Vintage Lighting A Bit of History.

Eboy87

Well-Known Member
Took these today at a local high school's gymnatorium. We're getting ready for a run of Alter Boyz, and this is what I find on stage as I'm setting up lighting booms. The first is of the old light board for the stage. As a warning, the pics are large.

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The second is of half the old PA system.

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The PA apparently still works, though they don't use it. No one knows about the old dimmers. More can come this weekend.
 
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Ha, I came across one of those AD systems in a school a while ago, was afraid to even touch the thing, it was in much worse condition (and with way too many cryptic "NOT THIS ONE!!!" masking tape labels) than the one you pictured. Definitely an icon of a bygone era in schools and small auditoriums.
 
Ian,

I used to install and repair both the dimmers and the slider patch unit in the early 60's. These old war horses are still in use in many places around the world, as mechanically, they are granite, last forever, very little that can fail or go wrong. Rugged as can be, drop off the back of a semi, bounce a couple of times and still work.

Hard to tell from the picture but the patch seems to be for more dimmers than shown. Are there more dimmers that are just out of the picture? Next to impossible to get parts now, but they are so simple, they can be made from scratch in most machine shops. The most common failures are contact failures in both the dimmers and the patch, the slider brush (or wiper contact, call it what you want) wears through or the connection between the slider handle on the outside and the wiper on the inside fails. Both can be fixed. I would offer to fix them, if they need it, but to be honest, even though Des Moines is only a few hours away, it would probably cost more in my travel and labor than the cost of some new dimmers, and unlike today's products, you can't simply pop them into a box and mail them out.
 
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