Jivemaster

Happening at power up says two things to me; first it's likely to be a huge current surge at switch-on and secondly you are powering up with one switch. Assume that every unit takes a switch on surge of 4 times it's running current for 4 cycles of mains (some will be more some longer) plug them all in then switch them on one at a time. See whether the problem is obviously caused by one fitting or type of fitting. Check that you have the suggested fuses and breakers as the manufacturers instructions.

Much will depend on the rating of the pipe. Especially the point rating and possibly the rating for a load outside the fixing points of the pipe.

There have been completed conversions of old lamps/lanterns to home decoration items for sale on Ebay at interior designer prices, whether they sold and at what price.....

Having a testing contractor in removes the need for in house staff to do the job BUT I suspect that many contractors sub out the work to self employed (or not) people with no insurance held by the company or the worker and T&Cs so well written as to evade all issues.

My last place of employment (5000 or so employees) stopped having periodic pat testing by contractor when things like manual paper staplers were labelled and charged by a contractor.

ACL will remain for a while for their original use -Air Craft Landing- but these will be at aircraft spares prices and are being replaced slowly by LEDs as suitable lamps get aviation approval.

Beware the odd "balanced mic cable" I've seen several with the screen and -ve signal wire connected by a deliberate solder blob. This really destroys a data + - and screen situation as for DMX across a whole group of lines.

Church Halls and like "community" places are really run on NO basis, no-one has the knowledge but they have the responsibility! Does anyone here have the old guidance that was there about 10 years ago (probably from HSE) that ranked objects for their risk. This ranked hired power tools much higher than table lamps and semi-permanent things like Point of sale terminals etc.

Some mirror balls (smaller) will stand on their motors these can be useful -these can be put on the top of a stand (of sufficient weight!). If the ball is a reasonable size then it's to heavy to be put off centre on a T-bar or boom arm

I like the Hammond enclosures, they are available in many sizes and a few colours. 1455 Series Hammond Aluminium Instrument Enclosures | Maplin Professional Supplies (MPS) | Components, LEDs, Resistors, Switches, Connectors | Free delivery over £25 is one supplier. Could you use a heatshrink three way adaptor and pull the soldering inside, -just make the Y-lead?

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How big/heavy is the mirror ball, they get heavy as they get bigger. www.terralec.co.uk/mirror_balls__pinspots/mirror_ball_hanger_bracket_with_motor___for_balls_up_to_50cm/35487_p.html is one product, it may be cheaper to buy than fabricate one.

Losing program after a period of disuse is classic battery failure.

I've seen the geared drive used on amateur radio controls, I have a bench psu with two series pots in the voltage control section.

Sometimes a control has coarse and fine knobs. It's just two potentiometers wired in series. The fine pot is 5 to 10% of the value of the coarse pot.

Somewhere I should have a box of 10ish of either CSI or CID lamps supposedly 575w iirc. They were intended for some NJD waggly mirror lights. If they have value to anyone, speak up and I'll ferret them out.

Sadly til we have the precise current draw required by the lights and control gear there is no way of accurately guessing the battery size required. lead acid is a well known chemistry and almost fire safe. BUT they don't work well for deep discharges at a high rate. Both the capacity and the battery life decrease severely when expected to be used for sub hour discharges. Better discharge characteristics will come from the various lithium chemistries BUT will need suitable electronic battery monitoring. LifePO4 cells seem to be the present choice for safety.

Currently your reputation depends on a project that's not been defined yet working to plan for a one week run. You NEED a full and final specification from whoever is doing the truck build. Remembering the days of cheap UPS's in the shops reminds me also that the life of the included SLA battery was three minutes per full discharge and three discharges to battery death, simply because the battery was undersized. The show's last night should be it's glittering spectacular finale -the batteries must get that far.

Look at the whole system as it will get used and abused. Planning for one cycle per day is easy -how will your system cope with a matinee or just two rehearsals of just the pages where the trucks are required. Budget for enough chargers and a charging ritual to keep the batteries full. Having someone to control the trucks tightly so that the lights can be switched on and off for the minimum time required. If you've planned for a 10 minute run time and someone lets them run 20 minutes your 7AH battery plan may let you down.

Any screened three pin XLR lead will have the description "microphone lead" especially if it's origin was China. Most times these leads have the screen connected to the metal body of the connectors. Probably the OP could completely rebuild lots of their leads, carefully breaking any unintended connections to the connector chassis. Currently I can't find enough plastic bodied connectors to be useful, and the few that seem suitable have a metal tag or latch.

As purely a random guess; the nominal "shield" pin may or may not be automatically connected to the body of the connector and this may (or not) be wanted in a "belt pack" application.

Are these "trucks" being used at a outdoors winter temperature or in a indoor comfortable temperature? Batteries selected for indoor stage use will fail if subjected to winter temperatures in an unheated space and use in a "winter parade" setting.

You need to know what will be on the mobile unit as electrical load, and what the DMX receiver needs as supply. Sometimes the use of AA to D size dry cells is a viable option, for the disposal cost you may save money over buying any lithium batteries with chargers.

With a lead battery the capacity rating is usually given at 20 hours. Attempting to calculate that back to 1 hour will be unreliable, a 20 hour rating will be probably quartered by a 1 hour discharge. In an extreme example a standard lead acid UPS will discharge from float full to totally empty in less that three minutes and the battery has a life of three full discharges to empty. Fortunately in the UK a basic UPS is unlikely to be called upon often.

Any form of lead acid battery will have a reasonable cycle life if never discharged below 50%. Which demands doubling the capacity on each truck. Will there ever be two shows in a day (matinee and evening?) because this will mean a short recharge period. How many trucks will you need? How many chargers will you have?