sunray

My proposal is to avoid splitting signals across pairs. 1&2 orange pair --- party line 4&5 blue pair --- 903 I/p 7&8 brown pair --- 904 o/p 3&6 green pair --- party line ground

And from that site, ingoring the descriptions going with it (but I'm not saying irrelevant): "There are two variants of the French flag in equal use - a lighter and a darker version". Which could explain Adam's and my perception/observation.

Something like this for the CA5 cores: 1-3: party line comms 1 & 2 signal etc, 3 ground 4-5: AD903 input: 6: spare or ground for AD903 7-8: AD903 output

Yes very likely but it is something to be aware of and I believe worthy of comment. My expectation is that the tests described by Dave would be suitable for the job, except having worked with such connectors of wildy varying quality control it wouldn't surprise me at all if a 2.5mm bits small shank fitted in a large 2.1mm plug (socket according to Sony's original design/description). If I'm doing anything which required accuracy I'll measure the shank size. However I once got caught out when asking someone to measure a spring for me, as a spring was not available he measured the hole it was to locate into (and I was replicating on site) a 3.5mm bit was a snug fit which turned out to be ~3.2mm (1/8"), as a result multiple holes were drilled at 3.5mm which meant the 3mm spring locating in it was a very sloppy fit and the shaped end popped out and a repeat site visit to access multiple suspended ceilings to adjust the shape of the springs.

I believe it used to be a very dark blue and red. A number of years back it seemed to get lighter, almost a sky blue and post office red but more recently when I see it in a selection of others it appears darker again. Some of that is probably due to the time it's been flying in the sun and faded. When I tried to find the official colours for our union flag, it appeared there were 3 different options although one was head and shoulders above the others. I don't see similar detail for the French colours.

It's a good tip but be aware the flutes of a drill bit are sometimes bigger than the shank, far more so on larger sizes.

I'd use 30W or 50W LED floodlights now. admittedly they are usually bigger than halogen but less prone to failure with the potential vibration/knocking when on. In 70's I used to rig 4 6ft bars from rafters in a market building in a 20ft square formation (dictated by position of roof A frames) for wrestling and used 2 500W floods 6ft apart on each. Assuming from earlier comment the ring is 16ft the lights would have been 2ft away from the ring at a height of standing on a transit roofrack and virtually full stretch for adjusting so I'll guess 14-15ft. In the theatre where I worked they used 2 2KW floods inside a wooden sleeve suspended directly above the centre of the ring so plenty shadows under the wrestlers.

Yes I concur in my very small time AmDram experience. My grand son wanted to 'help me' while setting up for a show and running the tech in a church hall and came with me. As it happened I was on the list of keyholders but I found the lock had been changed, The administrator arrived to supply a new key and instantly put a stop to him assising me. The irony is he'd been in a previous show as a dancer and nobody batted an eyelid and since then I've assisted with children singing at meals with no issues. A village hall where I assist with tech for the very significant panto for a village hall (eg lighting rig by Whitelight) suddenly council were involved with child inspections and permit issueing. I was advised an inspector even arrived in the middle of the run to check procedures were being followed. I don't know the proper terms or procedures as I wasn't involved, other than helping provide acceptable privacy changing rooms. I got the impression each child had to have a separate responsible adult listed and there was a proper signing in and out sheet in place. However helping in schools is different, as long as teachers are present I'm permitted to have junior school children hanging, addressing and focussing lights and rigging sound with due regard to H&S, working at height etc.

As in my previous post the fixtures would automatically revert to 'Master' in the absence of DMX and a number of us were playing with them. The only thing for sure was to put them into 'Slave' mode but that locks them to address 1. I used to install AMX/Panja kit to control AV systems and interfacing with RS422/485 was always an expensive exercise as they only provided default RS232 ports. I regularly made an interface with a single transistor and a couple of resisters for each conversion (S/R) inside the DB25 shell (or a large DE9 shell). What I was doing was efectively tying one leg of the RS485 to a high or low state and controlling the other. Or ignoring one leg to go the other way. Waffle warning. When we had a problem controlling a Camera (I think Sony) where we had to load parameters into the camera by RS485 everytime it powered on. We didn't realise we had to load all of the parameters everytime the camera was powered, we assumed we only had to load those which weren't default (IE changing one parameter cleared the whole of the defaults) and several phone calls to the tech help line resulted in us being convinced the new camera was faulty. The man on the help line offered to come to our assistance if we waited to 9pm (after the help line closed at 8pm) with another camera on the understanding we could supply the AMX routine on a floppy once it worked, as they had a similar project to engineer. He quite quickly sussed our mistake then the programmer took him step by step through the routine, he asked why we forced a signal (something like DTE but I'd have to look in notes from 25 years back) which we used to power the conversion. Rather nicely he issued paperwork for a refund for the interface they'd automatically included (lots of money extra!) and took it with him and we even chucked in a DB25 prepreloaded with components. We'd been there for much of the day trying to sort it, Within the hour it was sorted and eventually we saw the revised manual for the camera had been clearly amended. Anyway, Sorry for the waffle.

I can't believe I've only just twigged that this is the issue I've been having with some lights but not including wireless devices. The units in question will run master slave quite happily and in master mode they will run in DMX. The idea being a whole row of units can be re-addressed by changing just one, in fact any 4 channel fitting can be used as the master outputs the slave data on Add 1,2,3&4 and moves everything else up 4 addresses on their DMX out. (I assume I've posted it here before) However there have been too many complicated problems with them which has always been blamed on the strange way the addresses get altered as it goes through the universe and the way they power up in master auto mode before detecting DMX. More than once the systems had powered up incorrectly with random LED fittings doing unexpected random sequences and the solution now is to run a master slave system on an exclusive splitter output. The simple system which finally gave us the space to experiment was this: Down stage a row of 4DMX channel RGBW LED to flood the stage set to address 6 master and address 1 slaves FOH 5DMX channel RGB, SL addressed 1 and SR addressed 5 to match, taking account of the conversion by the master. The 3 clusters of light running on an extension lead to local socket. I can't recall which sequence we had to power them for correct operation but the strangest part being the most corrupted section was SL FOH (ADD1). Fortunately we had some time to play between rehearsals and set construction, adding a splitter with individual line to each cluster made the problems disappear. It had not occurred to me until now, what we actually achieved by adding the splitter, other than the complexity of of the address changes through the universe.

You won't know unless you reach out. Is it just a fireplace you are trying to create? have you thought about a video on a monitor? EDIT: So I've rechecked OP, could the grate be logs with lights under them with some sort of animation. The original 'real flame effect' electric fires were basically a light bulb and a rotating polished metal bent disc.

Hah! What happened to their 'we only use multicolor cobs' blurb from only a few years back?

Dont Iphones have audio ins and outs anymore? There used to be wired headsets which plugged into the standard (but not for much longer) Apple connector. I don't know this as I have almost nothing to do with Apple products.

Put out appeals on social media, send an email to dimplex and retail outlets asking for sponsorship

That makes a lot of sense. I've only seen short scenes using vapes, Aladdin's Lamp (Brilliant effect!) and a fireball in a fireplace on a cart & battery powered, so lasted just a few seconds before the reds and yellows.

Fairy lights? Look at this: 10 Metre LED Christmas Light Extension Cord Lead Festive Magic | eBay

Fairy lights? Look at this: 10 Metre LED Christmas Light Extension Cord Lead Festive Magic | eBay

Yes I generally agree with this and will admit to replacing a badly kinked cable with a lightly kinked and using good bits of the removed cable to add safety wires to lighting bars. Added to that I have a complete recovered set in stock; winder, cable, pullies, bobbins (minus track) which was replaced when an expert condemned the lot after the cable came off the drum. I was asked to quote against the report and being a massive factor cheaper than the expert got the job. While there surveying I rethreaded the kinked cable so they could use it for their end of term presentation and it ran so well I asked why they wanted to replace it? Report showed it to be a hazard so came under H&S.

I've seen something similar done with vapes.

First time I got involved with one of these was a damaged wire and replacement required. Not having any sort of guide to work with I threaded the wire over an end pulley, through the track and bobbins and back along the other track, over the pully and clamped into the rear hole, filled the winder leaving 2 or3 turns empty then pulled tight and clamped the other end into the front hole. At that point there was something like 5m left, I coiled it and secured to the handle. Then started winding and quickly realised it wasn't tight enough. Wound it back to starting point and tied the pulley springs closed, most likely with offcuts of 3/0.029" and adjusted the rope in the front clamp. Releasing the ties the winder ran smoothly back a forth several times then making sure both curtains were fully open and the winder was at least one turn from the open position (this is not as obvious as it seems) clamped the leading bobbins to the wire. Several full close/open sequences worked perfectly. Unbolting the handle I trapped the surplus coil between the handle and drum round one of the fixings. Pretty much as DrV describes, I was about 14 at the time, working alone on the school stage. Having worked on a number of them since it is easier to fit a replacement wire (with some surplus) than refit an existing wire which has been cut to length. The one tip I will offer: It's more important to ensure both curtains are fully open at the same time rather than trying to get then correct when closed.

Yeah I get that. The vast majority of my projector work is permanent installation where Unicol seems to be a strong contender, that bracket looks vast in comparison and quite often we'd only use part of a Unicol system due to the bulk. Having said this I do have just (but only just) enough experience within major touring rigs to know the different requirements. EDIT: similar comments:

That's a big 'l structure for what it does.

I'd be looking at projecting a video.

They rarely do notice when something goes wrong unless it's blatant/catastrofic. Chances are it is more likely to be funny and not noticed as wrong. We went to a 2nd performance AmDram farce recently, and one character had to drop out before curtain up, director took his place and announcement before hand apologised for possible use of script in hand, I hear the funny problems it caused were rehearsed and kept in for the rest of the run.

The term is ring driver but google isn't very helpful.