House lighting

[Matt Riley]

Hi guys,

 

I'm just at the stage of investigating lighting for a new church install just to give us some ideas to take to the contractors. 1400 seater auditorium, fan shaped, ceiling height about 10m. I've got some pretty together thoughts about the stage now - Pixeltrack for the back wall wash and foot light, and then High End Colorcommands for the front wash with Source4 zooms to do duties as profiles. No movers. Control hopefully off a Chamsys maxi wing + Asus touch screen pc.

 

What I'm after is ideas for house lighting. Currently I can only think of using S4 pars or short nose par 56s hung from the ceiling run off Z88 chilli dimmers. Does anyone have any more aesthetically pleasing, equally dimmable ideas. Part of the lighting brief is to use fixtures which don't toast the people below them and have low power requirements (save the earth and all that). It would be especially helpful if people could relate their recommendations to real world use of recommended products.

 

Hopefully the plan is to use serial control to work with the components of the system in order to have a robust, easily usable single point of control for basic sound, light and visual stuff.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Matt

[paradoxism]

Maybe look at using a few 500 (or 800W if they don't cut it) single cell cyc floods or similar but bouncing the light off the ceiling to dissipate it and avoid frying/blinding the audience - you'd get a more even coverage and probably need fewer units to cover the same area due to the greater beam angle.

 

Also a lot cheaper to replace a 500W linear strip than a CP62 - remember that the initial low cost of a PAR56 needs to be offset againt the increased cost of replacement lamps if you're using them over a long period.

[powersolve]

The use of halogens in a new install for the main (house) lighting in a church might fall foul of minimum lumens/watt requirements, which are (I think) in the building regs, and may therefore be mandatory.

 

I'm looking at a similar issue myself, but haven't a solution yet. Discharge (high-bay type) fittings are all that the various lighting specialists to whom I've spoken will spec, but being non-dimmable (at least, not without great expense) they're not what I want.

 

Sorry I can't be more positive.

[back_ache]

The use of halogens in a new install for the main (house) lighting in a church might fall foul of minimum lumens/watt requirements, which are (I think) in the building regs, and may therefore be mandatory.

 

If that is the case look at dimable flourescants ideally using DSI control protocol and with warm white tubes.

 

That way you can have efficient attractive fixtures (in a large range of shapes and sizes, not just a boring tube on a white baton) that can be wired up neatly by a normal sparky using five core mains flex. (Florescent dimming protocols don't need isolation)

 

Control wise there are a few options, what are you looking for?

[paradoxism]

I would have thought that the OP was looking for a dimmable solution for performances on top of flourescent fittings or similar which they use day to day (I certainly wouldn't be using S4 Pars for a day-to-day illumination!). In that instance the fittings would come under the entertainment use exemption for tungsten/halogen fittings the same as they would if they were being used for a cyc flood or similar on the stage.

[Matt Riley]

Basically this is all a bit uncharted territory for me. In terms of the only venue I've worked in to have this issue, we have hi-bays fitted, and then use halogens for house lighting, but this was an afterthought, and I'd really like to have a system without unnecessary duplication, so decent dimmable fluorescent fixtures sounds like a plan! For lighting control, I want to run it off artnet or DMX through the main lighting board, and then work with serial controls to provide control of the house lights through this amongst other things (I plan to get something like david's serial buttons software knocked up and run it off a touchscreen linux box to control basic scenes for sound, stage lighting and visuals as well). Or maybe use something like the chamsys room controller. But none of that is anywhere near set in stone.

[paulears]

I'd have thought the idea for bouncing light from the white ceiling would be the main feature, to get nice soft light. any form of narrower beam width fitting will be patchy, which while perhaps useful for mood lighting, won't let people read in comfort. Depending on light levels, then as budget seems available, then some of the newer LED units could be useful. We're starting to see decent colour mixing, and respectable light levels - and they will be good for the HVAC system too.

[back_ache]

Basically this is all a bit uncharted territory for me. In terms of the only venue I've worked in to have this issue, we have hi-bays fitted, and then use halogens for house lighting, but this was an afterthought, and I'd really like to have a system without unnecessary duplication, so decent dimmable fluorescent fixtures sounds like a plan! For lighting control, I want to run it off artnet or DMX through the main lighting board, and then work with serial controls to provide control of the house lights through this amongst other things (I plan to get something like david's serial buttons software knocked up and run it off a touchscreen linux box to control basic scenes for sound, stage lighting and visuals as well). Or maybe use something like the chamsys room controller. But none of that is anywhere near set in stone.

 

I have used dimmable hi-bay lights in a school hall type venue, it used multiple compact FL rather that the usual MH's and looked really good.

 

I would be tempted to use a dsi - DMX convertor so you can use "one protocol to rule them all"

 

for control I am looking to buy a DMX recorder for a similar role, the one I am looking at (anytronics anyscene) stops transmitting as soon as it senses another DMX source on the line so you can easily take over from foh.

[wirralmatt]

Abundant Life Church in Bradford have a similar sized church and their house lighting it very good. They have a worship and creative arts section on their website. You could contact them if you want some suggestions. They are always very helpful.

 

Matt

[adam2]

I would avoid any type of incandescent lighting for this application, the energy use is liable to be substantial, as is the heat produced. Lamp life would be another concern, epsecialy if access equipment is required.

 

Indirect flourescent lighting is probably the best if colour changing is not required.

Almost any type of flourescent can be dimmed, via DMX or otherwise, special ballasts are needed, but the lamps are standard types and therefore cheap to replace.

 

By useing fixtures with two or more lamps, a variety of useful results may be obtained.

For example simple switching could give a light level of 0/150/300 lux of cool white light for working lights or non-performance uses. This could be controlled by standard lightswitches, which is desirable if non technical persons simply need to turn on the lights as they would at home.

 

Another group of dimmable lamps could give warm white (or any desired colour by gelling) dimmable from 3 lux to 100 lux, for houselights. These lamps would be controlled by the theatre lighting desk, or as required.

 

Remember that emergency lighting will be required, this can be easily built in to most flourescent luminaires which will be neater looking than stand alone emergency lighting.

 

If full colour changing is required, then consider linear LED units, this should give a long "lamp" life and make efficient use of electricity. It will be a considerable investment though for a large space.