Electric Converter - Will this work?

[krhodus]

I am in depirate need of a Edison to Stage-Pin electric converter and don't have the time to order one for our upcomming show. So I decided to take a stab at making one. I had a power cord from an old power strip that I wasn't using. I crimped eye-holes on the ends of each wire. I then took an old Stage Pin connector and connected the eye holes to it in the corresponding points. Our theater director wasn't sure if it would work or not. I plugged the cord (with no light plugged in the end) into an outlet and it didn't blow up. Will this provide enough power to power a light? This is just going to be used to see if the light works, so the light will be running a maximum of a few minutes.

Should I expect sucess or fire?

Thanks,
Kevin

[JP12687]

Its a hot-patch.

I make things similar to this all the time. As long as all your wires match up, and the gague wire your using will support the load then you should be good.

[techieman33]

What size of cable, that would be your only problem as long as it's wired correctly. And just to let you know, that plugging in a light like that is hard on the lamp, and will reduce it's life. And actually it would be called a jumper.

[Mayhem]

Aside from the cable gauge that you are using, which is important and has been mentioned above, I would ensure that your crimping is of a good quality. Should one or more of the wires pull free, you will have a serious risk.

I assume from your description, that the stage pin connector is male and therefore plugged into a receptacle. If so, you may think that if a wire pulls free from the power source, it is no big deal, as you will break the circuit and no power will flow.

Whilst this will happen, the wire that has pulled free could be come in contact with another terminal, causing arcing inside the plug, presenting a serious risk.

Now I will be the first to admit that we don’t use stage pin connectors in Australia and that I have only ever seen one in pictures, so I cannot really comment on whether or not crimp connectors are the correct way to wire up such a plug. What I do know however, is that there isn’t a lot of room in these plugs for error.

Be very careful and I would get it checked out by someone with more experience in this area. Also, if you do burn down the theatre with this, you will be held liable.

[bdesmond]

This isn't kosher if I'm following your description right. There have been at least a few discussions of how to go about wiring a stage pin here before.

Thee long and the short of it goes like this: you strip a certain number of mm of insulation off the ends of each conductor (read the directions that come with the connector, they usually spel this out), put the ferrule on, crimp teh ferrule, slide the ferrule covered conductor into the pin and finally crank down the set screw so its nice and snug.

My interpetation of your description is that you took three crimp on eyelet connectors (like this, right - ?) and then proceeded to anchor them to the top of the pins with the set screws.

This is definetely not he intended mode of wiring, and I'm surprised the plug closed gracefully - closing it should require no extra force. What happens if these eyelet connector screws loosen a bit via vibration or the temperature of the metal and now you've got two of these eyelets spinning around and they short out?

The cable you use and the preexisting edison style connector need to be rated for the load they'll be carrying for this to even be legal as far as the cabling goes. You may only be planning to use this thing for ten seconds to make sure the lamp works, but some other guy might come along and hook something up with this cord you have and end up having a small fire because he's running a large load on a cord and plug rated for a fraction of it.

The actual task of installing the connector is trivial once taught to do it properly. In your situation, I'd be more inclined to tell you to get a stage pin extension you already have and fit it with the appropriate edison connector you pick up at the local hardware store.

Hopefully Mr. Ship will be along with a more colorful explanation of this. He does this for a living and explains it well.

[krhodus]

I know for a fact that this will NOT be a perminant cord because when it is not being used for testing, it will be locked away in a place where only the PAC manager and I will have keys to. Yes the eye hole picture is correct. The crimping is pretty strong, I tested it by yanking on it and seeing if it would come off and it didn't. The only think I am worried about is the guage of the wire since I don't know what it is.

We are planning on using this to inventory what is working and what isn't and hopefully we need to use it once or maybe twice on a light. How can I make it better for the light than just plugging it in and then unplugging it? The only other solution we have which is possible but requires alot of work is to get out around 100ft of stagepin extension cable and plug it in up on the catwalk and drape it down to the ground and then run it to the lighting shop. This is not only dangerous but we are still plugging the light in and out and being rough on the light.

Thanks,
Kevin

[propmonkey]

im glade all our intsruments and circiuts still are edison plugs.

[Radman]

Personally the only thing wrong I find with this is that the wire being from a power strip that probably handles 4.5 amps or so, might not handle some of the higher wattage lamps. Assuming the crimps are hi-temp, they should work fine. Some of the plugs we used before we upgraded to the bates recommended in the instructions to use crimps, if I remember correctly.

[krhodus]

Does anyone know how easy it would be to install a wall outlet that is stage pin and then have a normal light switch dimmer that would allow us to dim up the light and then dim it down, therefore being a little more gentile on the light?

Can a theater light even run off of a regular outlet or would we have to have special wiring for it.

AH THE PAINS OF STAGE-PIN.

Kevin

[krhodus]

Here is the site I used to find the wiring of the stage pin. There they reccomend using wire eyes on the pins. What is the difference between wire eyes and eye-holes I am using if any?

I am pretty sure the crimps are high tempature, the kit said for electrical use. And I crimped it multiple times to make sure it wouldn't move anywhere.

http://www.thestagecrew.com/Pages/Ch.../Pig-tail.html

Kevin