Conventional Fixtures Pan Bolt Discussion

I can move it without even really trying. Then again, if I tighten units to your specifications no one except a body builder (or my lead electrician) can loosen the bolt. Or so I have been told.

Amusing story, I worked for an ME that like you, wanted everything immoble. So I tightened down all his bolts. Well I went on tour the next week and when I saw him after the tour he said I owed him a beer because for his next show they had to strike the entire inventory and use the old screwdriver in a wrench tick (with the extra large C-Wrench) to get enough leverage to loosen the bolt. And apparently, a piece of scenery smashed into a PAR during the run and instead of the PAR giving way, the front end of the unit was caved in and the lamp exploded.

Funny, I agreed with you on 1/4-1/2 turn past finger so its both of our "specs".

I worked with an ME/designer like you that felt that felt it was ok to be able to move lights wiht out having to put a wrench to them. Every show he opened in the time I worked for him had lights out of focus two or three of which made it look like the actors had missed thier spike.


There's stories for and against both methods, and many roads to mecca.
 
Just to be perfectly clear, even if you rotate the unit without a wrench, if you move it enough to loosen it, then you need to put a wrench to it to tighten it up.

That is what I tell the people I train anyway.
 
Hijack: is there any standard for the thread on that yoke bolt?

I'm figuring out how to hang a PTZ camera from a grid, and I don't know what thread the clamp should be expected to have.

The camera should be either 1/4-20 or (hopefully) 5/8-18; any chance the yoke bolt is 5/8-18 too? :)
 
"Standard" yoke bolt is 1/2-13. Very, very rarely one will encounter a clamp with a 3/8-something.
 
"Standard" yoke bolt is 1/2-13. Very, very rarely one will encounter a clamp with a 3/8-something.
Every AKG mic I purchased in the 70's, 12 of them, shipped with 5/8" x 27 mounting clips AND reducers from 5/8" / 27 to 5/16" / 18 threads. I used the reducer adapters to fasten standard clips directly to sets, especially when the mounting clip included isolated / sprung suspension and also to fabricate a variety of home built fly-bars using lengths of 5/16" - 18 all thread rods and aluminum angles for near-spaced pair and ORTF stereo mounts.
These were ALL mic mounts NOT camera or projector mounts.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
 
"Standard" yoke bolt is 1/2-13. Very, very rarely one will encounter a clamp with a 3/8-something.

Mercifully most of the old Kleigl clamps are out of rotation. They just HAD to be different. I will say, however, that our electrics department has a small stock of the 1/4"-20 tapped version that are perfect for Birdies.

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Yeah; the camera only weighs 3 pounds; I'm just gonna take a MegaClamp and clamp it in the drill press, and drill out the yoke hole right up to the C-opening. Long bolt, couple washers, and Robert is my father's brother.
 
I might look at building some sort of mounting plate for the PTZ camera and attaching the clamp to that, not sure how big your PTZ yoke is, but it's possible you could damage the structural integrity of the yoke if you drill enough metal away.
 
The camera itself has no yoke -- well, not a mounting yoke; the camera head is on one around the other side.

The mounting point is simply a 1/4-20 tripod hole centered in the baseplate on the bottom.

I'm trying to avoid having to use a plate to couple one bolt to the other one, cause that will put the weight of the camera off center, and give me moment arm in the mounting. If I do that, I'll probably have to use a piece of box-channel.

What I meant was that I was going to remove the yoke bolt from the clamp and drill right up into the pipe-clamp area.
 

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