Conventional Fixtures Pan Bolt Discussion

[derekleffew]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

I love arguing with Derek.

I'm glad you enjoy it, but I derive virtually no pleasure in attempting to show you (or anyone else) the error of your ways. What's that saying, "...it frustrates you and annoys the pig?"

Yes you have to use the yoke bolt equivalent on a sliding Tee. BUT, you are using that product the way it was designed to be used. ...and I don't believe in rotating the sidearm I believe in rotating the entire vertical pipe.

Here's hoping you don't have more than one unit on a vertical boom.

...So am I right or wrong to consider safe C-clamp, yoke usage and safety cabling a fixture to be part of rigging? If I'm wrong why? Is it okay to use any product designed for overhead lifting in a way it was not designed to be used?

Many of my arena riggers, some of the best in the country, wouldn't know a G-clamp from a yolk. If hanging lights were rigging, it would cost twice as much and take three times as long. Somewhere on here we've discussed the difference between overhead lifting and overhead suspension.

...About $18 is the standard price for an ETC clamp online. Which is one of the higher priced C-clamps. ...

ETC part# 400CC. MSRP: $13.00. National online vendor sales prices: $10.50, 10.92, 11.00, 11.00, 11.14, 11.31, 12.95, 13.00, 13.00, 18.99, 19.76.

 

[Footer]

Don't care what it's called. Don't care how you do it. As long as it's safe, on time, on budget, and gets me home faster its the way it should be done. When you load in in the morning, do a run in the afternoon, and strike that night it does not matter how it was done. Grab the fixture. Point it. Lock it down. Next unit. Repeat.

...... Something involving tapatalk.......

 

[xander]

I'm not a particularly large fan of the term because it is used elsewhere to mean other things, but I have heard the sidearm T called a "knuckle" before.

 

[jglodeklights]

Gafftaper, the link to Philadelphia Theatrical Supply was in fact an ETC C-Clamp that they sell independent of anything else. I can vouch on the price and it being the ETC clamp because I make trips to their storefront quite often.

 

[SteveB]

I'm trying to find a way to morph this into "Where do you label your gel cuts" ?.

To each his own (method), but I never use the pan - "f _ _ k-me-nut" for the reasons Steve Terry stated, too much play on the shaft shifts (these things aren't exactly machined in some Swiss factory !)the unit out of focus when getting locked down. Aggravated by steel pan bolts on the typical Altman aluminum shafts that over time score the shaft and make the pan nut useless. The more modern clamps that come with ETC fixtures use steel shafts, but old habit and I lock down the pan nut and focus with the yoke bolt.

There !, my $.02

 

[Les]

I knew it was something about those pan bolts that got to me. It's the "wobbliness" that gets me too, and the fact that the fixture usually shifts once 'locked down'.

 

[STEVETERRY]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

Is this the same $1000 that you owe to either sblair, pathway, or some yet-to-be-identified un-indicted co-conspirator?

Sorry, you can only pull that scam once.

Yup , the same $1000. I don't see any takers yet.



ST

 

[techieman33]

they can wobble some when you tighten the clamp bolt too. I guess it's just one of the things I've gotten used to working with 20 year old fixtures most of the time, I just adjust for it automatically without even thinking about it anymore.

 

[Grog12]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

Yup , the same $1000. I don't see any takers yet.



ST

I'll pm you my address so you know where to send the cashiers check.

Read the thread closer

 

[Esoteric]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

Wow what a strange thread.

Esoteric you are a cool guy and I generally agree with you. But, I'm completely stunned by your post. I've never met anyone who says don't use the pan bolt. In fact my experience has been exactly the oposite. I've known T.D.'s who would yell for days if they caught someone twisting on the fixture using the yoke bolt, because it's not safe. A properly tightened yoke bolt should be cranked down so tight that you can't move the fixture. If it's loose enough to move it's loose enough to potentially fail and fall. The pan bolt was designed for a job, use it correctly and it does that job well. I've been 4 years now in a brand new theater with all new gear. I've probably had 50 students hanging lights in that time. Some were great, some were terrible, but all were been properly trained. I haven't had a single broken pan nut or grooved spud shaft in that time. If you carry your wrench on some sort of proper lanyard, you can't leave it far away and you won't drop it so there's no reason that using it will slow you down. If c-clamp is so old the pan nut doesn't hold, it's time to buy a new c-clamp. I think we can all afford a $18 C-clamp every 30 years or so.

I respect you buddy, but have to completely disagree with you on this one.

Man, I hate it when I get up on a ladder and someone has tightened the Yoke bold that bad. *lol* I do 1/4 turn past hand tight.

That is cool, there are many ways to Mecca as an old lighting professor of mine said.

 

[Esoteric]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

I'm just going to bring this up in Esoteric's defense in that the pan bolt could have been stressed before he got to it. I'd imagine that years and years of various overzealous techs wrenching on that bolt, said hardware gets stressed and eventually fails. I once had the head of one literally fall off just by touching it with my wrench. Come to think of it, that may have given me a bad stigma about the things.

To give my 2 cents regarding how tight a yoke bolt is when I'm hanging the lights-- I usually like them tight enough that the fixture won't move if bumped, but not so tight that it can't be 'slightly adjusted' is the fixture is barely off its mark. The only time I really wrench them down is if the fixture is in an area where it is easily accessible (such as on a balcony rail AND/OR if the fixture has a very specific mark and needs to stay put).

You know, that was another thought of mine. If you use the pan bolt, and you tighten it down, then you need to move the fixture 6" left how do you do that? By the time you loosen the pan bolt, move the unit, hold the unit in place (you don't want to spin it with the bolt even hand tight or you will eventually wear a groove in the stem) and tighten it down again, it seems there would be great odds that t would be out of focus again.

 

[Esoteric]

By the way, set screw is a Harvard/Yale term (found it on the Harvard tech page and several places on the Yale servers) and since the head of lighting department was a Yalie (studied under McCandless) no wonder he passed on the term to us.

 

[Grog12]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

You know, that was another thought of mine. If you use the pan bolt, and you tighten it down, then you need to move the fixture 6" left how do you do that? By the time you loosen the pan bolt, move the unit, hold the unit in place (you don't want to spin it with the bolt even hand tight or you will eventually wear a groove in the stem) and tighten it down again, it seems there would be great odds that t would be out of focus again.

It would be out of focus by moving it 6" to the left no matter if you focused it with the pan bolt or the yoke bolt.

 

[shiben]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

It would be out of focus by moving it 6" to the left no matter if you focused it with the pan bolt or the yoke bolt.

If its not cranked down, It would be less out of foucs using the yoke bolt. No change in the shaft location when you tighten it.

 

[Grog12]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

If its not cranked down, It would be less out of foucs using the yoke bolt. No change in the shaft location when you tighten it.

Here's where terminology messes us up. When I say a light is focused, I mean that its tightened down completely after having been aimed to where it belongs. If the light isn't tightened down it isn't focused.

No matter what if a light is focused and you move it 6"'s you will have to adjust its focus to compensate.

 

[Esoteric]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

It would be out of focus by moving it 6" to the left no matter if you focused it with the pan bolt or the yoke bolt.

Yup, but with the yoke bolt I just bump it to the left. With the set screw, I have to loosen it, move it, and then hope it doesn't move back when I tighten it again (a real possibility).

My original thought was you focus it, lock it down, then the designer looks at the whole wash and decides the focus point needs to move 6" to the left. Adjustments like that take longer and are much harder to do with the set screw.

 

[mstaylor]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

All I know is the focus procedure isn't that complicated. I have roughed in a light with the set screw, fine adjusted with the yoke bolt and then shuttered it. I have more problem with the side bolts for up and down not holding, but that's another discussion.

 

[Esoteric]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

If the lock dogs (the term I know for the focus locking knobs on the side of the unit) are loose on your instrument you really should replace them.

It is all about the time it takes to do things. One way or the other might take 3-5 seconds more, but over the course of 300-500 lighting units, that can add up.

 

[mstaylor]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

I understand and agree but I focus other peoples gear way more than mine. Also I'm usually in a truss, not in a theatre setting. I was simply saying the C clamp is not the part that is the problem, the lock dogs are. To be honest I don't know that I have ever known a name for the side focus handles.

 

[Grog12]

Re: New Lighting Blog Series: Types of Units

Yup, but with the yoke bolt I just bump it to the left. With the set screw, I have to loosen it, move it, and then hope it doesn't move back when I tighten it again (a real possibility).

If you worked for me I would be angry at you for not locking off an instrument. If you can move a light left or right with the yoke bolt it can be bumped out of focus by a set piece or someone walking on the cats and therefor isn't locked.