Question, at what level do you check your lights?

I have always checked mine at 80%, but my Lighting Designer says she always checks at 100%. I think it blows bulbs that way but am willing to be convinced otherwise. Thanks in advance.

Your Lighting Designer may be of the same mind as me: "If it's going to go, better during precheck than during the show."

For many more thoughts than you ever wanted, see the threads

I do a full warm up sequence. 0-100% over 1 minute. Hold 2 minutes. 100-0% over one minute. Then I set them at 20% for the actual check. No reason to go blind when you are starting at them.

I totally <3 Gafftaper's answer! Why run them at full if all you are checking is that they work?

Like many things it depends.

First time firing up the rig, 100 percent
Generator, 100 percent
Daily checks, just enough of a glow 20-40 percent depending ambient light levels.
Fixtures with important tight focuses/shutter cuts, or that due to hanging position vibration may drift are done one at a time at full.

Chan 1 thru 200 full full. just to sort out the week form the strong. Nah not really from a cold start I will bring them up to full over 2 min or so for conventional and over 1min for LED. then reduce to a level you can look at without going blind to see if they are working. Be gentle on them and they will last longer. I never run them over 80% in a show unless I do.

Regards

Geoff

When I was MEing a lot, I would record a macro which preheated the lamps for a few seconds, and then let me step through them one by one at full (Always Macro 999, in my theatres), and would use a remote to check from the deck.
On the Expression line, you have to trick it by recording it live, and then going back into the Macro Editor to add the Waits and remove the "FlashOFF" command that happens when you release the button. It's Been a long, long time since i wrote this macro, but it went something like CH 1-500@15%, Wait5, @05%, Wait3, CH 1, [SOFTKEY FOR FLASH] . Then go into the Macro Editor and edit out the "Flash OFF" and Add the Wait times to the Macro. That way the first fixture pops on to full, and then you can just use the "+" button to move through the Channels at full. That was an easy way to preheat the rig, and also check every channel individually. If I was in a theatre that didn't have a RFU, I'd take the time to program a Wait to the front of the macro to give me time to get to the stage, and then add the "+" with a wait of 3, or 4 seconds (or however long it takes you to take the note) between "+"s all the way through the full channel count.
This basically takes just a little longer than running the Dimmer Check one time, and then sets it up to be run easily every night.
It further has the benefit of glowing the lamps, so that if one didn't come up, it was easy to look up it's nose to confirm that the lamp was out.
If someone is familiar with the rig (or even just holding the Magic Sheet), then they won't lose track of the Channel numbers.

HTH,
-Ford

It's worth noting here, I think, that the Ion has a filament check sequence built in, and I think you can even pick a level, I just always have to look up how you start it.

The nice thing, of course, about doing it in sequence, is that in a dark room, you can do it solo from the booth.

running your entire rig up to full or 80% or whatever is seriously testing your power, particularly your neutral, a slow chase is much kinder to your wiring.

David Ashton said:

running your entire rig up to full or 80% or whatever is seriously testing your power, particularly your neutral, a slow chase is much kinder to your wiring.

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And also, on this side of the pond, raises your meter's peak demand costs for an entire month (Ouch!).
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Running your whole rig up to 33% can seriously test your neutral, too. At about that level with typical triac dimmers, the triplen currents in the neutral can really add up.

almorton said:

Running your whole rig up to 33% can seriously test your neutral, too. At about that level with typical TRIAC dimmers, the triplen currents in the neutral can really add up.

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I could reliably trip a 2,000 Amp three pole breaker by running all 384 dimmers up to 20 or 25%.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

A slow fade of our whole rig up to full gets the incomer humming, at its loudest around 25-35% then it drops off again, and is nowhere near as humming at full as at the lower level.

David Ashton said:

running your entire rig up to full or 80% or whatever is seriously testing your power, particularly your neutral, a slow chase is much kinder to your wiring.

Click to expand...

I guess it depends on how big you rig is. The one I use most often is 20 dimmers with 500W on them and a handfull of led and movers. Small rig.

Needn't take much. My rig at the moment is just shy of 48kW across three 240V phases, and that's enough to get the triplen currents buzzing.

Crisp image said:

I guess it depends on how big your rig is. The one I use most often is 20 dimmers with 500W on them and a handful of led and movers. Small rig.

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Are you in a 120 or 240 volt world, single phase or three??
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

RonHebbard said:

Are you in a 120 or 240 volt world, single phase or three??
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Click to expand...

240V and the dimmers are in 2 banks of 12 on 3 phase with each dimmer able to cope with 2400w I think.