Rigging

[Rich newby]

Hi Guys

Not sure whether to post this here or in Electrical but anyway.

 

I am doing a dance concert fairly soon, and its in a hall. the hall is rigged out with powered Bars. but the power is now unsafe, as it is old. as a result each cable form each lantern has to be ran along the bar, and then into the dimmers, which are again unsafe so I'm hiring them. The problem is that this means I am going to have a huge wad of lighting power cables going into the dimmers. Is there a multicore idea that I can use, say per bar that will still give me control of each lantern individually. I know I could use spiders, but that will only give me control of 1 bar, and however many lanterns are on it, not individual control.

 

Thanks

Rich

[Andrew C]

I think you may be confused!

 

Spiders usually refer to Socapex connections. Six 15A plugs feeding one 19 pin Socapex. This is connected to a Socapex cable, with a 6 way 15A socket spider at the other end, thus 6 dimmers feeding 6 (or more) lanterns. See also Lectriflex.

[gareth]

What you need is some of these, and some of these. One pair of the latter item for each of the former item.

 

Any decent theatrical hire company (and quite a few indecent ones, too!) will be able to rent you what you need.

[zonino]

there are also dimmers that come with socapex outlets, so you don't have to hire the plug spiders, cheaper and less cabling!

[johnhuson]

As mentioned above, a multicore cable with break outs (spiders) on the end sounds like what you need, either Letriflex or the more popular Socapex. Just need to make sure you leave enough slack on the cables when you fly bars in and out. There is no reason why you cant have more than one multicore to a bar just 'loom' ('tripe' in the theatre world) the cables together with PVC tape. Two 6-circuit multicore cables going to a bar is going to be easier than 12 TRS cables!

 

Just out of interest, what do you exactly mean by powered bars, and who and why has decided they are dangerous, along with the dimmers?

[Rich newby]

I mean wired standard bars with 15 amp plugs. I do not know who or when they were deemed unsafe, but I was told the lighting head, who is pro, not to use them and to wire a separate dimming system.

 

Rich

[the kid]

I've read this post 5 times now and all I can think is you mean "what can I use to stop me having many cables over the bars" in which the answer is soca. If you then don't want cables running all over your bars the next thing I can think of is having IWB's, hung on to the flowen IWB's, with a soca connector on the end's.

 

Soca will only give control of 6 or 12 lights (depening on how the bar is wired)

[Rich newby]

This Wiring is not permanent, it is only a temporary dimming system for 1 dance show. That's it, this hall never normally gets used. That is all I'm going to have as well, at the max I'm having 11 lanterns running through 2 soca cables. They will then go to the dimmer and then to the desk. What I'm doing is running the 15amp plugs along the bar, I dint say that I didn't mind that,I didn't want a wad of 15amp cables going to the dimmers. I am going to use the soca's on the end of the bars, then they will run to the dimmers. There will be 4 soca cables being used. 3 rigged bars 2 spiders on one of the bars and just 1 on each of the other bars.

 

Rich