Doug Lowthian
Active Member
Found backstage at my local community college.
Any idea, old timers, on this?
- Thread starterDoug Lowthian
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BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
My first job out of grad school had one that had been installed the year before. Im sure quite a few still in service.
I did a lot of shows in a theater with a Kliegl dimmer system with the telephone patch, I thought it was rather cool. The console was a two scene preset with a really great split crossfader. Interesting that the ETC Sensor Large touring racks also used a telephone patch. At the same university they were building a new PAC with theater and concert hall. The theater was all new and in the theater department wish list they wanted (memory fails me now ) a Strand or Century or Strand/Century or Century/Strand system. Due to budget cuts they got ElectroControls with a 5 scene desk. The dimmers were in the basement under the stage, the slide patch was up stage center, it blocked the crossover behind the cyc. They at least did better than the concert hall, it was the renovated auditorium and the old lighting had been removed and "saved" in a pasture. When the budget got cut they sent truck service out to the pasture to gather up all the old lights and returned them for reuse (weeds and all).
Rob
Well-Known Member
We had one of these (likely more than one) at CBC Toronto. We lit The National with it for many years (until about 1994).
@Doug Lowthian @Van @JohnD @Ric @Rob
There's an Electro Controls 48 dimmers in by 100 load circuits out still in service in an amateur space in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. In 1970, it was originally installed in a high school with 42 x 6 Kw dimmers plus 6 x 50 Amp mercury whetted non-dims. In the same era, a similar, much larger, Ariel Davis slide patch was installed in nearby Oakville, Ontario's Oakville Centre For The Arts. After some years, perhaps fifteen or twenty, a couple of trade / upgrades were negotiated with the Oakville Centre removing their Ariel Davis and going dimmer per circuit with all brand new Strand dimmers. Once this was completed, their Ariel Davis slide patch found a new home in Hamilton's Sir John A. McDonald high school and, as it offered far more than 100 load circuits, the high school's Electro Controls patch was removed and replaced by the Ariel Davis allowing loads originally installed as individual circuits but paired together on sliders in the original Electro Controls patch to be separated and become twice as many FOH circuits and nearly twice as many on stage. Now that the high school had their larger patch installed, their original Electro Controls patch became surplus and migrated to the Hamilton Players' Guild's rehearsal and performance space on Queen Street south in Hamilton, Ontario where it's still in regular service DSL currently distributing the outputs of 3 Strand CD80 12 x 2.4 Kw. packs (36 dimmers) located directly below it in a basement room for acoustic reasons and about four 15 or 20 Amp sources in the form of breakers in a nearby breaker panel providing non-remote controlled non-dim power. This has been working out very well for them for approximately 15 years. All of this was originally installed with their board outputting AMX-192 but they're now running their Strand LBX's DMX-512 output and using its soft patch to drive a variety of accessories such as Rosco I-Mirrors, various borrowed LED fixtures, primarily cyc' lighting when required, and one or two small four dimmer packs normally powering on-stage practical lamps and freeing up their 2.4 Kw dimmers for larger loads. Fixture-wise, they're still in the dark-age running a mixed bag of 500, 750 and 1 Kw incandescents. They've even still got one Altman IKL zoomable ellipsoidal still in service, but not often. (Talk about your inefficient boat anchors. No, let's not.)
Bottom Line: The Electro Controls slide patch is still there in its second home still giving solid, reliable, well cared for and maintained, service. Never mis-treat it by hot-patching under load with the power on and it'll reward you by rarely arcing if ever.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
carmellights
Member
that my friend is a slider patch panel. = it is a line level interconnect system ( think patch on your console, except for dimmers to circuits ) back then - and i hate to say i remember it clearly, you had larger , fewer higher capacity dimmers, which were hardwired to the controller - slider ( channel 1 ) was dimmer 1. there were more circuit outlets throughout the Theatre, and you interconnected individual circuit outlets to be controlled by dimmers ( until you reach the capacity of the dimmer. there was no soft patch, just hard patch.
turn off the dimmer breakers - pull out the slider and put it into the dimmer you want . dimmers run along one edge, circuits along the other.
be careful. these are notoriuos for arcing if you drag the slider along the contact busses. also it can be tricky to get the slider to snap firmly into the slot.
good luck.
Carmel
Around 1988, I had the "honor" of being the last ME of such a system. A Colortran Prestige 2000 controlling 40-ish Dilor or Decor ? dimmers and slider patch, I assume from Electro Controls. Funny story--midway though the run when I visited after the show the board op, said, "Oh by the way, this broke off, is it important?" and handed me one of the yellow slider handles. I hadn't noticed anything wrong with the show's lighting, so I said, "No, not important. Just try not to touch the patch panel."
I was also the first user of the replacement, 192 Colortran D192 dimmers and no cross-connect panel. With handheld remote. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
I was also the first user of the replacement, 192 Colortran D192 dimmers and no cross-connect panel. With handheld remote. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
I have a minor quibble with this statement. Yes, the slider patch was introduced after retractable cord, weighted pulley, but didn't replace exactly them. Slider patch never really caught on, partly because of the exclusive patent (Electro Controls and/or Rual Industries) but mostly because dimmer-per-circuit made both systems obsolete. It became less expensive to install more 20A dimmers and no patch panel, than patch panel with fewer higher amperage dimmers. That said, I'm sure one could find many "telephone switchboard style" panels installed after slider patch was available.
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
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