GoboMan
Active Member
Hello, all!
So I was having a discussion with one of my stagehands the other night and I was wondering if you had any opinions/input.
At the venue where I work, we have a rig consisting of 12 moving lights, which is made up of VL2500s and Studio Spots. When I get to work every day, I power up the rig, do my channel check, and then test all of the movers to make sure the CMY wheels work, gobos, etc. Once my power up process is complete, I then power off all the lamps via the light board. The time between my power up process and the start of the show can be up to 3 hours, as we do the power up process early in case any repairs need to be done. I feel that rather than burn the lamps for three hours while the moving lights do nothing is a waste of energy, and I'd rather save hours on the lamps since they are expensive.
My stagehand feels that powering the lamps off and then back on before the show is more damaging to them. They attributed it to a computer, saying it takes more energy and loss of usable life to power it up rather than if you just kept it running all the time. If there was only a half hour between power up and start of show, I would agree, as the lamps wouldn't even be cool yet before turning them back on. But a period of three hours? I feel that as long as the fans in the movers are running and keeping the lamp cool, powering them back on 15 minutes before house open is not hurtful.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
So I was having a discussion with one of my stagehands the other night and I was wondering if you had any opinions/input.
At the venue where I work, we have a rig consisting of 12 moving lights, which is made up of VL2500s and Studio Spots. When I get to work every day, I power up the rig, do my channel check, and then test all of the movers to make sure the CMY wheels work, gobos, etc. Once my power up process is complete, I then power off all the lamps via the light board. The time between my power up process and the start of the show can be up to 3 hours, as we do the power up process early in case any repairs need to be done. I feel that rather than burn the lamps for three hours while the moving lights do nothing is a waste of energy, and I'd rather save hours on the lamps since they are expensive.
My stagehand feels that powering the lamps off and then back on before the show is more damaging to them. They attributed it to a computer, saying it takes more energy and loss of usable life to power it up rather than if you just kept it running all the time. If there was only a half hour between power up and start of show, I would agree, as the lamps wouldn't even be cool yet before turning them back on. But a period of three hours? I feel that as long as the fans in the movers are running and keeping the lamp cool, powering them back on 15 minutes before house open is not hurtful.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
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