This may be for the punching bag

[midgetgreen11]

Today at my school the fire alarms went off, we had a mass evacuation, and firetrucks came from the opposite end of town, which is about 10-15 miles away. We stayed outside for about half an hour. Later did I find out that a dimmer in the rack had started smoking and had internally caught fire. Some blame it on the german class that was preparing for their play, and should not have been touching the dimmer rack.

On another note, our school department's technical equipment is monopolized by a company who "specializes" in theatre equipment [notice the quotes]. In fact we've had numerous problems with their terribly installed system. It was terribly wired, as we've had problems with the houselights kicking on and not turning off.

[mnfreelancer]

Monopolized as far as purchasing/service is concerned or is this company operating your equipment for you ?

Perhaps they're liable for the burned out dimmer?

[midgetgreen11]

they purchase and service our equipment. The reason they are is because one of the lighting head's children attends our school district. They're cheap and stingy, there's no way they're taking the blame. Even more cheap than them, is the school department.

We actually ended up paying $1300 to replace it.

[porkchop]

Originally Posted by midgetgreen11

Some blame it on the german class that was preparing for their play, and should not have been touching the dimmer rack.

Students have access to the dimmer rack? Bad idea, lots of threads on this. In HS I was THE lighting tech as in the one and only and I saw the dimmers once, never even got to set foot in the dimmer room. If there's easy access and students that aren't theater techs under a TD or LD's supervision that are messing with the rack, talk to risk management people at your school, this is a huge safety liability.

[midgetgreen11]

oh yes, someone broke the door off the rack, its right in the backstage area, the switches are out in the open.

[soundop]

hehe, i have a smart school, our dimmer racks are under the stage in our old scene shop, very few techs know where they are, acutully the other two who knew left, and i dont think any one else knows what a dimmer rack is. any way, even then there under lock and key, though you can go into a room and see them, they put chain link between them and the rest of the room, so you have to unlock a sepprate door, or cut the fence if your desprate to get to them

[Charc]

What town do you live in that your local FD is 10-15 minutes away?

Schools are usually, to the best of my understanding, automatic multi-alarm calls. This is part of the reason why having a false alarm at a school is no only so costly (fines) but dangerous. If four engines are responding to a report of a fire alarm at a school full of children, what happens to the little old woman 4 miles away?

[gafftaper]

Hey Midget what type of dimmers are these?

[derekleffew]

For the record, Electronics Diversified. However, in this thread, midgetgreen11 stated it was the installation, not the manufacturer, which caused issues. A bad installation will cause trouble for any manufacturer, which is why the better manufacturers insist on doing the commissioning of a system themselves.

[TimMiller]

at my old hs, our dimmers were sitting on stage right in the wing. Old colortran dimmers. I was doing a show at a highschool and they had a major theater rennovasion and the school electrican wired up the dimmers. Half way through one of their shows we had a small rack fire. Stupid electrician ran 14 awg wire to each plug and then hardwired "twofers" so the battons were wired with the outside two plugs as one dimmer then the next dimmer was the next inside two plugs and so forth. And I ignored all that crap and just plugged in a twofer into one outlet (a 20A circuit should be wired with at least 12awg wire no acceptions due to the wire should be rated for at least the max potential of the OCPD). Well second show into it lots of black smoke and sparks. Bye bye pretty new ETC sensor dimmer.