The Phantom Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Hi folks! I've got two sets of Stage Blinders each unit holding 8 bubbles at 650 watt each bubble. My questions is, in order to keep flexibility and be able to move them from venue to venue can you recommend any sensibly priced dimmer packs to run them from? Apperently I'd need a couple of 16amp dimmers. Do you know any good brands (resonably priced)? I ideally need to run these from my DMX desk so I really don't want to just plug them in to the wall socket. Here is a link to the actual unit itself: http://www.scanic.de/product_info.php/info/p166_Scanic-Blinder-8.html/XTCsid/bf6aac8f28075d88a1ea209b760a62ec Any useful advice would be much appreciated. The Phantom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenalien Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Doing the sums, each unit is 8 x 650W = 5200W. Divide that by 230v and you get 22A - rather more than 16A - and most dimmers are limited to 10A per channel. Can you wire each pair of lamps separately?Devices like this are not suitable for use on a 'domestic' mains circuit with 13A plugs, so plugging into a wall socket isn't an option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Phantom Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Many thanks greenalien!Doing the sums, each unit is 8 x 650W = 5200W. Divide that by 230v and you get 22A - rather more than 16A - and most dimmers are limited to 10A per channel. Can you wire each pair of lamps separately?Devices like this are not suitable for use on a 'domestic' mains circuit with 13A plugs, so plugging into a wall socket isn't an option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kazeja Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Might want to have a look at the anytronics range of 8x5A dimmers. http://www.anytronics.com/download/dim_swit/grey/f_sales.pdf K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 We've just had some of these on hire and I'm sure they had dual inlets to share the load between dimmers. Might this not be an option for yours? You'd then get away with carrying more standard cabling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Phantom Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Yes, they have two, two pin plugs at the back! We've just had some of these on hire and I'm sure they had dual inlets to share the load between dimmers. Might this not be an option for yours? You'd then get away with carrying more standard cabling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron-Hill07 Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 You're better of re-wiring them to have two 16a plugs on them.. usually you can wire them as two pairs of sides so one channel does the 4 on the left, the other does the 4 on the right. That'll make about 11amp per side, so on a 16a circuit that'll be fine. You'll need to invest in proper dimmers for them however, so if spending good money on dimmers is an issue; you could consider wiring them into 4 pairs instead of 2 sides.. bringing the power down to under 6amp per pair, making them suitable on most dimmers.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lampygirl Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Check how the blinders are wired. A lot of the time the 8 lamp blinders will be wired as 2 sets of 4 or even 4 sets of 2 lamps, so each channel only uses 650 or 1300W. Standard DWE blinder lamps are also often 120v, and so need to be wired as series pairs. Once you know how they are wired internally you can look at working out the total draw per channel and then the total draw of all the channels being at full in order to work out which dimmers you require. E2A... Aaron beat me to it as I got distracted mid way through writing a reply Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicktaylor Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 I have two twin 5kW Green Ginger packs for that sort of thing. I bought them from Theatre Projects for some light curtains I had! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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