sunray

Ooohh now your being rotten, I had deliberately been looking at keeping this simple. The current Directors idea for this fantasy scene is 8 dancers with a tree mounted on casters and a strip of white LED tape up the back of each, [partial UV highlighted dancers white tights and sleeves and fruits on the trees etc]. basically in a line running across the stage behind a midstage traveller, the traveller opens to a lit stage and the people have to cross to the other side of the trees. The voiceover witch [reminder from a previous scene] casts the spell, lightning and thunder to darknes except the trees and then the trees move around making the them get lost and leave in all directions except the correct side. My interpretation is simplicity: a battery, a switch and lights but I'm seriously thinking a single point source of light on each tree will cast better shadows.

Some useful replies, thanks. These will be working on battery power as the plan is for the trees to be on casters and moved by dancers to confuse the players The scene is to be a spooky during a 'black sky spell' and I think we're going to struggle to get decent shadows without lighting the set brightly. I have been thinking along the lines of a 10w LED flood mounted low down on the trees to light the legs well but less so on the upper bodies. We'd opted to limit the length to 2.5m due to the 5m rolls and only been planning on white LEDs.

This afternoon I've been planning for a panto and the proposal is to light the forest with 8x 2,5m high columns (trees) of vertical RGB LED tape and no other lighting for big chunks of the scene. My ecperience of LED tape to date is limited but my gut feeling is this is not likely to be enough. Admittedly it is a small stage 6m wide x <4m deep. The director is asking for patchy lighting with big shadows on the scenery. Are they barking up the wrong tree (sorry couldn't resist)?

I've known DMX and intercom used that way No I didn't on this ocassion but I usually do, I had to do a little bit of shopping at the sainsburys express across the road and the total time away from home was 13:50 to 14:14 or 24 minutes and I'd doubt the callout added 10 minutes with zero monetary cost. The Church today is in the same group as a Church Hall I use several times a year for which I hold keys and have additional (free) access to set up etc while the hall is not in use so I am quite lenient. The huge clue to the problem was seeing one of these: https://www.ebay.co....678073a8b740439 mounted on the back of the speaker using only a M-M XLR barrel. I offered sound or lights for free or return home for cables and install at a cost, they chose lights. Oh! I'm coming back alright... There are too many people I want to...

Just got home from a callout. The Church has 4 powered speakers on the walls, they asked if I could look at a problem with very loud buzzing in one and they had to switch it off for the Christmas eve and day services. One arrival I saw some of their DMX lights flickering ocassionally... Their 'lighting expert' had plugged DMX into a Y lead along with the output of a rack unit labled 'DA' and at the speaker was a DMX splitter. Apparently it worked ok if only the sound OR the lights are switched on. I gave them the choice of sound, lights or a lead draped around the walls.

Something like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Transcension-SDC-6-DMX-Controller-6-Channel-6CH-Desk-Lighting/182822462421?epid=2254417618&hash=item2a911163d5:g:cgkAAOSwxp9W7-pk If the multiple faders are a problem, remove one, solder 3 wires in its place and run them to a rotary pot mounted on a 1g plate and hide the desk behind the scenes.

Mm yes I do in one hall on a junior8 It's the level I learnt at but it feels c++p now.

So did you order theG or H cup?

OK ,can't always tell from a post Thing is with this sort of issue, that it doesn't seem to happen anything like as frequently as it used to due to the prolification of stereo jacks being used as mono and many have never encountered it.

I think this is the first time I disagree with you Tim, as already mentioned the method you propose/agree with has created problems for at least 2 of us in this thread and an intermittant ground connexion on a PA system is terrible. I feel that other advice offered is more appropriate.

Sadly not. But now I see it advertised I'll grab some more.

Band work isn't really my genre but I have 'helped out' on the sound stages at our river festival for a number of years, we hire in a 'pro system' sometimes with a sound guy to do the mixing, sometimes not, my job is lugging and plugging to get the dozen or so bands on and off quickly. After the system is installed and working the common fault, during the course of the 12 hours, is faulty guitar leads (and guitars and their amps!). As I see it these leads are generally treated with contempt whereas the mic lead is handled better. I soon learnt that the best idea is to carry a couple of leads to make a quick fix and always jump in quickly to make sure it doesn't go missing. Bearing in mind the vast majority of these bands are local and relatively unknown youngsters where money is probably not plentiful they rarely carry any spares (fairly often don't carry enough and have to borrow) faulty leads are probably tolerated during their rehearsals but of course not acceptable in a 10K rig in front of a (small) crowd. I think, but I stress it is not by any means proven, that the problem with the muting plug is they get bent, only very slightly but enough to prevent the sleeve sliding properly. Either that or they get full of crud.

If vertical mounting is in the manual then fine. The manuals for mine don't mention it, so it's not something I would risk without a cradle. Quite rightly so.

OOO Weird I did my first aid at work refresher with SJA in the summer and we were told these are no longer permitted, one of the others on the course brought his pack in from the car to verify what was being discussed and the trainer wanted to confiscate them. Fire brigade have withdrawn them.

Personally I've been bitten far too many times in the past by the original 'Cliffe' style of mono sockets where the ground contact sits exactly at the gap between sleeve and ring of the stereo plug, so now I will never consider using a stereo plug for a mono cable. It is also a brilliant way of knowing what the lead is without having to start reading labels. In a tobacco tin of assorted bits I used to carry where some thin 1/4" washers which was a quick way of preventing a stereo plug going all the way in to overcome the problem.

I haven't yet come across any with any restriction on vertical mounting, ie it is shown in the manual. Most of the mountings are direct into the internal metalwork on larger projectors (that I've had cause to look at).

Did you verify the drop ceiling could take the additional weight of your projector and cabling ? Having seen how some are suspended, I wouldn't be putting any additional weight on them... Of course, the ceiling fixers were on site at the same time as me and we sorted it between us. Flou light fitting have been hung from the grid with silly little clips for years and 4x2ft flou panels have replaced tiles for nearly as long.

I've never been able to work out why people are so concerned about mounting projectors. We seem to be happy with hook clamps while rigging lamps and speakers etc but when it comes to projectors we freak and expensive Unicol is suggested everytime. Most projectors have 'mounting holes' on the underside and the spacing/dimensions will be in the instruction book. I'd be looking at things like: drops of short ali scaff (or unistrut) and drilling to accept the screws, or fabricate extensions on a couple of hook clamps. Both ideas will put the projector in the vertical position. Don't forget safety wires. I once used a piece of ali sheet as a replacement for a ceiling tile and used 3 lengths of M5 studding to mount the projector about 50mm below the ceiling, once painted it matched the rest of the tiles and in my opinion looked a lot better than the bracket arrangements originally proposed.

One of the best pieces of advice I received was to buy a basic cheap set of tools, and replace them piece by piece with good quality items as they wore out. This gives you a cheap start, spreading the cost of expensive tools over a longer period, and helps you find what you actually need and use. That is probably the best advice, and just as I have given out to newbies.I used to run several sets of tools, starting at my 'survey tools' being a tool wallet (wallet tools no3 to BT/BBC aware) with a small selection of screwdrivers, pliers, pens/pencils, cutters etc and A5 notebook. And ending at a shed full of big crimps rs, work lighting, hilti, 36" stilsons, extension leads, etc... Sadly, only you will be able to know where the list stops.

If you are looking at 48 channel desks like the sc2412, I'd suggest looking at the 48 fader versions as they are soooo much easier to use in manual mode. In memory mode there is very little to chose between them.

I sometimes borrow some LED pars which if set to master, output slave commands starting at DMX000 and also output the incoming DMX but add 6. It gets very VERY confusing if a unit is set to master early in the chain.

Do you really find that works though? They normally just redline some other part of the system to get the volume they want and now everything is a square wave.Paul is right, it needs to be a loud enough system that it can run comfortably at whatever input they throw at it. Reasonable quality (i.e. not disco) powered speakers which have inbuilt protection have worked out best for me. The biggest problem I find with schools is somebody manages to sell them a system that is far too complex and then typically the gains get cranked to full so the vol controlled by cracking the fader open. As an example I found a 48 channel desk and 24 channels of radiomics driving 2 Crown 1200's along with a rack full of players of various flavours.I try to spec amps which are adequate for the job but not over the top and basic speakers rated about 50% or more higher. For a junior school in a hall 14x8m I supplied a 150wpc into 4ohm and 160w 8ohm basic speakers (no horns) in 2012 and set attenuation for 1KHz to 83dB. I assist setting up for their end of year show every year and so far amp and speakers are as fitted.

I take it you require real faders?How many channels of lighting do you require?

For school systems I try to make them foolproof with hidden attenuation (often constructed with resistors and heat shrink within a cable) etc

Ive. Found the opposite is true. An amateur youth drama group were forever popping tweeters and I lent them an old pair of single 12" cabs with no hf units.Schools and powered speaker have always been a recipe for disaster, especially if it's a portable system.