 way manual board I could find for just this kind of need*. All the teacher needed to do was switch on the main breaker in the dimmer room and plug the control in where they wanted and a basic rig of general washes was available to them. (I did this largely because I didn't trust some staff with access to the control room.) In the end for normal class work and casual presentations it proved extremely popular and the desk spent most of its time on the floor. If I'd needed it the craft dept would have run up a simple wall mounted wooden lockable cabinet which would fold down to form a temporary shelf.

 

I am sure there will be a similar simple solution for you if you think outside the (control) box.

 

(*This was just before DMX became a possibility in our setting but I had 48 channels of analogue control terminated in robust surface boxes around the space and 36 dimmers (with space for 12 on hire) and it only occurred to me later that such a set up with a number of simple 6 channel desks had myriad possibilities for group work.The additional costs at the build stage were trivial by the way.)

I hope the outcome for your incident wasn't too bad.

 

Some nasty burns to the hands which put his project six months behind but it could have been much worse. I only heard about it as I was covering a vintage event the guy was at and he was telling all and sundry just what the risks were.

Sparks from an angle grinder were enough for a very nasty incident like this near here. It was typical too - the guy was usually uber careful but this was just a one minute job - unfortunately Mr Sod was on duty.

Do plumbers still use solder? The cash-in-hand brigade seem to use the horrible plastic push-fit fittings. I've still got a rod of solder & a tin of flux somewhere, but I don't suppose I've touched the solder since the 1980s.

 

 

When I had some extension work done in 1995 he soldered a few joints. Not since. Crimps and threaded unions seem to be what they use now.

 

 

 

 

Urged on by one of Clive's videos I went back to construction last year, after a break of around 30 years, and dusted off my 1976 Antex Precison and a box of reels of RS Solder I inherited from the same period. It's a combination that still works like a dream 90% of the time but I have found that some of the PCBs in £5 Chinese kits I bought for my 'refresher course' won't cooperate with it. One of the bonuses of the last year is the incentive to get back to things like this but I have to say that Clive's videos were also a spur.

Ir has absolutely nothing to do with dirt, my grandfather worked in a large engineering workshop and wore a white shirt every day coming home with it as clean as when he left in the morning. It is about the right clothes for the job. Trouble is many will not wear the right clothes. Watching idiots drive traction engines in shorts and a tee shirt as if they were on the beach, and getting off the man stand looking like sweeps, makes one go cold. There was a reason for overalls bib and brace or otherwise in many trades which have not disappeared with improvements in safety. It is a great pity that when so much is made of steelies, masks and ear defenders that so little ofetn seems to be made of anything else.

Would a custom made membrane switch like these do? (Disclosure - I did some work for this firm.)

It probably meant that your local authority was one of the few that did not deal with them. There were a few who only specified Major for lighting and I don't think C&S were used much in Lancs. On the subject of age I think if you still mentally sometimes think of a stage sound system as the Panotrope, even if you don't say the word, it gives some indication of maturity!

For that matter useability too, the C&S 10W record players would fill a hall full with 600 with clean crisp audio with ease.

 

I know this thread has strayed off topic too far but the above is a fact needs to be stressed. This type of equipment looked archaic when it was new was robust and simple but it did the job - and that wasn't to deafen people or allow manipulation of the source or take multiple inputs or attempt the highest quality - it was simply to let people hear comfortably. There was a time when 15W was seen as quite adequate for most purposes if this kind and with decent equipment it was.

I once tried to explain to someone new to supplying the Education field that he would not credit what idiots could do to equipment - it turned out after a minute of two of confusion he thought I was talking about the kids. Clark & Smith knew better!

 

Fond memories from my schooldays of "built like a tank" C&S radios on trolleys, record players in laminated cases and ferrograph based tape decks - all with key locks to keep prying fingers out.

 

Anybody of tender years who wonders what the heck we are on about click here In the past many users bought for ruggedness first - for example the majority of showmen and a lot of PA contractors bought the Vortexion 'Wimbledon' that was built like a tank and did a simple job reliably. I bet in some corner of a village hall somewhere one is still happily working away.

E2A: Even when the speakers have proper volume switches & you've used a mole-wrench to tighten the lock-nuts, there will always be someone with sufficient strength in their fingers to twist the knob beyond its end-stop

 

I once tried to explain to someone new to supplying the Education field that he would not credit what idiots could do to equipment - it turned out after a minute of two of confusion he thought I was talking about the kids. Clark & Smith knew better!

 

 

 

I have to say that the first time I saw a Podium I thought it must have been designed by a committee.

 

I agree - there are much neater solutions than the Alto one.

 

I'll climb anything - except a Tallescope. It always put the fear of God up me....

This is our new level playing field that for some reason has been built on top of Mount Everest and which is for some reason on fire at the same time.

 

Did anyone (apart from the innocents who actually believed the leave charlatans) that it would be any different? The big players will cope the niche players won't bother. It was obvious all the time this was what would happen. The fall out is something half a dozen adults could have sorted out over a decent lunch - the trouble is that politics these days worldwide seems to be a job for those who either can't or won't grow up. (Or in the case of the USA geriatrics.)

If the guy who was asking about choosing between Uni and other training is still about this thread might give him food for thought!

This is a quite appalling effort at a survey - there are so many things wrong with it one wonders where to start. I'll say it once again. A questionnaire is almost always the wrong method and it is here again. Any data gained through this will be worthless.

Interesting chat though.

 

I wonder what marks we got?