Compact Flourescent House Light Issues

Alex being that we are in production and I'm spending long nights there I have spent as little time as possible there during the day when I could play with the system like that. However I'm going in tomorrow morning for a while and I'll give that a try. The guy who was one of the head electricians came to watch the show tonight to see it happen. Thank God they failed perfectly on cue. Three circuits didn't come on tonight. He did noticed that the lights briefly BARELY started to turn on then then they all went out at once. He's suspicious of a heat problem and is going to talk to the electrical engineers responsible for the system. I also threw out Ships idea of the lamps themselves not liking to be dimmed which he found interesting too.

If I'm lucky they will say the whole system is faulty and needs to be replaced and i can say... as long as you are at it put in incandescents instead. I can dream.
 
Hey, gafftaper, I just saw this on the news and thought of you. A mother in Maine broke a CFL in her home and, concerned about the mercury content, called a Hazardous Substance clean-up company who wanted to charge her $2000! Also in the story is that the guv-ment has a simple, 11-step program for consumers to dispose of their failed lamps.

I'm sure your college already has a protocol in place that involves workers in Tyvek® suits when one of yours needs changing. I believe Xenon Super Trouper globes may be less dangerous! And to think we used to break thermometers on purpose to play with the mercury.:)
 
Hey, gafftaper, I just saw this on the news and thought of you. A mother in Maine broke a CFL in her home and, concerned about the mercury content, called a Hazardous Substance clean-up company who wanted to charge her $2000! Also in the story is that the guv-ment has a simple, 11-step program for consumers to dispose of their failed lamps.
I'm sure your college already has a protocol in place that involves workers in Tyvek® suits when one of yours needs changing. I believe Xenon Super Trouper globes may be less dangerous! And to think we used to break thermometers on purpose to play with the mercury.:)

:mrgreen:Sweet! Something else to look forward to!
 
Well I think Ship gets the prize on this one for being closest to what is wrong.

After countless debates between the electricians, theater consultants, manufacturers etc. They finally got the ballast manufacturer to admit there is a problem with their ballast not being able to correctly dim the specific wattage of lamp installed in my theater. Supposedly if we swap lamps for any other wattage they will work correctly... I'm told they will still look ugly in terms of color temperature... but they will dim properly... except for that blink on and off... and the fact that it takes 45 seconds for them to warm up when you turn them on so it's really dim at intermission and after the show for a while... but other than that they will "work correctly". :rolleyes:
 
Hey gafftaper, today at Walmart I saw 20W (equal to 75W incan.) the curly kind, for 92¢ each. I'm sure they are excellent:twisted: quality at that price, but couldn't be worse than what you have now. So what IS the magic wattage your ballasts require, and who is going to pay to replace all your existing lamps?
 
Well apparently this particular brand of ballast can't handle a 32 watt lamp. The architect, electrical sub contractor, electrical designer, theater designer, and facilites department are debating what is to be done and who will pay for it. I'm told they are debating if they will completely replace the fixtures, replace the ballasts, or just replace the lamps... :wall:

Meanwhile my S4PARs with XWFL lenses are on order so I never have to use these stupid things for theater house lights.
 
...Meanwhile my S4PARs with XWFL lenses are on order so I never have to use these stupid things for theater house lights.
If you're planning on putting chocolate in them, you might want to check out my article in Lighting&SoundAmerica, March issue, on building your own color extender, as I've known other buxom lenses to eat gel. Some R104 or R113 could be nice also.
 
If you're planning on putting chocolate in them, you might want to check out my article in Lighting&SoundAmerica, March issue, on building your own color extender, as I've known other buxom lenses to eat gel. Some R104 or R113 could be nice also.

I've been really busy lately and got behind on my L&SA/L.D./S.D./PLSN reading (it's amazing how fast that stack piles up! So I was sitting at the local car lube place last night and started reading... hey this project sounds like something we discussed on CB a while back... Wait Derek wrote it! COOL. When's the book coming out?

As for what color going in those... yeah I was just thinking about some sort of Frost (with maybe some 02) if it seems too cold.
 
This might be really stupid, but have you thought of going to Lowe's and buying some cheap CFL's of the correct size to experiment with?
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$20 might "shed some light on the situation."
Sorry about that.
 
You can get a 3-pack for $7! But, I think the consumer grade CFL's state "non-dimmable. But what does that mean, really... And do any ever dim? Seems to me like they just "step".
 
Well the do actually dim... however they reach a point that they blink off.

Phil buying a few lights is WAY too logical. No we are waiting for all the designers to argue about who should pay for it and how they are going to fix it.
 

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