House Lighting

[stillwave]

Hi all,

 

Recently at our theatre we have been having talks of LED houselighting.

 

Currently our houselights are hundereds of tungsten lamps (40W/60W) powered by 3 very old strand mini IIs, controlled by a local analog desk up in the projection box, which has had a hack done to the main master to allow the master to be controlled stage end (on a Pot.) via a long mains flex (all thrown in very quickly to get the theatre off the ground in 2000, but works).

 

the proposal is to have the led system (if/when eventually installed) to be controlled via DMX from the projection box and have our lighting desk (bullfrog) in the stalls somehow talk to a 'magic box' in the projection box. the LED system would be on a seperate DMX universe to the stage lighting.

 

My queries are as follows:

 

- because 'magic box' would control houselights, how would it also include tab warmers on film showings? (tabs warmers are via stage universe), would it have to have 2 DMX outputs and a DMX merger on the the stage DMX universe? (heard mergers are a bit messy)

- would it be easier/simpler to have the Bull Frog look after the LED houselights & use the remote switch port on the bullfrog to allow control of 'presets' in the projection box

- would it be easier to have a third system installed to control LED houselights e.g. touchscreen panel for FOH to play with?

 

The Bullfrog currently only uses 1 universe for stage lighting (all 72 generics) so has 1 universe spare, there isn't much need to leave this spare as we have no movers and am drams don't bring in enough movers to need 2 stage universes (same outlook future wise)

 

I say 'magic box' as they are unsure of what it would be or what inputs / outputs it would have.

 

 

What solutions have other people come up with or seen, in particular fully LED or part led houselights?

 

 

Regards,

 

Ben Wainwright

 

P.S.

LED houselights would be roughly 18-20 control units powering dozens of fittings (2 individual power modules, 4 channels each module) sited at points around the building daisy chained via 2 main DMX runs around building (roof space & stalls ceiling void) presumably split at controlling point, terminating at the prosc. arch.

[Suzette]

My previous venue had a similar set-up - needing houselight & tab warmer control from stage, LX box and Projection Room.

We had installed a separate small dimmer system to dim houselights & tab warmers with a control box in each area. Each box had 3 preset buttons - ON / HALF / OFF - for both houselights and tabwarmers. The timing of the fades could be altered on the dimmer, although once we had decided on a sensible timing it wasn't really changed. Also the level of "HALF" could be altered on the dimmers - as our tabwarmers were quite bright our "half" for them was actually closer to about 40%.

 

We did also have a "magic box" in the LX box with the 18 independant switches for the non-dims (and the preset switches for h/lx and Tab warmers) and this was linked to the LX desk so 20 channels on the desk (above the final dimmer numbers) were also able to control the independants and the house lights / tabwarmers... i.e. channel 159 was the houselights so they could be programmed into the LX desk with cues or just press a button in the projection room during a film.

 

[The independants, controlled through the desk, switched on @ 25% - great for programming into a cues to switch the UV cannons on prior to use so they are warmed up in time! Panto UV scenes are not great if the cannons aren't warmed up!]

 

Sounds like this is the sort of thing you might be needing ....

[stillwave]

My previous venue had a similar set-up - needing houselight & tab warmer control from stage, LX box and Projection Room.

We had installed a separate small dimmer system to dim houselights & tab warmers with a control box in each area. Each box had 3 preset buttons - ON / HALF / OFF - for both houselights and tabwarmers.

 

We did also have a "magic box" in the LX box with the 18 independant switches for the non-dims (and the preset switches for h/lx and Tab warmers) and this was linked to the LX desk so 20 channels on the desk (above the final dimmer numbers) were also able to control the independants and the house lights / tabwarmers... i.e. channel 159 was the houselights so they could be programmed into the LX desk with cues or just press a button in the projection room during a film.

 

That sounds like a solution to the current predicament with tabs but I want a solution to the DMX'ing LED houselights.

 

is there DMX controllers that have 3 buttons like in this post that are programmable? and how would it still be controllable from the LX desk?

 

they want fancy colour cycles with the LEDs as this would replicate a colormix houselight system from 1932 called holophane (spelling?). Except with LEDs, as they are relatively low maintainance.

 

any other suggestions?

 

regards,

 

Ben Wainwright

[revbobuk]

Google 'Architectural DMX Controllers' for some solutions. This one: http://www.lolcontrols.com/index.php?src=d...dimming_systems seems to have the ability to link to a console and capture snapshots which can then be activated from a single button.