Control/Dimming - Identifying our lighting controls: Century CCR dimmers

[scotty269]

So, my school was built circa 1940 and has had the auditorium upgraded at lease once to my knowledge. I'm trying to do some research on our lighting system and would appreciate any help!

[icewolf08]

So, what do you want to know? It is a Century Lighting dimming system, and I wouldn't suggest poking around inside it unless you know what you are doing. There is a lot of power coming in there, and a lot of exposed bussing. I would even go so far as to say that you shouldn't poke around in there unless you are or are supervised by a qualified electrician.

[avkid]

How much of it is working?

[SteveB]

Upgraded once and ONLY once, from the look of things.

24 dimmers, Century CCR - so mid 60's SCR technology. At least one big green honker ASCO relay doing something. Lots of house light and constant power circuit breakers. Maybe 80 stage circuits ?. No patch panel ?. Control console is ?.

So what do you want to know, other then it all needs to be junked ?.

Steve B.

[scotty269]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

So, what do you want to know? It is a Century Lighting dimming system, and I wouldn't suggest poking around inside it unless you know what you are doing. There is a lot of power coming in there, and a lot of exposed bussing. I would even go so far as to say that you shouldn't poke around in there unless you are or are supervised by a qualified electrician.

Thanks for the helpful response buddy. I didn't even realize it was a Century system.

Originally Posted by avkid

How much of it is working?

The 2nd picture is for the stage lights - maybe 2/5th of the switches actually control lights. The others are dead/not connected.

3rd picture is house lights and power switches. They all work. Okay, all except for the top right row, but we're getting those lights looked at next week.

Originally Posted by SteveB

Upgraded once and ONLY once, from the look of things.

24 dimmers, Century CCR - so mid 60's SCR technology. At least one big green honker ASCO relay doing something. Lots of house light and constant power circuit breakers. Maybe 80 stage circuits ?. No patch panel ?. Control console is ?.

So what do you want to know, other then it all needs to be junked ?.

Steve B.

I was hoping for the official product name for the system for some further research on these. Was this a common product back in the 60's? Or was it a fairly limited production line? Are there any service companies today that would even dare try to repair this? This thing is in fairly good condition, and unless it catches on fire tomorrow there is no hope in getting anything to replace this. Because of that, anything that can be done to keep the unit in good working order is my top priority.

Also, in the second picture there are gray "boxes" with switches in them. Anybody willing to take a guess as to what they do? I've had no luck in figuring out what they are for.

[icewolf08]

Originally Posted by scotty269

Thanks for the helpful response buddy. I didn't even realize it was a Century system.

You have to pardon my cynicism, we are just getting to the end of a really long tech week. However, the big "Century Lighting" placard was a big clue. The main point of my post is that we can be of more help if you provide as many details as you can and ask more pointed questions.

Originally Posted by scotty269

Also, in the second picture there are gray "boxes" with switches in them. Anybody willing to take a guess as to what they do? I've had no luck in figuring out what they are for.

Those would be the actual dimmer modules.

[gafftaper]

First of all put the cover's back on it and NEVER open it again without a certified electrian being present. There are so many ways to die back there it's really not funny. DO NOT be tempted to do any cleaning on your own back there.

Originally Posted by scotty269

I was hoping for the official product name for the system for some further research on these. Was this a common product back in the 60's? Or was it a fairly limited production line? Are there any service companies today that would even dare try to repair this?

I believe a "1960's Century CCR Dimmer rack" is all the detail you need to find out if someone can service it. Call your local theater dealer tell them what you have and ask if they can help you find someone to give it a cleaning (be prepared for them to laugh). Century was a major player back in the day (after a couple of corporate changes it's now Strand Lighting). So I'm sure there were quite a few of these around, however I doubt more than a handful are left in operation and people who know how to service them are becoming harder to find. If they can get parts is an entirely different question. These dimmers were overdue to be replaced 20 years ago.

Originally Posted by scotty269

This thing is in fairly good condition, and unless it catches on fire tomorrow there is no hope in getting anything to replace this.

In fairly good condition... for something that should have been thrown out 20 years ago, uhhh sure. The beauty is there's a pretty good chance that it WILL catch fire tomorrow.

[derekleffew]

Century Lighting Service, Inc.
18-02 River Road
Fair Lawn, NJ 07410-1201
(201) 791-7001 FAX (201) 791-3167
Contact: Sal Maratta & Joel Epstein
E-Mail: joel707227@aol.com
Specializing in old and obsolete dimming equipment to current equipment. Field service coverage of the Eastern United States.

Lite-Trol Service
Steve Short
1-800-LITE-TROL
Hicksville, NY
Lite-Trol Service

[TimMiller]

reminds me of an old century system that i ran into a few years back that spanned two floors and were installed in the 50-60's era. The building was getting bulldozed the week after i was out. It was time for them to finally die. In yoru rack, it appears that your dimmers are 6kw (can you tell me what the breaker size is on the ssr modules (the grey boxes with the switches on them) the grey boxes are actually what houses the ssrs (the components that do the actual dimming) From the looks of it and what i can read barely, it appears that they are once again 6kw, in which the breakers underneath break out the 6kw, into 2.4 or 1kw lines to be distributed wherever. The rack is totally hardpatched. Good luck on service, it has lived its life, and i am a believer of using old dimmers but there is a limit as to how old. There are a lot of non dim circuits where were fairly common to get paired up into dimmer world back in the day.

[SteveB]

Originally Posted by scotty269

Thanks for the helpful response buddy. I didn't even realize it was a Century system.

Can the sarcasm. Your question was vague and imprecise as to how much you already knew and what exactly you wanted to know.

Things that you added in a follow up which now allow us to provide more complete answers:

"I was hoping for the official product name for the system for some further research on these."

Gafftape answered it as did I, a Century CCR, mid 60's.

"Was this a common product back in the 60's? Or was it a fairly limited production line?"

Common as it was the only SCR that Century manufactured in those days, just prior to the series 300 and 600 dimmers, if memory serves. Not that common as pretty much every install was different and custom. Plus more then a few other companies doing the same thing - Major, Gallagher, Kliegl, among others, so lot's of one off systems. Your's is a bit different as it appears to not have a patch panel, which was common to get the output of a few dimmers to many branch receptacles.

"Are there any service companies today that would even dare try to repair this? "

Derek answered it and the very best person to fix these is Steve Short at Litetrol.

"This thing is in fairly good condition,"

Actually it's a mess visually, but still may function, but that's not something we can tell from the photo's and you didn't comment in the OP.

Still un-answered is what is the control system ?. That's important as it's often one of the first things to stop functioning and is also the easiest to replace and one of the most difficult to get the new interfaced with the old, which makes you want to replace the old stuff. Is there a picture of a control desk ?.

The brown box on the wall obviously operated contacts that turned stuff on as well as having 2 faders plus a master fader that have been removed. Hard to tell more as the image is blurry.

Remember that what you have here is seemingly a one-off install, custom for the theater. Other then assorted parts - dimmer, relays, buttons and faders being off the factory shelf, the arraignment and design was specific to your theater, thus it's difficult to tell you how it was supposed to operate.

Pretty much every company - Litetrol included, is going to recommend it all be removed and replaced.

P.S. I too am at the end of a long week, my 4th show since Sat, with 2 more days to go, which is pretty much how a lot of us function around here and accounts for some attitude.

Steve B.