Help wiring

[Eti]

I was wondering if anyone knows of any theatre electricians/technicians in London who could help me get our zero 88 Betapack 3 wired and talking to our Jester lighting board/lights?

 

I've considered trying to do this myself as its a pretty basic set up, but to be honest electricity scares me and I'd much rather pay someone who knows what they're doing to do a proper job of it. But not sure where to find such a person.... Any ideas?

[timsabre]

Can you just clarify whether you're needing mains wiring into your betapack or just control signals from the Jester?

 

 

The control side is simple and we could talk you through it on here.

 

If you need mains wiring in and/or wiring out to the lights then you are correct to seek help.

[Eti]

Mains wiring.

 

Got a DMX cable to connect the jester to the dimmer pack (which hopefully will work), but the dimmer pack isn't wired at all.

I've also got a 16A plug and a length of 3 core flex but I'm weary of trying to put these together. Have wired standard 15A and 13A plugs before but this seems more complicated and I'm very new to it all.

 

I'm also not sure I understand how to know when you need 3 phase vs single phase power. I think single phase is sufficient for the lights we have at the moment (we only have Par 16s). But I'm worried we won't be able to use it with more powerful lights and we're hoping to invest in some fresnels in future.

Thanks!

[Robin D]

It might be helpful to know where in the 600+ sq miles that make up London you are. Or do you mean the single square mile of the City? There may be someone on the doorstep.

[adam2]

Fitting a 16 amp ceeform plug is not complex, but does really need advice/instruction from someone experienced to begin with.

[Stuart91]

I'm also not sure I understand how to know when you need 3 phase vs single phase power. I think single phase is sufficient for the lights we have at the moment (we only have Par 16s). But I'm worried we won't be able to use it with more powerful lights and we're hoping to invest in some fresnels in future.

 

The biggest deciding factor here is what you have available in your venue. You may only have a single phase supply, or there might be a three phase CeeForm sitting in the wings. If you're not sure yourself, then someone with a bit of experience would be able to sniff that out for you. It may be that you need to have a socket fitted, which is a job for an electrician, preferably one who understands theatres/performance spaces rather than a common-or-garden domest1c spark.

 

There are different sizes of plug available for both single and three phase, again it's a question of matching what you have available to plug into. I typically find Beta Packs with either 32amp or 63amp single phase plugs, or 32amp three phase plugs. Each of the six dimmer channels can draw a maximum of 10 amps, so a 63amp single phase supply will let you run at full capacity.

[andy_s]

It might be helpful to know where in the 600+ sq miles that make up London you are. Or do you mean the single square mile of the City? There may be someone on the doorstep.

 

erm - the 600 sq miles of "London" pinpoints location slightly better than the 4000+ sq miles of East Anglia.... :P and I guess the public transport system is somewhat more joined up ...

[Eti]

It might be helpful to know where in the 600+ sq miles that make up London you are. Or do you mean the single square mile of the City? There may be someone on the doorstep.

Yes good point! I'm in Hackney, E5.

 

 

The biggest deciding factor here is what you have available in your venue. You may only have a single phase supply, or there might be a three phase CeeForm sitting in the wings. If you're not sure yourself, then someone with a bit of experience would be able to sniff that out for you. It may be that you need to have a socket fitted, which is a job for an electrician, preferably one who understands theatres/performance spaces rather than a common-or-garden domest1c spark.

 

There are different sizes of plug available for both single and three phase, again it's a question of matching what you have available to plug into. I typically find Beta Packs with either 32amp or 63amp single phase plugs, or 32amp three phase plugs. Each of the six dimmer channels can draw a maximum of 10 amps, so a 63amp single phase supply will let you run at full capacity.

I'm part of a small puppetry company and we've got this kit for touring smaller venues like schools and town halls. Generally when we are in theatre venues we make use of their tech so won't be using this equipment then. So we need it as user friendly and flexible as possible. I assume most of these places will only have single phase.

 

Would a 32A or 63A single phase plug be preferable to the spare 16A I currently have? To keep our options open depending on the venue. Or as we'll in all likelihood be plugging in to 13A mains anyway, does it not matter?

[Robin D]

It might be helpful to know where in the 600+ sq miles that make up London you are. Or do you mean the single square mile of the City? There may be someone on the doorstep.

 

erm - the 600 sq miles of "London" pinpoints location slightly better than the 4000+ sq miles of East Anglia.... :P and I guess the public transport system is somewhat more joined up ...

Good point. <img src='https://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':** laughs out loud **:' /> But then again, I wasn't asking for assistance. ;) Used to live in and around the capital so know the time and difficulties of getting from say Hayes to Beckton, or Morden to Stanmore, with or without the use of public transport.

 

Simply trying to help the OP to get some local assistance. My apologies if anyone thinks that was inappropriate.

 

Edit to add: In my rather lengthy experience of touring schools and small venues, in Berkshire, West London and Suffolk, the chances of finding anything over a few 13A sockets is remote. I have 32A single phase on my packs, but the vast majority of occasions I'm bringing that down to 13A and limiting the total load on the packs to 3KW.

[sandall]

For this sort of touring the best solution is to connect the Betapack to a 32A ceeform plug, using say 2 metres of 6mm 3-core HO7 (rubber) cable, & a 32A to 13A adaptor cable, using 1.5mm or (better) 2.5mm rubber cable. That way, if the venue has a 32A (blue) socket you can draw the whole 32A but if not (which is much more likely) you can safely draw at least 13A (in practice rather more). I am not suggesting you attempt this yourself, but rather suggesting what cable your electrician should use (otherwise unless he is used to theatre work it's likely to be a bit of "twin & earth", 'cos that's what he has on the van (though if he installs expensive kitchens he might also have what you need). The racks are designed be run single-phase or 3-phase - for single-phase the 3 line terminals (L1, L2 & L3) are joined together (there may already be a piece of copper linking them).

[Stuart91]

Screwfix will even sell the 32amp plug and socket that Sandall refers to, although you may need to go to a more specialist electrical distributor for the flex.

 

The other option is to have a chat with a hire company near you, this would be a half hour job for someone competent and they may have offcuts of flex lying around that could be had for a very reasonable price.

[alistermorton]

Is this a betapack with 6 15A sockets on the front panel or is it an installation pack that needs to be hardwired to the load? I'm guessing the 15A variety.

[andy_s]

 

Simply trying to help the OP to get some local assistance. My apologies if anyone thinks that was inappropriate.

apologies - I didn't mean to imply it was inappropriate, I just thought it was funny.

 

in my early touring days, our 32A plug spent most of it's time in the spares box as we hard-wired the bare ends into the 32A cooker switches found in kitchens in town and village halls throughout the southwest region. we would run 24 ways of dimming and approx 26 - 30 units on this, but we calculated fairly carefully the load of our shows, and worked on the diversity principle that not all lights were on a the same time, and channels were rarely plotted at 100%. In well over a thousand performances, I can only remember one overloading issue...

 

this would not really be considered best practice now.

 

(e2a in the interests of transparency, I should say not all thousand performance would have been in village halls, quite a few would have been in proper theatres with lots of amps available, and sometimes more than one phase...)

[sandall]

From the lack of response can we assume you are now sorted?