Hall Upgrade - Installation Advice

[Advisionmatt]

I thought I would see what others opinions were of the correct spec for a village hall upgrade. Currently we have a fairly decent but old analogue strand 12 channel system ran from two 6 channel dimmers and a 12 channel desk (with A&B bank). These are patched to two internally wired bars over the stage (6 sockets on each), with some extra sockets dotted around, and a further 6 front of house on an overhead beam. All sockets are the small 5AMP type. Current lights are 8 semi decent 500W focusable Fresnels with barn doors, 4 Strand Pattern 60 200W flood lights, and 2 very old Strand Pattern 23 spots.

A few years ago I bought in a demux unit so that the analogue lights could be controlled by DMX - but the dimmers are about 30 years old I believe. How much longer are they going to last (they probably only get used about 10 days a year tops!)

 

However, we are looking now for a more up to date solution to keep the hall going for the next 25 years or so. I can donate a DMX desk from work (only a 24 channel or 48 channel in wide mode). I'm interested in replacing the older lights - but I like the fresnels and even though they are old, they work well. LED's could be lovely for effects - although with the desk I can donate they would have to be controlled over 4 or 5 channels.

 

Budget is key sadly. We only have about £4k - although, if a really good solution was offered which really looked attractive, we could possibly get some funding to stretch it to £9k.

 

For bigger productions I'm involved with, I would normally bring in a Fat Frog from work and a couple of extra LED lights, but I need a solution which members of the public could use if they hired the hall as it is - something fairly simple to operate. I'm worried about making it too complicated - eg if they start to get adventurous and rehang lights, I don't want it too confusing should they plug an analogue light into a non-dimmer socket, and likewise don't want someone trying to plug in an LED light into a dimmer! How can I get around this?

 

Looking forward to hearing any advice! I'm a little confused how the patching of older lights and new lights can be easily done for Mrs Smith from the WI or Mr Scout man for their next Gang Show!!

 

Matt

[Dave m]

All our dimmables are on 15A and the non dimmables are on 13A

If they use adaptors or retire them then you have a bigger issue

[OllieDuff]

If you're worried about the dimmers going toes-up in the next couple of years, replace them first - you're buggered without them. 24 ways of patchable 15A dimming can be had for about two grand. That being said, my local venue has 96 ways of analogue dimming that went in in the late Fifties and they are still going strong. Unless you have had major issues with them, I wouldn't bother. If you DO replace the dimming, consider getting a unit where you can hardwire all the circuits around the room - removes the need for hardware patching at all and may work out cheaper depending on what you buy.

If you're getting new tungsten fixtures, I would suggest budgeting to replace all your 5A with 15A if possible. This will avoid you getting screwed over if you hire stuff in or buy new lanterns at a later date.

Make sure that all your fixtures have the right accessories: safety bond, barn doors or shutters, proper hook clamp, gobo holder for profiles, and make sure that they are all in good working order. If not, repair or replace damaged or missing parts.

A couple of Junior Source Fours or Selecon Acclaim Zooms could replace or complement the Patt 23s - choose between the two dependent on what range of beam angles you want, and the best price you can get from your supplier. Both are easy enough to work with for the novice user, give you a lot of flexibility as they're zooms, and you can get two for under £500 new, or less if you go second hand. If the Fresnels and floods work, hang onto them until they break and you can't get parts any more - they're simple beasts.

If you need hard power in the grid, you could do worse than put in a couple of 16A sockets, and either tail any fixtures that you get with 16A or buy some adaptors to whatever your fixtures are tailed with. Should prevent people from cross plugging intelligent lights into dimmed power. If you do decide to go for intelligents, don't forget to allow some money for a kit of DMX cable to get from the desk to where you need to go.

You might consider a bunch of RGBW LED bars on the upstage bar for top/back light - some of the VK3010 units from Viking Lighting might be worth a look. They're Chinese knockoffs of a more expensive fixture, but the light quality is perfectly acceptable and if they're rigged semi-permanently you don't need to worry too much about the lower build quality. They're about £300 each, so you might consider getting 2-3 depending on how big your stage is. This will give you strong backlight for bands, plays and so forth, and will make novice end users disproportionately happy due to the exciting flashy colours, but without the expense and complexity of movers.

I reckon you could get all of the above minus the dimmers and the socket refit (2 new profiles,3 LED washes, 16A installed in the grid, and cable as appropriate) for under your 4k budget - maybe even as little as 3k. Options beyond could include another pair of profiles, replacing/expanding the fresnel stock, but I wouldn't get any more LED as your 24/48 desk will start to run out of channels.

 

 

[Stuart91]

If you're worried about the dimmers going toes-up in the next couple of years, replace them first - you're buggered without them. 24 ways of patchable 15A dimming can be had for about two grand.

 

If you are reasonably confident working with second hand kit, there are lots of dimmers available at very reasonable prices as more and more stuff shifts over to LED.

 

I agree that direct hardwire is the simplest solution, but unless you have loads of channels (and corresponding desk channels) it can be a bit limiting. Either way it's a compromise in one direction or the other.

[Jivemaster]

Consider the electrical feed! It's no good having hundreds of lights if you have a 60A mains feed.

 

Consider what you support the lights from.

 

LEDs go easy on electricity BUT they are costly on dimmer channels they can have 8+ channels to a personality -so you tend to go for DMX then the general public hall hirer needs a lighting tech just to turn the lights on.

 

15A for dimmed power and 16A for hard power is one of the "usual" conventions but 16a for everything is coming in.

[Junior8]

The dimmers haven't done a years work yet! Likewise there is nothing wrong with 5amp - it was standard for small installations for years. (It was still being specified by some in 1990.) I assume that what you have is a patch panel with a number of 5amp tails which are plugged into the packs as required. Given the multi-user environment you describe I would, like Jive, check the capacity of the mains feed to the venue and if it was sufficient add some more dimming. I would not, in small venues, hard wire dimmers to ways - you lose too much flexibility in my view but you will have to work round the problem that no-one (I stand to be corrected) makes a 5amp outlet six channel dimmer pack anymore and I haven't seen any second hand for a while. There are very good reasons too to stick with one lever a channel controls in this type of environment - anybody can learn to use a two preset board in five minutes with plenty of time for a coffee. It is a crying shame that idiots have turned the Patt 23 into a fashion item as the once vibrant second hand market seems to have disappeared but I'd agree with Ollie in the suggestion of buying a few new profiles. If the fresnels are working then a clean is probably all they'll need. I'd look at something like a Zero 88 Jester as the control.

[Nicktaylor]

To get round the problem about "WI" needing lighting we always leave a basic rig of four fresnel wash, a cyc colour and maybe a pros arch circuit. This all goes to one pack on its own switch with six way fader panel. One on off switch and that lighting can be controlled. Ontop of the "house" pack there are six more betapacks on another main switch which societies own. To this goes any extra lighting for a show. The bottom line is have a basic setting that all users know should be there.

[Peter18]

The dimmers haven't done a years work yet! Likewise there is nothing wrong with 5amp - it was standard for small installations for years. (It was still being specified by some in 1990.) I assume that what you have is a patch panel with a number of 5amp tails which are plugged into the packs as required. Given the multi-user environment you describe I would, like Jive, check the capacity of the mains feed to the venue and if it was sufficient add some more dimming. I would not, in small venues, hard wire dimmers to ways - you lose too much flexibility in my view but you will have to work round the problem that no-one (I stand to be corrected) makes a 5amp outlet six channel dimmer pack anymore and I haven't seen any second hand for a while. There are very good reasons too to stick with one lever a channel controls in this type of environment - anybody can learn to use a two preset board in five minutes with plenty of time for a coffee. It is a crying shame that idiots have turned the Patt 23 into a fashion item as the once vibrant second hand market seems to have disappeared but I'd agree with Ollie in the suggestion of buying a few new profiles. If the fresnels are working then a clean is probably all they'll need. I'd look at something like a Zero 88 Jester as the control.

 

I have met this issue with 5A infrastructure in several schools where I have assisted with lighting and I agree with Junior8 that you should stick with it. An issue that is often overlooked is the ability of any replacement dimmer to adequately protect the cabling to the 5A sockets - the size of the cable needs to be checked before 10A dimmers and 15A sockets could be safely fitted to the exisitng cabling. It might be possible to de-rate the fuses on a fused dimmer to 5A to preserve protection but this might well be a source of confusion for other users.

I am aware of how committees love the perceived 'safety' of all new equipement, but with creative sourcing there is much that could be achieved within your budget. If the present 12 channels of dimmer plus demux are working fine then I would stick with them (unless they were Strand Mini2, especially if the RFI capacitor had not been replaced!) and purchase additional dimmers. Second hand analogue 5A dimmers do come up and sell for very little since they are 5A! (There are a pair of Pulsar ones on Ebay at the moment. These could be run from your exisitng demux. There are new dimmers that offer4/5A protection (eg Anytronic D1204) but you will need to create your own patch panel if you want to plug your exisitng 5A plugs into it. The extra channels will give you some redundancy in case of failure and with a suitable desk that has 24 physical faders then anyone could 'get some light on the stage'. Choose a 24/48 desk that has patchable DMX and the option of some simple control over LEDs becomes possible.

[paulears]

Dimmers are not expensive, if/when you need them based on their old prices - a 6 way pack now is a tiny proportion of the cost when yours were new!

 

5A, as said is liable with. It just means you can't use some pieces of kit, which isn't really a problem I guess.

 

I rather like the idea of the simple 6 way control for everyday users that can be simply swapped to become part of a multichannel system.

 

One thing many people hate about LEDs is the noise. One comedian this week walked onto the stage and said you can turn that lot off for a start, listen? If it's a music event, it's fine, but for one person talking, at gentle levels, the noise is annoying!

 

Quiet LED now seems the quest rather than bright LED.

[Advisionmatt]

Many thanks for the replies so far. For your information, the dimmers in question are Strand Tempus - 2 5A sockets per channel.

http://www.theatrecrafts.com/archive/documents/tempuspackagedlightingcontrol.pdf

I like the idea of keeping 5A for the dimmers as it means there is less patching. I'm assuming any electrician could tell me if the cable is up to more current if I wanted to replace some of the sockets to allow for direct plugging of modern lights. (Even though the load will be probably far less than an amp for an led, I'm guessing there is something somewhere saying if it's got a 13A socket on then the cable has to be up to it!)

[Peter18]

Many thanks for the replies so far. For your information, the dimmers in question are Strand Tempus - 2 5A sockets per channel.

http://www.theatrecr...tingcontrol.pdf

I like the idea of keeping 5A for the dimmers as it means there is less patching. I'm assuming any electrician could tell me if the cable is up to more current if I wanted to replace some of the sockets to allow for direct plugging of modern lights. (Even though the load will be probably far less than an amp for an led, I'm guessing there is something somewhere saying if it's got a 13A socket on then the cable has to be up to it!)

 

As you are probably aware the analogue control signal for the Tempus racks will be negative 10V. Your demux will not be able to send both positve and negative control voltages at the same time so this may limit your choice of dimmers. Tempus dimmers were built to last forever but spares may be a problem. However dimmers similar to your to come up on Ebay and fetch very little money. (I know of one school with three of them sitting in a cupboard doing nothing - unfortunately that school is in Cumbria and the courier costs would be more than they are worth!)

[adamharman]

control signal for the Tempus racks will be negative 10V. Your demux will not be able to send both positve and negative control voltages at the same time so this may limit your choice of dimmers.

 

There's plenty of used dimmers around that take DMX, and all new ones do, so additional dimmers wouldn't need to be connected to the demux anyway.

[Junior8]

I just found the pair of Pulsars Peter mentioned. Worth a bid at 20 quid!

[Peter18]

I just found the pair of Pulsars Peter mentioned. Worth a bid at 20 quid!

 

Unfortunately I believe they only take a 0 to +10V control voltage - hence my comment above about restrictions in your choice.

Undoubtedly the bargains in dimmers will be from the non DMX ones (usually less than £10 a channel) In contrast DMX ones will be two or three times that.

Bearing in mind the negative control voltage limitation for the analogue dimmers, look out for 5A Tempus racks and early Strand Act 6 with 5A outlets.

If you are prepared to make your own set of 5A outlets for a patch panel, the DMX equipped Pulsar Datapaks give you lots of channels for your money. After that the price tends to jump up a lot!

[Junior8]

I just found the pair of Pulsars Peter mentioned. Worth a bid at 20 quid!

 

Unfortunately I believe they only take a 0 to +10V control voltage - hence my comment above about restrictions in your choice.

 

 

 

You're right of course - It's along time ago.....