bigclive

The main thing is that before stepping out on that tightrope they pick up that clipboard next to it and fill in all the checkboxes to identify the risks involved. Will you be working at height? Yes. Are you wearing fall arrest equipment? No. Is there a risk that you may fall off the thin taut wire? Yes. Will your gold spandex leotard absorb any of the impact. No. Is there a risk of cranial injury? Yes. Are you wearing a hard hat. No. Is there loud music? Yes. Are you wearing hearing protection? No. Are there bright lights? Yes. Are you wearing all round eye protection? No. Is there any airborne particulate like sawdust and monkey fluff? Yes. Are you wearing a dust mask? No. Are you working in the vicinity of elephants? Yes. Are you wearing elephant-rated steel toe caps? No.

Looking at that stunt I was under the impression that the lady was attached at all times by a wire system that was designed for the task, while being deliberately invisible to the eye of the unknowing. And I'd guess from the comments that it achieved it's role of making the perform look in danger. Because aerial work is all about the twist of danger. I'd expect the team responsible to have mapped the area out with emergency performer landing points if anything went wrong. But anyway. The stunt has apparently achieved its purpose of publicity....

Doesn't that make you a waste carrier for which a licence is required? No. There's an exception for technical hoarders.

Can I just mention that American powerline workers routinely long-line under helicopters to get from the job site to the tops of towers (pylons). They also step from the top of towers onto the helicopter skids to transfer from tower to tower. Transfering from 'copter to tower. And perhaps one more. It's an interesting job.

A friend with a successful early eBay lighting shop got continuous letters demanding WEEE compliance that he thought were just some spammer looking to sell a fake service. The letters got more and more aggressive and official and we looked it up online and found it was a real thing. It turns out you just have to include a message stating that you'll take back products or the item they're replacing for recycling and include a picture of a crossed out wheelie bin. He was really excited because he loves weird lava lamps and was hoping people would send their old ones to him. But nobody sent anything back EVER. Mainly because it would involve packaging it up, taking it to the post office and paying for its delivery. But I guess the WEEE department had ticked their box and secured their pension.

I'm not sure I want to rip apart my new label maker quite yet. Particularly given how delicate the ribbon cables are. But I could well rip apart a Chinese tape cartridge. I'll order a pink one.

I've just bought one of those label printers, since my older one was not really up to date in terms of features. The reason it spits out a bit of tape before printing the label is because the printhead is quite far back from the exit port. The reason for that is the way the printing and laminating process works. There are three tapes in the unit. The coloured backing tape with a covered self adhesive backing, but is also covered in adhesive on the front too. The thin image transfer film that carries the coloured pigment and is wound onto a separate reel inside during use. A clear top layer that actually has the image printed on its underside. In use the image is printed on the back of the clear film which is then laminated onto the adhesive front surface of the coloured tape. When the unit pre-winds some tape out it has already started printing the label before pausing and continuing once the excess has been cut off. It finishes printing, but then has to wind the last of the text through the laminating section before the label is clear to be cut off. That's the reason for the waste bit. Something worthy of note. The chunky 12V 2A power supply that comes with the unit uses reverse polarity on the jack. Outer is positive and inner is negative. So be careful you don't mix power supplies up. It seems to be a very versatile label printer. Huge increase in functionality over my old Dymo one, especially the cable wrapping feature. I've ordered some label cartridges online to see how well they work, although the quality and longevity of the adhesive will be a significant factor in professional applications.

I'm guessing you guys 'n' gals are all aware that LEDs degrade over time and will produce less light for the same power. Red is usually the most stable unless it's an early light where they grilled the reds to try and match the other colours, but the blue, green and white gallium nitride based colours seem to degrade at a surprising rate. If you install LED lights but then keep some bought at the same time as spares, then there will be a very obvious difference in intensity after a year (if they last that long) when a new lamp is fitted in amongst the others. The same effect is very apparent on some LED screens, even though the LEDs on them are usually run at quite low current. With the move away from tungsten to LED I wonder how many lights are actually being designed with a standardised LED module that will allow replacement in the future, possibly even with more efficient emitters. My guess is that very few are being designed with that in mind, so the entire fixtures will end up as landfill. Tungsten landfill mainly glass, ceramic and minimal metal from the replaceable lamp. LED parcan landfill huge block of alloy with PCBs and plastics.

The lithium PP3s have a lithium cell and boost converter inside so they should theoretically put out a fairly solid 9V for the full discharge. Being lithium based with internal micro USB charge port and indicator LEDs you get an exact indication of full charge. One significant caveat might be whether the wireless pack was happy with a PP3 that will potentially be introducing switching noise. If these worked then I think you can get multi-tail micro USB fan out cables that could make charging very convenient. Especially with a custom dock that presented the sockets for easy access while shielding the end terminals.

Early Chauvet stuff was just badged imports. Although they've evolved into a formidable brand their legacy does involve some shady use of the IEC connector. I bet that IEC earth pin isn't being used as earth...

It is on sites. It's become a job-creating blight of axe grinders. That's very different from trading standards. I'm sure they are aware, but the scale of direct imports bypassing the usual routes is staggering. These machines have had issues from the start including the early use of IEC connectors with the earth pin used for a completely different purpose. (Which Mode did with Arcline too to be fair.) I had a go at getting some eBay listings for very dangerous stuff taken down and eBay weren't actually too helpful. The products then sprung right back up again in new listings. These days I think a better approach is to make videos exposing the issues and hope that people will spot the rogue items.

I recently bought a smoke machine from CPC to see how it fared in electrical safety. It was fine. I then bought a similar generic imported smoke machine called LED-500 from a Chinese eBay seller via their UK warehouse. It has the remote connected with the common 3 pin XLR socket. At power-up every pin of that socket is live at full mains voltage with pin 1 notably being directly connected to live. (even when the machine is switched off locally) If a standard XLR cable is used to extend the remote, either the button type or the RF dongle type, then a few things can happen. If a cable with metal connectors connected to pin 1 are used then those connectors become live at full mains voltage. If cables get mixed up and a microphone gets plugged in then the entire metal body of the microphone can become live. If a DMX network accidentally gets plugged into it, every single light will potentially be damaged. If audio equipment is plugged into it, it will be destroyed. If an unbalanced cable is used that has pin 3 connected to pin 1 then it will power the heater block continuously. Such an exciting little machine. (and not a new thing either) I made a video about it.

Some of the 5050 strips or ones with high power LEDs run at very high temperatures. You can prolong the lifespan of simple single colour strips by nudging the voltage down a bit. In the case of short lengths a simple 1A or 3A diode in series has a profound effect on current at the expense of initial intensity.

Strong hints of Glasgow School of Art. It seems refurbishment has a new meaning.

3528's are generally run at about 15mA in those strips, so it shouldn't be an issue.

When the current Edinburgh Tattoo stands were designed we were fortunate in that we had direct input to the design process. When you enter the box complex encompassing the VIP suite and the technical area you wouldn't know that it wasn't a permanent structure. In reality, as you walk along the corridor that leads to the workshop, projection and production areas you are walking on a cable duct. An underfloor area divided into two sections, power and signal. It's accessed by lifting the floor panels. Not easy or fun, but very functional. When you walk out onto the gantries you'll find integrated metal hooks for the cables, an overhead rail system for transporting heavy loads and integrated lighting bars for the lights designed to contain everything in the event of an "incident" (and by incident, remember - this is a "military" event.) The facilities and under-stand cabling is all supported by ladder rack, cable tray and other steelwork with nothing that can come down in the event of a fire. All electrical distribution and control equipment is within fire protected steel cabins. It makes load-in a little bit harder, but it was all designed around safety. In modern permanent venues I would expect a built in infrastructure for a lot of the required services. For other stuff I would hope there would be an accessible, but secure route. For older venues that were prior to "incidents" I would at least expect audience areas and entries and exits to be safe. I wouldn't expect the stage to be an exit route. In fact, I would expect there to be many other preferable exits.

The primary point of note in this thread is that it does make sense to support cables in the exit routes of event venues. For venues with a lot of temporary installations it would make sense to have metal hooks along the walls above head height where cables could be easily hooked in and out, and also high enough above doors to prevent sagging into the door frame area. Then remind people installing or removing cables not to drag cables over or against each other.

Standard rope light has an LED point at between 25mm and 50mm spacing depending on the type. At a distance it creates a solid line of light.

You may find that traditional LED rope light does the job best. You can get double sided LED neon strip, but sealing against water ingress to the DC strip inside would be essential.

To get 2020 off to a good start I'd like to propose a new code for when a cheap disco light puts out erroneous voltages on the network. Instead of DMX512 it shall henceforth be referred to as OMG240 when in fault condition.

That could be a new use for the 5-pin DMX standard. An audio pair and a data pair. No need for payment. God will reward him with untold riches in heaven. (But only after he's dead so he can't report back that it was a scam.)

To be fair. The desk would be ideal for a crossdressing stripper joint, as minor desk reboots would probably not detract from the focus of the show. Those silicone feet look like they'd be ideal to place on the bottom of a ladder to fulfill the requirement to foot it.

I wonder if the whole stigma about mounting projectors pointing vertically down is due to the earlier units having issues with that. Modern projectors have evolved greatly. Are there any real issues in mounting them in an orientation as long as cooling vents are unobstructed?

It's surprising how dim many of the older effects look compared to the modern LED versions. The classic moonflower is a good example. An original 50 or 100W unit was so inefficient that the new version with humble 5mm LEDs pointing straight through a lens complete blows them away. The older heavily motorised effects are still good for adding physical movement though.

It's worth mentioning that if a light has crashed and reset there's a possibility that it went into standalone master mode and spat out data onto the network taking down the other lights on the same line.