Jivemaster

Has the unit been relamped recently? Uneven illumination always says "lamp alignment" to me. Been dropped? Relamped without realignment? Relamped with a dodgy lamp? heat filters lost during relamping or simply cracked or missing?

Now the criminal case is completed, the civil case(s) will begin.

The overtime is no compensation for the car crash after a week of 18 hour days.

Modern fittings tend to initialise by moving to a magnet on the moving parts. Older fittings used to initialise to a fixed stop on everything with a metal tab striking a part of the case. Assume that an older fitting might initialise, almost violently banging stops for x,y, Colour, Gobo, etc for 15 seconds then should start up.

Modern lighting desks are a friendly to a novice as an old computer running Algol with a punch card reader with some creased 80 character cards.

Please help us with some measured dimensions! I'm unable to produce a good impression of the building. If the room is 8ft high where does the stage get headroom? Flat floor? Please work out how the system will be operated, and by whom. A professional lighting tech will operate a DMX lighting board easily, but other people cannot be expected to use a DMX controller and the system will be useless and probably damaged by unskilled hands. In my opinion (only!) a lighting desk that is a computer is unsuitable for a village or community hall unless you have a permanent operator.

For an application where many users will need the stage lights avoid DMX totally unless you are certain to have a tech op staff available at all times. Grandad can run a light switch -even a row of them! BUT if they have to be individually addressed by data you cannot rely on users to leave it working.

The issue that I have with "disco" lights is their poor life, lack of spares, and differences between batches, these of course being most of the reason why they are cheaper than pro theatre fittings. Where you have Work At Height issues the reduction of WAH is your first problem. As an approximation assume that over stage lights illuminate the set and FOH lights illuminate the cast, usually FOH lights point slightly down to keep the shadows on the floor not the back wall, necessitating high level fixing.

Yes there certainly was an era when DMX and reverse DMX were used in one rig with a crossover lead from one type to the other type.

Firstly it's good practice to have separate ground/commons where needed and carefully bring them together while designing an appliance. RF ground is probably different from digital ground and different again from analogue ground ultimately these may well get commoned, a Mains ground/CPC/earth could again be very different an have all sorts of interference and noise being "lost" BUT a mains ground could/will occasionally have potentials there that will instantly kill every 485 transceiver chip on that whole DMX line if the DMX shield and the power ground are connected. I'm certainly not getting to bulk deaths of people, BUT bulk deaths of DMX units is a real possibility.

Power ground and signal ground are two very different things required to have very different properties, and hence should be designed for their purposes then integrated into the total product design.

Firstly the DMX cable and connectors will likely NOT be rated to carry an appropriate fault current, nor be rated for a mains voltage. secondarily any fault imposed on the DMX drivers/receivers will easily destroy them rendering the whole series of lanterns dead (uncontrollable). If these plastic cased lanterns are supplied as un-earthed then that's how they should be considered, and no jury rigged earth created. There is no jury rigged bodge that will correct a non compliant lantern, if it complies then use it -if it doesn't comply don't use it.

Early waggly mirror fittings certainly did have fixed gobos so the effect was that the gobo was tumbled according to the pan angle. Later lanterns of course improved.

Moving mirrors always projected gobos at the pan angle whereas moving heads always project them right way up. If there is a sudden need someone can make me an offer for some 575w wagly mirror doorstops I have!

Phantom power is typically 48vDC, microphones are typically milli volts. Feeding 48v into a circuit that is built for a millivolt will likely kill something. The best way round the problem is to use a properly chosen transformer DI box.

I've seen a 50hr lamp blow in 15 minutes simply due to a burnt lampholder burning the contact pins.

A caveat for coloured smokes. Beware, they stain everything that the smoke contacts. Part of the design of distress smoke flares is that they leave a large stained area behind after they have burned out for easy visibility by rescuers. For performance art, this staining can mean a repaint every time.

The best I know is that you buy from a known source, keep them as packed by the maker in transport and storage, and fire them with sufficient safety distance laterally and vertically. All pyro burns when wet but usually it only burns for a few seconds, it's everything else that may catch fire! You may need extinguishers for class A fires (wood paper cloth etc) BUT your safety planning should have eliminated anything that may burn from the vicinity of firing pyro before you actually fit the pyro to the stage.

There may be a trade off between power consumed, life consumed and power up heartache to be reviewed. I remember seeing some discharge lamped projectors in a school hall being powered up but shuttered for the summer recess which probably approximates to one lamp life.

The standard says that 485/DMX needs terminating but some people swear by terminators and some people swear at them. Data takes so much then it stops completely. I knew a DJ who ran DMX to the top of a stand then sent it to each of four lanterns in parallel via bell wire! But it worked for him.

One consideration is storage. Whether you have a secure place that's dry and vermin free or they have to be left in someone's garage/shed should be considered.

Consider the cost of purchase vs the cost of hiring. Consider also the cost of ownership (cleaning and repairs) vs the cost for returning a hire set broken. Lastly consider where and how you will keep them clean dry and secure.

First sort out where and how the smoke will go away, You do lots of tests then do the single shot with the client in studio. With today's electronic everything don't overlook the possibility of combining a product shot and a smoke shot in computer rather than in camera.

IF it's built of 18650 cells then there should be five, and each may have a resettable internal fuse under the button. To find out you's have to dismantle the battery carefully. Even with the price of batteries how much must you value your time at? Any "repair" still only yields an old battery that has failed once.

Both the above stair climbers are fine on straight flights and need a landing to turn on to the next straight flight. When you come to a real curved staircase where the treads are fan shaped they will not carry up the fan shaped treads safely. I carry people upstairs or down, often. The Ferno stair climber is a seat with angled tracks and it does straight stairs wonderfully. But given a spiral or curved or fan top staircase it's back to the ordinary manual carry chair which does spirals well.