The other day, I was helping my lighting director fix some S4 PAR's that were not working on the clouds we have. However, as we searched for the cloud lights on our board, we discovered that none of them would turn on... We did a full channel and dimmer check. went through our saved shows, and nothing brought up the clouds. So LD went up to our dimmer room and checked breakers. none of them were blown. He then pressed the Hot buttons to manually turn them on, and again nothing. we eventually traced back the dimmers on the gallerys and brought them up on the board so we could test with a volt-o-meter whether there was even power coming through or not. turns out we were getting 120v out the dimmers, (with the fixture disconnected). We took out the lamp, plugged in the fixture, and tested the lamp socket and got nothing. We can't understand why ALL 19 of the fixtures are doing this. The only thing we can think of is that there is (for some ungodly reason) a second fuse in this little metal box the fixture's tail goes through before being circuited. We dd not have time to open the box... The other possibility is that they might not come on when the clouds aren't tripped? But I remember seeing some on when they were stored in the fly space... Last time they were working correctly that I know of was Nov 19th. They haven't been used since.

We have an orchestra festival coming up on the 11th and we need to get this fixed asap, any suggestions?
 
Is this a shell - clouds tilt? Was it level? They almost always have a tip switch so lights are disconnected when vertical. Don't want quartz light blasting curtain close by - sure to ignite.

If newer Wenger, look in that box. Very clever - steel roller on a Decora style switch.
 
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PS: I think SECOA and Stageright still use mercury switches, and not sure what staging concepts uses in their new shell. And mercury in older Wenger shells. I think they switched (pun there - switched switches?) 2 to 3 years ago.
 
PS: I think SECOA and Stageright still use mercury switches, and not sure what staging concepts uses in their new shell. And mercury in older Wenger shells. I think they switched (pun there - switched switches?) 2 to 3 years ago.

Yes, after a bit if investigating there are indeed mercury switches involved, glad it was something simple! Thanks!
 

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