Advice Wanted - School Setup

[cdexter]

Hello,

 

Basically we have a old 5amp system with 24 channels, doesnt like DMX.

 

and im looking at trying to sort a refit, so am after ideas of a setup. (dimmers, bars, cables, fixtures, the lot...)

 

Thanks Connor

[pritch]

"I'm having problems with my car - what should I get to replace it?" How would you answer that?

 

What's the budget for all of this?

Are you the one spending the money, or are you a student who's set it upon themselves to cost it?

What do you actually want the new equipment to do?

[kerry davies]

Connor, get your teacher to talk to the head of department to talk to the headmaster to talk to the governors who should get in a company that has the expertise to answer your queries.

 

You are in no real position to "sort a refit" otherwise you would have specced a budget and a few BR members would be halfway through a tender by now.

[cdexter]

Im a Student, thats the head of the college technical team, thats sort all the colleges shows and events, im looking at getting a basic refit, so I can then go to the right people.

 

The college staff wise has 2 music techs, but no lighting people and the drama teachers dont really know the lighting side of the college, I sort all the maintance, and Rigging for all shows.

[scjb]

Hello chap. Welcome to the BR. As you may have figured out, posts such as your's come reasonably frequently. It would be well worth your while doing a forum search and wading through the previous topics.

[Mat]

Sounds like an old system I used to use at a former school I went to.

 

As you work within a school environment, you should be aware on how funding works within a school.

 

Contact the head of department and suggest it. Bring it up in a faculty meeting. I presume that you didn't install the system. The system may be old however the company who installed it may still be operating who will know how to update it. Better to get someone in who does this for a living to do the job.

 

Also, unless your school has a performing arts status I would presume that the budget given to the department is very slim. I remember when I was a student learning with this sort of setup I did suggest updating it to a DMX set-up. I was told to get £6,000. This was several years ago.

 

Best get fundraising.

[Aaron-Hill07]

Quick question - how old are you?

 

For anyone at school, 'I sort all the maintenance, and rigging for all shows' worries me already.

[paulears]

His profile says 1995.

 

Connor - the harsh facts are that you're head of nothing really - this has been done to death. You have no status, and realistically, if you can't do the spec yourself without our advice, then you don't have the experience to even start. There are so many variables that are outside of your knowledge as a student. You can bet that anything you provide will be welcomed, and discarded. Sometimes even excellent plans get scrapped without the students knowledge because the staff who have to make the case, will not promote the bid based on your info, which could be lacking critical detail. The school may have a bidding process for capital equipment that gets considered against rival bids from other departments, and considered on the basis of need. If your old system works, and art need a kiln because theire is broken - then they'll get the money. If maybe you were starting BTEC Production Arts, and are selecting units, then the application goes with a matching resource budget. So a new course might get extra funding - but maybe it's been spent, or maybe you don't actually need better equipment. You may also find your teachers and technical staff are embarrassed to put forward a plan from a student. Especially one who considers himself more knowledgable than the staff. Your problem is quite common, but to answer it, we need real data - and really somebody needs to visit - because you don't actually have the info needed - and I don't see how you can get it? Things like the structure of the building - needed for the lighting bars. The bar can be a very small amount compared to the physical attachment to the building and the wiring. DMX isn't necessary at all, even for BTEC students on a lighting unit. If you do the automated lighting unit - then more expensive and cleverer kit is needed. Nothing wrong with a 5A installation with sub 1K lanterns. You don't even know if there's more power even available?

 

I've seen plenty of student installations that are total rubbish, because they forgot really important bits.

 

I know you are very keen - but you have to get a specialist in to prepare these things - depending where you are, one of us may be willing to help - but the staff MUST be involved.

 

Plenty of schools dish out 'Head of ...' labels to get things done - but sadly, there is never any real responsibility to go with the title.

[LXbydesign]

Oh , here we go again.....

 

Sorry to piss on your fire mate, but I suggest you simply read all the blumf on here about the excat same topic your raising.

 

Your intention may be meaningful, but this notion of a student ''being in charge of the lighting'' is a no brainer.

 

Your not ultimatly responsible for it, its actually not your problem anyway and if anything went wrong under under specifications of your remit - then whos responsible? You?. No. Your parents? . No. The school ?. Yes. And there would be a pretty hefty lawsuit going on for them explaining why they accounted responsibility of a student to specify a installation of rigging and electrics and so on - none of which Im sure you have any real industry experience or qualification on!!!

 

By all means be keen and try to be involved in some way if a meeting is set up to look at the project but thats about it.

 

and to pretty much follow on what Paul was saying... for example, I teach BTEC Performing Arts (Production) and for the lighting unit - the minimal requirements of a lighting system is ...well...minimal! Only 12 dimming channels and the same number of lanterns be it a mixture of fresnels, profiles, couple of floods and a parcan maybe is needed.

 

The specification of the power of the system ie if its 5 amp or 15amp plugs, 32 or 63 single or TPNE or rack dimmers or 3 way portapacks is neither here or there.

 

So if this upgrade is being done to be able to teach the course, then, yes, it would be nice to have - but if you already have the minimal requirements - its not needed.

 

My venue IS (sorry to rub it in) all singing, all dancing with a big mix of generic, moving and LED fixtures- but still I take students to londen west end venues (friends in the right places!!) to see backstage and so on. No amount of 'what you have at the school / academy' can take the place of actually getting out there and seeing what goes on in real life.

[pritch]

The other thing is, even if we said "OK, here's the dimmers we'd recommend. Here's the desk. Here's where you can find bars", it's impossible to give a price until you've actually got the people who are going to supply and/or install the gear to look at it.

 

We can sit here and throw names of pieces of kit at you until the cows come home, but if the time comes to install it, and it turns out that the mains supply to where your dimmers are going is tiny, and your new bars are going to be hung from pieces of rotten timber, then it's all for nought! A decent supplier will look at these things - they'll have a quick look at where things are going to hang from to make sure there's no obvious problems. They'll get an idea of what's involved to get a decent supply to the dimmers if need be, and all this will be in their quote.

 

Also, their quote will often include the kit at some sort of discounted price - if we gave you a list of stuff to get, then you may well not find this sort of thing by shopping online. Not to mention, as others have said before me, your school or local authority may well have a list of approved suppliers - no matter how good a deal you think you've managed to get, if the people you've got a price from aren't on the list, then the stuff isn't getting bought from there.

[Brian]

Hi Connor,

 

to give us a better idea of what practical suggestions to make perhaps you could tell us a bit more about the venue and the sort of shows you put on.

 

Also, you say you need a refit; what is wrong with the current setup? I'm going to assume that the installation is tested regularly to make sure it's safe but what problems do you have? You say the dimmers don't like DMX; it may be that fitting a DMX to analogue converter (demux) to them will sort that out. Dimmers themselves are pretty reliable devices and might just need a bit of TLC.

[Junior8]

I'd just add to Paul's detailed post the advice to refer to mine on Power Consumption in the electrical section. The plain fact is that many schools built in the Pre 1980 period are already creaking electrically with power requirements well beyond what was ever envisaged - due to IT suites and the fact that all those new offices all have a kettle! Back in 1990 I had an assembly hall system like the one you describe and managed to get the incomer replaced with a new 100 amp feed only because there was some building work being done and the county architects department and myself managed to cut a deal with the contractor - who I knew - to conceal it in the paperwork. It would simply not have been considered as a stand alone project then - or probably in the intervening period. And indeed was only possible then because the main fuse room was being upgraded.

 

 

Also there is nothing magic about 15amp, DMX, moving lights and the rest. Lighting, and interesting lighting too, was being done even on 24 channels to 12kw total for years before they arrived on the scene. Indeed I think looking back to my time the key developments for the smaller rig have been the T/H lamp and modular pack based dimmer systems of course.

[Ynot]

Also there is nothing magic about 15amp, DMX, moving lights and the rest. Lighting, and interesting lighting too, was being done even on 24 channels to 12kw total for years before they arrived on the scene. Indeed I think looking back to my time the key developments for the smaller rig have been the T/H lamp and modular pack based dimmer systems of course.

Indeed.

When I first began lighting shows about a hundred years ago all I had to work with control wise were three (yes THREE) four-channel Junior 8 packs (those alluded to in the username of our colleage above) bolted to the wall of my own school (situated on a catwalk above stage left over the stage, no less!). So just 12 channels of manual dimming with 5A circuits out.

 

Crossfades? Not impossible, but took planning and several hands.

LX states with different levels for each channel? Again possible using carefully cut and marked pieces of 3 x 1 timber.

Kids today have NO idea of what it takes to make a good job with very little....

 

[Biro]

Ohh Aaron Hill come on, we've seen you post exactly the same thing as this before.

[rgye]

As a systems installer I have been asked to visit a (junior) school tomorrow with a view to quoting for a stage lighting 'upgrade'. I have insisted that before throwing specifications and budgets at the task I want to meet the staff members who put on the productions, to understand their ambitions and evaluate their capabilities. There is no point in specifying something that is way out of proportion to their needs, resources or skills, even though the PTA have offered to put up the money.

 

In a similar project for an infant school I ended up specifying just four LED floodlights and an absolutely entry level manual desk - what I had found they actually needed/wanted was the cabability to raise the light level marginally over ambient and produce some pretty colours, nothing more. They were never going to be doing Grease or King Lear. It did the trick perfectly, for a budget that was proportionate

 

So, leaving aside the business of whether a student is the right person to be specifying a system, you could be usefully carrying out a study with a view to presenting a report on what the people involved want and need in terms of the broad system capability, and what they can't do at present, which could be a useful starting point for an outside installation company. Leave decisions on things like DMX and mains terminations - and budgets - to others with the appropriate experience.