Cable Stocks

[richard_cooper]

I'm thinking of replacing our entire stock of (currently horrible mish mash of tatty, dirty, odd length, and sometimes interestingly coloured) 15A cabling, and although I know we've never got enough, what is enough?

 

Could anyone with the time please reply to this thread with an idea of the type of venue they are, so producing, receiving, school, am-dram, other (we're all of the above...) and what they keep in the way of 15A cabling (or 16A, or.... if that's your thing for dimmed power). I suppose it would help to know how many dimmer channels/lanterns you have too. I'm just interested in what other people do, as my plans at the moment seem totally excessive, but can you ever have enough TRS?

 

Many thanks

 

Richard

[Colin]

Maybe not over whelmingly useful but as a hire company we stock 2m,5m,10m,20m in 13A, 15A, 16A not to memtion socapex which we have in the same lengths as well as 30m. We have 15A and 16A spiders. We have "outdoor" 16A at 50m (we also have 32A and higher in 2m,5m,10m,20m,50m)

 

Almost all of our theatre and amdram groups use 15A (some amdrams on 5a but we only stock jumpers for these).

 

Almost all of our event clients use 16A.

 

Almost all of our disco/party clients use 13A.

 

Length-wise never feel as though other lengths would add that much. If I were a venue the odd 1m might be useful at times.

[Gerry]

I have a range of 1,2, 5, 7.5, 10 and 20 metre cables all with 16A shuko plugs and sockets, but I live in Spain.

However many of each length I have I never have enough. B-)

 

Cheers

Gerry

[TonyMitchell]

16a & 32a in 5m, 10m & 25m

63a in 5m, 10m & 30m

heaps of different 2m jumpers

all HO7RN-F

[simschr]

I'm sure Richard would appreciate quantities of each type for venues which meet his criteria.

[Simon Brockwell]

buy a big roll of TRS and some 15amp connectors and find someone with some spare time and a screwdriver.

[dbuckley]

Since you're a venue, there is a big variable - do you have internally wired bars and sockets by fixed points? If so you need a lot less cables (and a different set of cables) than a house with just bars and all the sockets next to the dimmer.

[GridGirl]

We're a producing house with 120 dimmer channels, about 150 lighting units and about 200 cables. We don't have IWBs but there are wayline sockets in the grid - our roof is divided into five "bays" and the sockets are on the RSJs which divide the bays - I think including floor circuits we have 240 waylines. Our extension cables are mostly between 5-10 metres long (that's the most useful length for us because of the grid and socket placement) but they range from 500mm long (the most useful extensions of all, we find!) to 40 metres. We also have a few 4-way multis (20 metres long) which can be useful on a rig where one section of the grid is particularly crowded.

[richard_cooper]

Thanks GridGirl, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Most helpful.

 

Dbuckley, we have a series of bridges that span the venue with hard wired (i.e. no hard patch) spaced evenly around the grid, evenly as in, few where you need them plenty where you don't! we've 96 dimmer channels, and roughly 120 lanterns in stock.

 

Richard

[dbuckley]

Dbuckley, we have a series of bridges that span the venue with hard wired (i.e. no hard patch) spaced evenly around the grid, evenly as in, few where you need them plenty where you don't! we've 96 dimmer channels, and roughly 120 lanterns in stock.

 

I think you've answered your own question then. It sounds like you need a lot of cables of a few meters length to bridge the gap betwixt fixed sockets and useful lighting positions.

 

The theatre I use most which is a conventional procenium arch venue, with patchable IWBs, and adequate patchable sockets for the FOH bar and Juliettes, and on a typical show you need just a few cables of a short length to pair up lanterns on the IWBs 'cos theres not enough sockets (or to reach a socket just out of reach), and I've done a few shows with no extension cables at all. It takes putting lanterns in places where there are no sockets (eg orchestra pit, back of house) to need non-convenient wiring, and for these odd occasions I hire loooong cables. Or a design that goes beyond what the IWBs can provide, and then its 10m or 15m cables from dimmers to IWBs.

 

Thus my experience in a very different type of venue is totally useless to you

[LeeStoddart]

In "my" venue we rarely need TRS FOH as almost everywhere we can usefully hang a lantern we have sufficient sockets. Over stage we have a total of seven bars which are pre-wired back to patch bays or dimmer racks. Where we need TRS is when we introduce additional lighting bars, booms, or add stuff in floats or at floor level or for practicals. We are a receiving house, host amdram several times during the year and carry a sizable panto

 

We carry a lot of TRS in various lengths, 5m, 10m, 15m, 20m plus some <5m and some between 6 and 9m. 10m is the biggest stock with probably something like 30 pieces, perhaps 20 off 5m and then 10 off 15m and 20m. Probably 20 shorts (<5m) and another 20 of the 6m to 9m range. Additionally we have four multi-core (soca) 15-15m. It's all 15A and we carry a significant number of 15->13 13->15 and 16->15 jumpers. And a fair stock of 13A cables.

 

Most of the time we have loads spare but when I design with lots of lanterns in non-standard places we seem to have lots more space left in the store.

[Caldair]

In most places I'm used to seeing lengths of up-to-3m, 5m, 10, 15m, 20m-and-above, all of them 16A. (I do prefer all 16A rather than having both 10A and 16A - it saves sorting through them all when looking for a cable, and also I imagine you would need to have more cables total if you want to have both...)

How many of each depends on what the venue needs.

 

If you have a ceiling full of hard wired, then you'll mainly need the length appropriate for your ceiling... Also some for moving heads and whatnot, and tools on stage.

 

(Edit: Forgot the multicables in the venue I was describing, making the whole thing a bit of a waste of time. :) )

[Genus]

For every venue I've ever worked in (from Schools through to big receiving houses) we always seem to run out of small cables mid way through every get in. 1m and 2m lengths. Make sure you have plenty of the small stuff. There's nothing more annoying than needed to bridge a 1 metre gap with a 10/20m cable...

 

Genus

[stillwave]

Medium sized receiving house (approx 1300 seats), fixed IWBs FOH (30 dimmed circuits), 3 IWBs above stage (32) & Floor level outlets (8 Circuits split either side of stage, 4 upstage, 4 downstage) total 72 circuits (2 not wired)

 

16A (various brand connectors) 30-40 cables of various lengths from 1M to 30m (2 of) various 15A to 16A, 16A to 15A, 13A to 16A etc hard splitters (approx 12) , grelcos (approx 15).

 

I'd second the 1M's, always come in handy to get the lantern to a slightly further place away from socket than the attached lead will allow!

 

Regards,

 

Ben Wainwright

[TomHoward]

We have 15A in 1, 2, 5, 10, 15 and 25m lengths - for 96 ways of dimming we must have 5*1m, 5*2m, 10*5m, 20*10m, 30*15m, 5*25m, and around 25 grelcos. These are only estimations though.

 

As well as these we stock 32A cabling, lots of 13-15 and 15-13 (as our hard power is on 15A as well), as well as a few 15A-16A and 15A-Powercon for visiting requirements (mirrorball motors, smoke machines etc - saves having to use 15A - 13A - Powercon or whatever adapters from 13 they usually bring.)

 

We have 3 IWBs and a load of sockets in the eves; most of these lengths are used to run to sidelighting from the eves. It would seem that the question is very specific to what you feel is appropriate for your venue, however.