are there problems with bringing up every channel in a system at once?

[gafftapegreenia]

I've never heard it called a broadway check. I've always just been taught its a lamp check. Preshow always involves everything at 10% and checking for blown lamps.


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I've always known them as lamp check as well but I'm not surprised someone has a term for that specific action.

 

[SteveB]

So THATS what that method is called. I've always been a fan of that, and my stage managers have been as well.

Steve Litterest over on the Stagecraft Mailing List heard it as a "Yankee Check". Possibly this was in his day's at the Richmond Ballet and they thought of themselves as southerners doing it the "right way" (channel by channel) with them northerners doing it the lazy way, thus Yankee Check. Never heard it as a Broadway Check.

 

[church]

In my day job I'm a P.Eng (electrical) with a university background in power distribution and control systems. Does that make me 'pro' enough?

There is no way to determine where you live and what billing structure is in place for your facility, so maybe there is no problem in you doing what you do. If your lighting rig is small enough it may not matter anyway, even if your electricity supplier does have demand billing, or maybe it is large enough that you are into demand billing with the HVAC load alone.

If the show requires the entire rig at full then that's the cost of doing business. If there is no need for it, then why would you choose to incur the cost when it provides no benefit?

good to know there is another Ontario P.Eng. on the forum - I am in Cambridge.

Just to add a bit more to this our local utility also has demand billing. Not only do they monitor the peak demand they are also interested in the worst power factor associated with the peak demand the worse the pf the greater the billing rate. The pf is not normally an issue with tungsten lighting but motors, switch mode powers supplies etc. can be a different matter depending on how they are designed and how well your have corrected the pf.

A reason you get penalised for peak demand is that the power generation people put a lot of effort into planning how much capacity they require on a day and at various times of the day, this allows them to know how many power stations to have on line and how much power to purchase from other jurisdictions. Getting it wrong can be at best expensive and at worst result in having to dump load to protect the grid.

 

[TimMiller]

On outdoor shows the best way to fog the stage is bump the rig causing the genset to blow a bit of exhaust. Also works well for Mosquitos. It does not work in California due to their crazy laws and having diesel particulate filters on them.

 

[David Ashton]

There is a major reason not to run a full up to test your rig, especially on generators, that is that you will send heaps of harmonics down your neutral, stressing the generator/transformer with 130% of full load/phase current down your neutral. If your wiring is good you will be fine but it will certainly stress any weaknesses in the system. A kinder and cheaper way is to program a sequence into your board. Quite what rationale lies in the claim that bringing up all lights at once damages the filaments is beyond my understanding, as is the "preheating" myth, but whatever makes you happy is fine.