IRW

1 hour ago, timsabre said:

Paying a self employed persons invoice does not make you an employer. Unless they only ever work for you. 

This. I pay my (domestic) plumber and any other contractor I have round to my house when they present me with an invoice. I'm certainly not their employer though, I'm their client.

I think the key term to google here is "contractor vs employee". There's a table on this page which seems to put it fairly clearly:
https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/differences-contractors-employees/

Whilst Kerry's post above generally covers it, with regards to contractor vs employee, the main grey area that I can see is that of "Time and Place", and maybe "Job Role", however, one could possibly argue that me saying to my plumber "The job of swapping the boiler out and rejigging the pipework needs to be done at my house, between 9 and 1", is effectively the same as saying to @Triode's mate Disco Dave "The PA needs to be set up by 7pm, you can get in from 1.", although as the equipment is yours, you will have a duty of care under various bits of legislation to ensure it is safe etc, on a slightly more industrial scale than me lending the plumber an extension lead and making sure there are no big holes to fall through in the floor.

From what I understand in my brief bit of google research, as the contractor is working for you, you still have a duty of care to ensure competency and a safe working environment etc, but so long as the brief is kept along the lines of "this is the objective, it needs to be done by X o'clock, materials will be onsite, you bring the tools, crack on" then you are probably more at the 'contractor' end of the spectrum?

On 12/2/2021 at 1:56 PM, dje said:

That said, remember for 5 and 10 degree S4 lenses, you need to use the yoke adaptor (because the CoG moves forward with the long lens and puts rather a lot of cantilever load on the G clamp and makes it also quite hard to focus) and what I don't know is whether the ETC yoke adaptor will fit on an Ovation

Tbf, I’ve never had a problem with 10 degree lenses (or indeed the odd 5 degree I’ve used) on a standard yolk- the bigger lenses are polymer rather than glass, so, relatively speaking, are lighter than their glass cousins- a 10’ is only 500g heavier than a  19’, and a 5’ is 100g lighter than a 14’. Both 5 & 10 are lighter than a 15-30 zoom tube, which is where I commonly see balance yolks. Now if you’re going to start putting scrollers on the front, that’s a different story, but given that we’re talking about the (generally) heavier LED back ends, I don’t think the balance would really be a problem.

Hope you have more success than I did!

Hi folks,

We're looking to expand our pool of casual technicians at the Liverpool Empire Theatre

Stage staff, lighting, sound, spot ops, board ops, wardrobe, and anything backstage related that I've missed out!

Basic hourly rate is as specified (£8.91/h), although our BECTU house agreement means that some occasions are paid in a slightly more enhanced way.

Get outs are paid at TMA rate.

Please apply via the ATG careers website:
https://careers.atg.co.uk/opportunities/job-search/job-detail.html?jobid=137300

Hey folks,I'm just trying to get my head around the 23 year old control system in my venue. Whilst I now understand the fundamentals, and have found a number of manuals online (including the programming guide), what I'm missing is the programming software.

I believe this is what I need, but it doesn't seem to exist anywhere on the internet! The AMX website only seems to have modern stuff on it. I've dropped their current UK distributors an email, along with Stage Electrics (who originally installed the system) but given how old this kit is, I thought opening an avenue of exploration on here would be a sensible thing to do, in the hope that someone on here may have it on an old hard drive somewhere.

Thanks,

Ian

I'm not a rigger, but I'm pretty sure ladder truss should be loaded when it's vertical, not laying flat like a plank.

What Alister said.

If it's such a low load, could you not just use a scaffold bar instead? What is the span between/extension beyond stands?

The short answer to this is, it depends on the system you are using.

The long answer is what system are you using? If there isn't anything identifying on it, then you'll have to get the multimeter out!

I've still got that 1971 catalogue with the greenish price list. Pretty much they were how you learned what things actually did, as books were very behind in the library - so I remember being quite scared when I jumped into Fred Bentham expecting him to be a friendly, affable fella and discovering a rather grumpy intolerant old grump. He didn't seem to like youngsters at all.

Maybe he would have been slightly more amenable if you’d just said hello rather than jumping into him?!

OK everyone I've just trialled my water drop device using my daughter as a guinea pig and it pretty well worked perfectly. There are still a couple of minor bugs that need ironing out but I'm confident the desired effect will be achieved (it uses about a litre of water). I'm happy to share details privately if anyone wants them.

Andy

Given all the advice you've received on here, why not just post your solution to help others in the future?!

Just as a thought, that with my touring hat on I would always much prefer to use venue hot power if it is not remote controlled and literally switched from a breaker somewhere.

Of course, tours tend to carry dimmers/distro as much as possible but there are always occasions where venue dims/hot power can save hassle... difficult positions ie booms, circle bar, advance truss etc.

But I am always reluctant where these are controlled by house DMX. One erroneous plugging in of something into house data, or recalling a show file, or somebody playing with the house console... and we have unpredictable power loss and a troubleshooting nightmare.

 

So for me personally, total bypass is preferable, even if that's at the expense of losing an electrician for 10 minutes during load in to go up to the top floor of the building an energise the relevant channels.

Oh yes, I'm totally with you there, I always prefer a switch on the control box wall to desk-controlled non dims. If however the choice is desk control vs. no control, I would accept desk control, and have encountered many venues on my tours where this has been the case.

Another option, if you want control without using the triac to directly switch the output might be to add some contactors. Set the channels to switched on the processor, and use the outputs to feed the contactor coil.

I know it's possible to fit additional MCBs onto the power blocks in the gap between the existing ones so rail mounted contactors should fit. The plastic covers are all identical so the centre one has the mcb positions ready to cut out,

Given my experience of LD90 processor cards I'd divert the desired non-dim circuits out of the LD90 into a proper distribution board fed by a contactor or multiple contactors. A low voltage control line could be run to somewhere convenient for a keyswitch to power up/down.

Worth noting that Zero88 make a dimmer that does pretty much what has been talked about above. The Chilli bypass acts as a dimmer until you push in the 'bypass' button and then that circuit gets hot power - unfortunately with no control from DMX.

Both good points, but exactly the sort of thing that I need to avoid as my 'little-to-no-cost-short-term' solution. I don't want to get into heavily modding these racks, as long term, I'll be looking to spec a non-LD90 solution, be that simple hot power distro, or something cleverer. Right now, I need workarounds such as DrV's Triac short/bypass method.

For operational reasons, I'd prefer to not have to go to the dimmer room to power things on/off on a daily basis, but if saves the time and effort of installing/stripping out ridiculously long toured looms, it's an idea I'm willing to entertain as a short to medium term solution.

1) For individual channels, without any control you could just remove the triacs and put a link across where the MT1 and MT2 terminals of the triac were. Nice and easy as the triacs are on barrier strips.

2) If you can cope with the hard power still being triac controlled then of course you can set them as switched channels on the processor.

3) If you want to go a bit sophisticated and have individual relays controlling the channels from the desk then it might be possible to modify the power module to drive relays. The trigger signal on the LD90 is a steady DC current which switches on at the appropriate point after the zero cross and then stays on steady until the end of the cycle. This means that when a channel is at 100% you get a DC level out of the processor. It might be possible to drive a relay directly from this via an additional switching transistor but I'd have to check how much power is available. Might not even need the transistor but I'd have to check. I'm away until tomorrow night but I'll investigate possibilities if you like.

My test jig just has a load of LEDs on it but I can't remember how much current each channel draws - probably no more than the optos.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply Dave- the idea here is to be able to provide hot power for touring movers/LED kit in remote FOH locations- does that make option 2 unwise, or would that sort of thing be reliably happy on the end of an LD90 'switched' channel?

just bypassing the dimming circuitry on the module so that the MCB directly feeds the outputs

 

If you don't need contol, thats very easy to do.

Assuming all LD90s were the same, they're double pole MCBs so you can just disconnect the wires that fed the dimmer PCB and put the load wiring straight in.

All the zero point sensing etc is done by the processor module which has it's own feed from the incoming supply. The ribbon cable from the processor to the dimmer blocks just feeds into the opto isolators on the dimmer PCB, there is no direct connection to the mains side. I'm fairly certain that even if you unplugged the ribbon, the processor won't notice the difference.

Thanks Adam, I kind of realised just after I hit post that doing it this way would remove all control...It would be grand to be able to keep some form of remote on/off control, even if it's a case of having to park channels on on the desk, rather than through our handy control panel in prompt corner.I realise this may complicate matters a little!

Hey folks,I've recently become head of lighting and sound for a major receiving house, and part of my (long term) brief is to work towards improving the facilities with regards to hosting incoming companies, as many elements that I am responsible for have had very little investment since the venue's last major refit in the late 90s.

Ultimately, I'm going to be putting together a phased update/upgrade plan, but there are a few areas in which I'm going to have to apply a couple of sticking plasters in the short to medium term using what I've got available to me. (i.e. non safety-critical stuff, but stuff that would be really, really useful on a day-to-day basis.)

So, here's the situation: I've got LD90's galore in the dimmer room, with 100 channels that are available to a hard patch field in the dimmer room which services all of the FOH areas. That'd be great if I was ever expecting to put 100 dimmable lamps up FOH, but as it is, I'm already being inconvenienced by only having 8 independent outlets available to the patch field (via an LD90 'independents' rack), so it'd be great to be able to repurpose a bank of one of the dimmer racks to provide more hotpower on the patch field. Obviously I'm aware there will be control implications, but this isn't insurmountable.

I've actually got plenty of spare dimmer blocks that have kindly been passed down to us from another local venue, so if it's a case of just bypassing the dimming circuitry on the module so that the MCB directly feeds the outputs, then I could set one of these up, and then simply replace the last block of dimmers that appear on the patch field- is this something that anyone else has done in the past, or does anyone know of any LD90-specific reason why this may be a bad idea? I've not actually gone to the trouble yet of opening up our independent rack to see how that's wired, but I can't imagine there's anything particularly clever in there? If I recall correctly from last time I had my head in one of these (about 10 years ago), they're pretty bare bones?

Obviously all replies will be read with the usual 'danger danger, high voltage!' caveats in mind! There shouldn't be any mixed-phasing related problems, as everything that comes out on the patch field is all on red (yeah, I know, but that's the colour of the little tag above each channel...!).

Thanks,Ian

something like this

Aha! Thanks! With regards to a BP111 (or, if you wish to feel dirty, a BP511), the pinout is: Pin 1: Mic Earth/Screen

Pin 2: Mic Signal

Pin 3: Earphones Earth/Screen

Pin 4: Earphones Signal

Assuming the bit in the middle of your drawing is a jack connector, would the tip be the equivalent of canford pin 1 or pin 2?

I expect you'll want the switch to short out the mic, rather than leave the preamp open circuit. You may need to debounce the switch to prevent pops, and add DC blocking in case of use on packs that provide bias current for electrolytic mics (shorting out the bias current is unlikely to end well).

I errr, see......Haha! I do vaguely understand what you are saying, but hopefully someone will be along to convert what you said into a circuit diagram, which I will properly understand!

Hi folks,I'd like to make a footswitch that allows me to open my cans mic for when both of my hands are busy tapping away at a console- I've got a basic push-to-make foot switch, but when I tried to do this in a quick and dirty way before (i.e. just put the switch in line with the mic wire), I remember that it didn't work very well, but I can't remember exactly why (it was a while ago now I last tried this!). I assume that I need to throw a capacitor or something into the mix maybe?

For ease of use, I'd prefer to keep it on the headset side of the cans pack (so with a 4-pin XLR in and out to go between headset and cans pack) in such a way that I'd just have to leave the actual mic button on the cans pack in it's 'on' position.

Thanks,

Ian

There's not a lot in there for the lamp.Our lamp tester consisted of a plank of wood with lamp holders for the range; 812, 218, 1220 etc and an appropriate inductor/transformer/whatever posh name it had for each size and a mains switch.

The procedure was insert lamp, turn on and position hand between lamp and eyes. leave running for a minute, switch off. Test completed.

The lamp will not restrike if hot and IIRC if powered hot will not even restrike when cooled down but don't take that a gospel as I don't see a reason why it should not.

The only thing that springs to mind, the temp sensor may be monitored differently in auto Vs DMX mode by the firmware and one firther from that I don't recall a temp sensor on the 812.

I'm trying to remember stuff from 1996 apologies if my ramblings are not correct.

Do please consider that a lamp failure caused by a great excess of lamp life expired is often spectacular. Part of the reason for the convoluted reflector air path is to keep any shrapnel inside.

^^^ What Jivemaster said.

The best thing you can do is condemn the system until you've had a professional come and look at it, as well its interesting stud bar mounting technique.

 

This looks like a classic case of some one retro-fitting cheap LED parcans into a school install, not labelling anything, and leaving the school with absolutely no knowledge on how to use it.

Disco Dave with his cosmic rave comes along, has no idea what he's doing with his ultimate sound to light setup and cross plugs everything into anything.

Hmm. Despite all of the concerns being outlined upthread, I think this is a bit strong - With all of the above posts in mind, I'd suggest that it's not the OP's place to simply 'condemn' the system given their admitted limited knowledge. Raise concerns, yes, outright condem, no.

Looks like they're attached by threaded rod to the beams via pieces of angle. It doesn't look terrible to me. I agree re: the dimmer packs though.

As I said, it might be fine, but if you look at the bar/roof truss on the left hand side, you can't see any corresponding plate on the opposite side of the beam to where the angle bracket is. Basically, what is (or is not) holding the metal plates to the (wooden) roof truss could* be questionable in my book, and I'd also be a tad concerned about possible twisting forces on the wooden beam*- I thought that usually this sort of affair would consist of a custom metal bracket around the wood, such that the force acts straight down underneath the centre. Obviously any such forces in this particular situation are (probably) fairly minimal, but the point still stands to be aware of.

Anyway, this is all conjecture that's not necessarily directly helpful but as Junior8 alludes to, 'good practice' seems to be a little bit on the hit and miss side from the general evidence provided, and it could well be that the OP is opening a can of worms that would greatly benefit from the assistance of a suitably insured/experienced freelancer!

*risk assessment dependent

We've been asked to help a local School reconnect the Lighting in their Theatre and we're running into issues with their LEDs. They've lost their previous tech guy and all the lights were disconnected for testing, so we've been working pretty much from scratch to get it all back up and running.

I don't have much experience (local Theatre group) but they really need the help for an upcoming Peter Pan performance next month. I'll try and explain the issue as best I can but still have some gaps in my understanding at this stage.

 

Sorry D_Y you really shouldn't get involved in this - you have no role in the school and they shouldn't really be asking you. There are a number of things about this install that I don't like from a quick glance and they need to pay someone to come in and look at it for them properly right through. The advice to employ an experienced freelance tech is the right route. My advice would be to contact the nearest Arts Centre or FE College with performance lighting - there is one in virtually every Hants district council area - and ask for their advice. Most of their techs aren't that busy at the moment....

+1. The dimmer pack 'install' is atrocious, for a start, and I'd be very interested to see a close up of whatever is holding the lighting bars into the roof trusses- it might be fine, but purely on the basis of a casual observation from the photo, alarm bells are ringing!

What about the sort of rollers that you would find on boat trailers? I can't find a picture to hand, but IIRC, my trailer has got a pretty much full-width rolling steel bar on the back of it that the launching trolley rolls over.

Edited to add:http://www.irwdesign.com/br/trailer2.jpg

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/trailer.JPG

Thanks guys. I'm still learning a lot and he's not very friendly. What other things would a fly man look for on there checks?

I'm afraid this is very much in the area of 'if you have to ask...'.

Seriously, you can't just take advice off an internet forum for fly system checks- every venue is individual as far as flying is concerned, and there should really be a specific written method statement/risk assessment for the checks you have been asked to carry out. You say it's not for a sign off, but in my view, and I'm sure many others on here, any sort of fly system checks would generally be deemed safety critical. Do you know what torque you are supposed to be checking the dogs to, or what the signs of potential failure might be? Generally speaking, I'd suggest that wire rope grips wouldn't normally be part of a day-to-day usage check, and if this isn't a daily check you're carrying out, but a bi-annual/annual safety check, then you really should be telling the chap in charge where to go...At least then it won't be on your head should something fail. Well, providing you're not underneath it...

Hi Folks,

Being one of those folks who has fallen through all of the SEISS cracks going, I've been having to be a little careful recently with regards to unnecessary spending. Finally, this week, just as it looks like business will be picking up again soon, I find myself in receipt of a Liverpool City Region local business support grant- the catch is though, that money received via this grant has to go towards the business, so I'm now planning on using some of my remaining upcoming 'quiet' time to get a couple of tickets that I've been thinking about for a while, but thus far have never seemed to have the time & funds in the right place at the right time to look into.

Number one on my list is an official 'something' to demonstrate my competence with regards to PAT/ISITEE- This is something I've been doing in venues since day one out of university (where we were taught the basics), but I've not got a specific piece of paper to say so. Can anyone recommend a decent course that (a) Will have an instructor who I won't end up correcting/questioning, & who appreciates my theatre experience and (b) May carry some clout outside of the theatre industry. Looking around, the C&G 2377-77 would seem to be something sensible- I suppose the ideal for me would be for it to be carried out by/on behalf of one of our normal suppliers. Although I'm in Liverpool, I'm happy to travel a bit in the interests of not experiencing the death-by-powerpoint/just press the green button/cut the plug off if it fails experience. Looking over the course content, I could literally probably teach the course to the class myself (I pretty much did with for my maintenance teams at a previous higher-education venue I worked in), so that's where the bar is set...!

The second thing I am considering is something in the 7909 awareness field. Now this isn't something that's cropped up for me personally to date, but do we think it's only a matter of time before, as a touring LX #1 &/or production electrician, it would be beneficial for me to have, from an employability point of view? If the answer is yes, do we have any recommendations for somewhere to do it? I noticed an older post on here recommended James Eade, and they do have some courses coming up, under the title of "City & Guilds Assured Programme in The Application of BS 7909 to Temporary Power Systems (3 days)", but it's not cheap...!

Thirdly, and this has cropped up while looking into the above, what are the general thoughts on the Event Safety Passport these days...? I can't say I've ever worked on or applied for anything which has asked for or required it. Is it one of those things that an office-bod looking through my CV will see and be impressed, but a savvy PM/TM won't really take much notice of, when it's up against the rest of my experience?

Thanks,

Ian

Hey folks,I'm having a bit of a sort out in the garage, and the following bits are surplus to requirements:

2x Selecon Acclaim F's

1x Selecon Acclaim PC

2x Selecon Rama F's

Feel free to send me a message on here if you're interested. Happy to entertain sensible offers.

Hi All,

 

There is a venue I occasionally work in and at the last visit we found one of the channels of the Pulsar Datapak was stuck on (even with no desk connected). Past experience indicates this is probably a triac gone home. I won't be able to visit the venue for a few days, so wondered if anyone knew what type of triacs are used, and whether it's a simple "screwdriver fix" or "total PCB out" sort of job?

 

From recollection it's the 18 channel version of the Datapak.

 

Many thanks, Pete.

I'm not familiar with the datapacks, but if they're anything like the rackpacks I have in my garage, it's not a straightforward 'screwdriver fix', but is a fairly straightforward soldering iron job.

See the first picture in my thread here. The triacs are the components that are soldered onto the board, and bolted to the heatsink that runs down the middle of the photo.