Ariel Davis Lightboard

[gordonmcleod]

The canadian rep for Major in the 70's in Canada was a company called LiteCon which was run by two ex Strand employees
They packaged a small system for schools that was either 6 or 12 4K SHD magamp controlled SCR dimmers and slider patch in a rollaround blue and black metal cabinet that had amp mil spec connectors for the load connections via a snake
It was a cleaver design

 

[derekleffew]

From Concert Lighting, James L. Moody, Focal Press, 1989:

One such dimmer rack, shown in Figure 10-4 and built by Sundance, uses Skirpan 2kw and 6kw dimmer modules and a Rual slider patch system. ...

Was Rual a manufacturer of components or the entire assembly? Did Ariel Davis not have a patent on the slider patch system? ... See US Patent 4234767 - Circuit selector, (Application No. 05/939125 filed on 09/05/1978--rather late in the game, one would think!? ... Sept. 1971: 3603747) It appears Ariel Davis was closely aligned with Rual Industries. And I seem to recall Rual making audio equipment, particularly monitor and page systems?

 

[gordonmcleod]

I remember that we used to by our slider patchs from Rual industries rather than Ariel Davis

 

[pathway]

Yes, according to the information I dug out of our Dead Sea Scroll dept, the two switches are indeed for transferring dimmer control between the houselights and stage lights, and for feeding power directly to houselights in a panic scenario. The ID label on the left switch is still there but not the right one which would be the normal/panic switch.

From what I recall about Ariel Davis (who passed away just a few years ago in his 90's [Link to obituary]), he was in fact a victim of a hostile management takeover at a point where he owed the banks a lot of money. The new owners (3 Salt Lake City men, one of whom was A/D's sales manager) renamed it Electro Controls. As mentioned in a previous post, Ariel Davis not only lost his company but also the rights to all his patents.

Rual is in fact Rual Davis, Ariel's brother, and he introduced a new variant of the Quick-Connect slider patch in the 1980's but perhaps too little too late as dimmer-per-circuit had already become the state of the art, and load patching was rightfully consigned to stage lighting history.

EDIT by Mod.:
A different obituary of Ariel R. Davis lists three brothers, none named Rual. In fact, Rual is Ariel's middle name, as well as the name of his father Rual Dennis Davis.

And yes, I do have a lot of old A/D and E/C photos and product docs I retrieved when Strand took over E/C in 1986. Let me know what you'd like to see!

 

[derekleffew]

Can we begin with a new thread discussing the ever-exciting Plexus 1000 (we've already had the still-cool-today Premiere)?

 

[SteveB]

Can we begin with a new thread discussing the ever-exciting Plexus 1000 (we've already had the still-cool-today Premiere)?

No.

It sounds like a machine used in exercise. And as it's winter here in the northeast USA (That's a thing where the temperature goes WAY below 80f - for all you desert inhabitants) and you hibernate and avoid the health club/exercise machines religiously, we shall prohibit discussion of any devices that remind me that I'm getting fatter.

SB

 

[pathway]

Can we begin with a new thread discussing the ever-exciting Plexus 1000 (we've already had the still-cool-today Premiere)?

At least the Ariel Davis stuff brought back some pleasant memories. I've spent the past three decades trying to forget the Per-Plexus. Thanks a lot!

 

[MPowers]

Cool, I rebuilt one of these back in 1965. It wasn't new then. Davis was bought by Electro Controls in the late 60's, Electro Controls was bought by Century-Strand, whch became Strand which....... Anyway, it's old in fact as well as in design. These are pre solid state dimmers (some overlap at the end) multi scene preset boards. The technology is simple, each of the dimmer control slider panels of six sliders sits above a single LARGE linier coil auto transformer. Each slider is a wiping contact, tapping off the same large coil. Each dimmer has 2 or more inputs on the patch panel which could be turned on and off independantly, allowing each dimmer to control several different circuits. This allows you to have 6 autotransformer dimmers in the space and weight of about two single units of the same wattage. The trade off (TANSTAAFL) is that the total capacity is NOT 6 times the capacity of a single dimmer, but roughly 1/2 to 2/3 of that. You could load, on some models, as much as 2k on a single dimmer, but the whole unit could only handle for example 4k, so not all the circuits and or all the dimmers could be on at full at the same time. It was innovative for the time and if you've ever run or patched one of the old piano boards, http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/glossary-m-s/7918-piano-board.html you'd see what a step forward it was at the time.

Michael Powers, Project Manager, ETCP Certified Rigger - Theatre
Central Lighting & Equipment Inc., Des Moines, Iowa

 

[jasonschaefer]

The college in our city, Martin Luther College used to have one of these Ariel Davis dimming consoles in their auditorium. It served them well until the late 1990's. I remember as a kid "helping out" in the control room. I remember a lot of heat coming off of this system, so the room needed good ventilation.

It was a treat to see some of the nostalgic photos. Thanks for sharing!

 

[bigdanny]

This dimmer system brings back many memories.This is the first type of dimmer system, I ever ran. Many times I, had to clean or replace the brushes in the transfer switches.The one operated was one bwhere you had to patch the patch cords to the slide you wanted and the other end, you would patch it to the correspondingplug receptacle for the stage light position.If you were not careful, you would accendtly pull the plu cable out. The dimmer equipment was located on the metal pinrail level on the stage rigging side. Also, that was the same spot the High Voltage was at in that Auditoium.It was a real trip using that equipment. The last show we ever used that dimmer system on, took for ever to run. The dimmer system kept overheating and we could run it for so long and turn it off and then turn it back.It took about 4 hours to do a 2 hour show.

 

[avery]

I'm pretty sure the Soviets used this board to launch ballistic missiles.

 

[Bobbsy]

I know this is a very old thread but I just Googled for pics of an Ariel Davis lighting board and found it!

Even the 40 year estimate for the age of this console is conservative. I started high school (in Drumheller, Alberta) in 1968 and the auditorium (i.e. gym with chairs in it!) had exactly the unit shown in the photos. The school in question was built in 1963/4 and the lighting was installed then--so you're looking at gear that's approaching its 50th birthday. (Alas, I'm approaching my 60th!)

I ended up doing most of the lighting for the years I was at that school--mainly because (through experimenting and trying things) I was one of the few who could get the lights on at all. Most of it was done to endless jokes about "beam me up Bobbsy" because it was the days of the first run of the original Star Trek and the resemblance to the transporter controls was pretty obvious.

A few years later, I went onto university in Calgary and the theatre there had exactly the same slider-based patch panel located back stage. It worked well and was a lot more tidy than plugs on tails and lots of sockets. The actual controller at the uni back then was super high tech--a five scene preset! This was five rows of small dimmers (96 from memory but don't quote me) at one end and two rows of five buttons with a fader that could move between the top and bottom row to transition between presets. The "senior" lighting guy got to do the mixes while the junior worked flat out changing all 96 dimmers on a row to the next state it would be used for--on some shows it got seriously busy and took two people doing the presets!

Ironically, after playing with all this I drifted mainly to TV and film and did mainly sound--but have gone back to doing some theatre stuff since I took early retirement a few years back.

Anyway, thanks again for posting those pics! They made my evening!