Hi, I am working on a
ETC lighting
system and want to know the best way to use the Smartpack
dimmer system with gear. We would be adding it to a newer building with no gear yet. We want to be able to have a 48channel
dimmer system for conventionals at 110v and also a way to get
power for moving lights at 208v. We need to be able to get to the moving light
power section to turn of the
power when the event is done. We also need to
plug/hardwire 15 channels of
house lights into the
dimmer and then use wall controls for the
house lights. The whole thing will
plug into our lighting
console.
Whats the best way to do this?
ALL KINDS of questions:
- Is this a theater ?, church ?, warehouse ?, nightclub ?,
etc... All kinds of local codes come into
play concerning performance spaces, electrical requirements,
house lighting,
emergency lighting,
etc... that need to be dealt with and considered.
- Is it to be a permanent
system ?,
portable that gets taken down and stored ?.
- Gear Budget - but that's actually not too important yet, as meeting code and getting the project installed to code, may drive the budget.
In general, you probably want to contact a local dealer of
ETC equipment that might have someone on staff to help you along with some equipment choices. That's a starting
point, as they will hopefully have someone on staff that handles projects and can steer you in the right direction. Or find a dealer that can do this - Barbizon comes to mind. You probably also need a licensed electrician that - again hopefully, knows a
bit about applicable local codes pertaining to performance spaces (Nat'l Electrical Code section 520 as example).
That said, since you're talking 208v for movers, I assume 1200/1500
watt fixtures (just how big is this space and do you need this size
fixture ?) and you need to calculate loading of such fixtures on
DMX controlled circuits. As example, the
Martin MAC 2000 needs at least 15 amps per
leg @ 208v, so the
ETC SmartSwitch would work with 20amp 2 pole breakers asa
fixture per
switch. There are other solutions as well, such as powered
circuit breakers as manufactured by some of the major manufacturers of
breaker panels and that give you some flexibility in
breaker size and 2 or 3 pole. These units can be configured to listen to
DMX via
protocol converters and may be cost effective.
Then there's some math and calculating to be done by the
system designer as whether it's cheaper to do distributed SmartBar type dimming, or rack
dimmer, such as Sensor.
Not many of these questions can be answered in this forum, but keep asking as lot's of folks here have systems as described and can answer with their experiences.
