Cloud concert shell upgrade

Good Idea or Bad idea


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Matt W

New Member
I have 3 floating concert shell clouds in my space. the Major issue is that who ever designed the building thought it was a great Idea to position the cloud so that it covers my electrics. right now the only option I have for top light is to run lights to a open line. this comes with the problem that I then have to run 2 lines at the same time. I have started talking with a manufacturer about getting a new set that has the lights already installed. This would be a huge improvement over what we have now and would require the lest amount of work on my part but would come with a giant price tag.

my question to you all is: Have you ever installed your own lights in an existing sound cloud? I had a bit of an a-ha moment where i thought about buying my own S4 pars to install in my existing shell. this would mean that i would have to cut a hole in the shell, run the cable and find a way to mount the lights. when it comes to storing the lights in the cloud it looks like we have the room for them but I would proly just pull the lights when not in use just in case someone managed to snag a curtain with one.

The shell appears to be 3/4" ply with some veneer on top.

what do you all think? would the wise move be to just have the new shell made or should I press my luck and install my own.
 

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I have 3 floating concert shell clouds in my space. the Major issue is that who ever designed the building thought it was a great Idea to position the cloud so that it covers my electrics. right now the only option I have for top light is to run lights to a open line. this comes with the problem that I then have to run 2 lines at the same time. I have started talking with a manufacturer about getting a new set that has the lights already installed. This would be a huge improvement over what we have now and would require the lest amount of work on my part but would come with a giant price tag.

my question to you all is: Have you ever installed your own lights in an existing sound cloud? I had a bit of an a-ha moment where i thought about buying my own S4 pars to install in my existing shell. this would mean that i would have to cut a hole in the shell, run the cable and find a way to mount the lights. when it comes to storing the lights in the cloud it looks like we have the room for them but I would proly just pull the lights when not in use just in case someone managed to snag a curtain with one.

The shell appears to be 3/4" ply with some veneer on top.

what do you all think? would the wise move be to just have the new shell made or should I press my luck and install my own.
Assuming your clouds are counter-weighted, do you have the arbor capacity to counterbalance the additional weight of your proposed lighting and cabling?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
I have about 3' of space left on the arbor with plenty of pigs hanging around.
Then I think I'd vote for adding your own lights when convenient to your schedules so long as you've the skills and tooling to make a legal, code compliant, workmanlike job of it. I've always found it easier to control the spread of mess when creating it than to have to clean it off of velour after the fact. Few outside contractors will worry about how clean they leave your space after they're gone and paid.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
I'm not crazy about the idea of installing lights permanently in this shells (if that is what you mean). There will be balance problems - tilting for storage. That style of shell was not designed for lights installed. The clamps, hangers, pivots, and framing all have to be checked to be sure they are strong enough.

It would be better if the the rigging was adjusted to center shells between electrics, basically redesign the layout, minimizing actual moves of a set.

One other option - come up a way to easily mount LEDs on pipes already between shells and just portable cable for one circuit. The ColorSource PAR might be a good choice. Budget minded might be the Kreios FLX - no dimming but great color and light.
 
I probably wouldn't do it due to weight issues as Bill said. That style of shell is rather temporary. If you had a larger shell that was purpose built this wouldn't be an issue.

Side note... please tell me by running "two lines at the same time" you don't mean you hang lights on one pipe while plugging them into a raceway on another pipe. If you are doing that now and its the only solution you can think of this needs to now be put at priority one to be fixed.

Easy option would be 10 or so chroma Q Force D 72's. Would do what you need and won't eat up flyspace. Either that or you need to get more dimmers or a craptop of soca to export/import all those circuits safely. Either that or just stop using the shell until this gets fixed. Its not going to be a cheap fix. You need at least 30k to fix this.
 
Side note... please tell me by running "two lines at the same time" you don't mean you hang lights on one pipe while plugging them into a raceway on another pipe. If you are doing that now and its the only solution you can think of this needs to now be put at priority one to be fixed.

Why is that a major problem?
 
This is fundamentally going to be a budget issue. I guess if you can get a whole new shell ceiling - 3 clouds with lights and the electrical work to connect them and do the control and cable management, why not. I do wonder if that amount if money might not be better spent solving what I suspect are other shortcomings in the design, but can't tell from this distance. I'd guess the replacement project is in the $50,000-75,000 range, if there are no hitches.
 
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Why is that a major problem?

Really?

You should never have two pipes physically connected together in any way unless you have both the pipes and arbors properly married. The system has to run as one otherwise you run the risk of very bad things happening if something does not get moved right. Cable pulls out... electrical connections open up... things short... fire happens.

The only real way to do this is to grab the circuits you need, run them off the end of the pipe, drop them to the deck or mid-rail, then drop the cable to the other pipe.... leaving proper swags of course.
 
Really?

You should never have two pipes physically connected together in any way unless you have both the pipes and arbors properly married. The system has to run as one otherwise you run the risk of very bad things happening if something does not get moved right. Cable pulls out... electrical connections open up... things short... fire happens.

The only real way to do this is to grab the circuits you need, run them off the end of the pipe, drop them to the deck or mid-rail, then drop the cable to the other pipe.... leaving proper swags of course.
As long as the linesets are properly locked out/tagged out, I see no issue with soft-marrying them in most cases, as long as the venue has a culture of safety wherein someone ignoring the DNO isn't a reasonable worry.
 
As long as the linesets are properly locked out/tagged out, I see no issue with soft-marrying them in most cases, as long as the venue has a culture of safety wherein someone ignoring the DNO isn't a reasonable worry.
Really?

You should never have two pipes physically connected together in any way unless you have both the pipes and arbors properly married. The system has to run as one otherwise you run the risk of very bad things happening if something does not get moved right. Cable pulls out... electrical connections open up... things short... fire happens.

The only real way to do this is to grab the circuits you need, run them off the end of the pipe, drop them to the deck or mid-rail, then drop the cable to the other pipe.... leaving proper swags of course.
And invert the swags with spot lines if necessary to keep the wings clear for taller items.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
As long as the linesets are properly locked out/tagged out, I see no issue with soft-marrying them in most cases, as long as the venue has a culture of safety wherein someone ignoring the DNO isn't a reasonable worry.

Any venue that would do this doesn't have a culture of safety.
 
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One thing to consider if going the retrofit route- our shells have four PAR64's in each unit and have built-in tilt switches that disconnect power to the lamps when it rotates up. This prevents them from being powered on accidentally when in the store position.
 
One thing to consider if going the retrofit route- our shells have four PAR64's in each unit and have built-in tilt switches that disconnect power to the lamps when it rotates up. This prevents them from being powered on accidentally when in the store position.

Something like this: http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/2003896.pdf?_ga=1.28316731.605242824.1475279856

Look for a model more closely tied to your needed load... or find someone getting rid of footlights.
 
I haven't taken ours apart, but I suspect that's very similar to what's in there. It looks like we've got one per circuit (aka per 2 PARs). They look a lot cheaper than the building burning down in any event.
I have about 60 of them that we ripped of our footlights when we removed them. No idea why I kept them... but I wanted to keep them.
 
I don't think any manufacturer puts mercury switches in shells any more. The Wenger switch is clever. It's a decora style paddle switch in a box with a steel roller - like 2" diameter cylinder 2" long - tools to off or on end as shell tilts.

I believe the primary concern is fire, which is greatly alleviated by using LED lights, which also simplifies cable management.
 
I would explore options for moving them to other line sets. You would want to get with an experienced rigging company for an inspection and to come up with a workable plan. I have a similar ceiling but it was well placed to allow the electrics to still provide light. If need be i can fly the E's in to change a lamp with out too much fuss. from the look of it you may end up with just two or instead of 6' tall remove the lower panel and have just a 4' tall cloud unit. since you are are already in touch with the manufacturer ask them what is the best way to modify what you have so your electrics and shell can both work together. No doubt they will try to sell you a brand new ceiling with fixtures installed but you just need a workable solution.
 

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