Pyrotech
Member
Hi everyone,
I did some searching in the Lighting section, but didn’t see anything on this issue.
I’m a volunteer with a small church/community theater group. I started out helping with special effects (since I have a pyrotechnician license) and general electrical (since I worked for the local power company). As other individuals have moved out of the area, I have inherited the position of technical director (with little background beyond having performed some grunt work on sound and lights for the previous technical director).
After our last production, the church removed the carpet in the Fellowship Hall (where the stage is located) and had the slab sanded to make a polished concrete surface, which generated a large amount of dust.
When our new director started a kids summer theater camp, I discovered an issue with one of the dimmer packs (out of four). It would bring up the lights as the fader was increased, but then stay at whatever the highest point was and not decrease when the fader was zeroed. Turning the breaker to the outlet off would kill the lights, but the next try would have the same issue. I tried all the recommendations I could find, including the stereotypical tech support “turn it off and back on”, zeroing out the channel, clearing the show and finally doing a full reset on the board.
Our lighting board is an ETC Express 48/96 and the lights are a mixture of incandescent and LED fixtures.
I bought two new dimmer packs (Leviton D4DMX-MD3) and replaced the malfunctioning one and another one that was working, but occasionally blinked the lights on its channels.
For a few weeks, both worked perfectly. At a rehearsal last week, one of the lights on the dimmer pack in the location that previously wouldn’t turn down was on when I entered the auditorium – while the channel fader and master slider were off – and nothing would turn the light off (or the others on that pack on), including all of the previously mentioned solutions again. Using the breaker in the electrical panel finally got the light off, but now nothing on that pack works at all.
Other lights plugged into that outlet still work.
Any ideas that don’t immediately involve accessing the dimmer pack itself? (see picture of ladder…at 65, I prefer to minimize the number of times I climb it, not to mention it takes three people to put it up).
PS, I took the cover off the old dimmer pack and found almost no dust inside despite the floor sanding and the fact that it had been in place for several years prior to the sanding. Or any parts that would seem to be bothered by dust.
Thanks.
Jay
I did some searching in the Lighting section, but didn’t see anything on this issue.
I’m a volunteer with a small church/community theater group. I started out helping with special effects (since I have a pyrotechnician license) and general electrical (since I worked for the local power company). As other individuals have moved out of the area, I have inherited the position of technical director (with little background beyond having performed some grunt work on sound and lights for the previous technical director).
After our last production, the church removed the carpet in the Fellowship Hall (where the stage is located) and had the slab sanded to make a polished concrete surface, which generated a large amount of dust.
When our new director started a kids summer theater camp, I discovered an issue with one of the dimmer packs (out of four). It would bring up the lights as the fader was increased, but then stay at whatever the highest point was and not decrease when the fader was zeroed. Turning the breaker to the outlet off would kill the lights, but the next try would have the same issue. I tried all the recommendations I could find, including the stereotypical tech support “turn it off and back on”, zeroing out the channel, clearing the show and finally doing a full reset on the board.
Our lighting board is an ETC Express 48/96 and the lights are a mixture of incandescent and LED fixtures.
I bought two new dimmer packs (Leviton D4DMX-MD3) and replaced the malfunctioning one and another one that was working, but occasionally blinked the lights on its channels.
For a few weeks, both worked perfectly. At a rehearsal last week, one of the lights on the dimmer pack in the location that previously wouldn’t turn down was on when I entered the auditorium – while the channel fader and master slider were off – and nothing would turn the light off (or the others on that pack on), including all of the previously mentioned solutions again. Using the breaker in the electrical panel finally got the light off, but now nothing on that pack works at all.
Other lights plugged into that outlet still work.
Any ideas that don’t immediately involve accessing the dimmer pack itself? (see picture of ladder…at 65, I prefer to minimize the number of times I climb it, not to mention it takes three people to put it up).
PS, I took the cover off the old dimmer pack and found almost no dust inside despite the floor sanding and the fact that it had been in place for several years prior to the sanding. Or any parts that would seem to be bothered by dust.
Thanks.