Compact fluorescent house lights

[derekleffew]

Derek, have you been a little L&E happy lately? I've noticed you talking about them more recently.

Just plugging a, somewhat, under-appreciated company. FWIW, their ERSs are cheap clones of the 360Q, IMHO. But still the best Mini-Strip (they were the first--I have a story about that), and I like their cyclights, when Strand/Quartzcolor/Ianiro Iris's are too big.

 

[derekleffew]

I dunno, I like mine.


(I wish)

Like you could afford to feed it! FWIW, I like them better than Showguns. But still prefer Syncrolites.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Gafftaper, I was thinking, do you have enough of these?

Also, see my thread here about an interesting way to diffuse your scoops.

Derek, I do agree that L&E is under appreciated. True, their ERS is a clone, but they do good items. I was sad when they stopped making a scoop. Altman has that market cornered now. They also recently re-designed their Fresnel line, and did away with their 3". However, they did introduce a 4.5" and 6" PC. What lighting mag reported that? None. I do love my L&E Runt Cycs, and their MR16 strips are slimmer than Altman's. Can I head the story?

 

[derekleffew]

Let's get gafftaper a lot of Olivettes and Bunchlights to be controlled by his Classic Palette™ and C21 dimmers! How retro! Anyone have any open trough striplights? Ship?

So, gafftaper, has this un-named theatre consultant ever done an actual theatre before?

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Hehe. Every theatre must have at least a dozen mis-matched clip lights of various vintage. It's an unwritten rule.

 

[David Ashton]

Could someone explain why you would "burn in" fluoros, I can't think of any rational reason this could work.

 

[Logos]

Let's get gafftaper a lot of Olivettes and Bunchlights to be controlled by his Classic Palette™ and C21 dimmers! How retro! Anyone have any open trough striplights? Ship?
So, gafftaper, has this un-named theatre consultant ever done an actual theatre before?

I've got some carefully restored 1930's SEECOL (Strand's original prewar UK name) 10 light floor battens designed to be used for groundrows and footlights, they take a medium Edison Screw 150/200w Pearl lamp (which are getting very rare). Is this what you are talking about when you talk about open trough striplights? I still haven't figured out how to upload photo's to the site.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Kliegl open trough

Altman Open Trough

 

[Logos]

No mine have individual glass reflectors for each lamp. They're still pretty old though.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

We'd love pics. Do you have them saved on your computer?

 

[Logos]

Not at the moment but I can do easily.

 

[gafftaper]

So, gafftaper, has this un-named theatre consultant ever done an actual theatre before?

He's been in business for quite a while and is well known in the area. I'm having a really hard time determining where the fault lies on many of our weird problems. Clearly the theater consultant had some "interesting" ideas at times. But there is also the fact that the building is done and we have just made me "interim" theater manager. In a normal theater project a paid T.D. with authority to make critical decisions would have been on staff 3 or 4 years ago to oversee the project. I was an unpaid volunteer with no authority to demand anything. My suggestions were sometimes listened to and sometimes ignored. There are also a lot of interesting things that happened with the general, subs, the way things were purchased (or not purchased), issues with manufacturers, there are plenty of targets to place the blame on.

There is a term that describes this project precisely that starts with the word "Cluster". On the other hand, we've got some great people in facilities who are working hard to get things right and I'm confident in the end it'll be decent facility with a few weird quirks... which every theater has.

 

[gafftaper]

Could someone explain why you would "burn in" fluoros, I can't think of any rational reason this could work.

Don't know. The people from Strand told me the same thing though.

 

[gafftaper]

Gafftaper, I was thinking, do you have enough of these?

I actually have about 30 of those wired together in strings of 5 Christmas light style. We were doing theater in the round in a banquet room with a 10' drop ceiling. I wired them together, zip tied them to the ceiling and I had 6 "circuits" of downlight to work with. It was for a production of "Laramie" which had a real gorilla theater feel to it anyway, so it actually worked pretty nice.

If everything goes wrong I can break them out of storage for house lights.

 

[jmabray]

Don't know. The people from Strand told me the same thing though.

No one knows exactly why, but the best statement I could find in reference to this is:

This operating mode sets up the "design condition" for the electrode, and develops a proper hot spot in the filament to support the arc current.

From a patent on Flour. dimming # 6225760

 

[SteveB]

He said he did specifically call for Mark 10 ballasts.

If there are specifications detailing particular ballasts and the contractor didn't provide them, they are in breach of contract. They were awarded the bid based on the specifications and may well be trying to save money by cutting corners.

I would be screaming bloody murder at this point to get a 3rd party to inspect the fixtures to see if they meet spec's, though I would first go check the spec's to see if the theatre consultant actually included these Mark 10's in the bid document specifications.

It still might be a whole lot easier to s_ _ t can the whole lot down the road and install something better. Best wait for some mucky-muck to complain a lot about the light show at 10%, then make your case.

Steve B.

 

[gafftaper]

If there are specifications detailing particular ballasts and the contractor didn't provide them, they are in breach of contract. They were awarded the bid based on the specifications and may well be trying to save money by cutting corners.
I would be screaming bloody murder at this point to get a 3rd party to inspect the fixtures to see if they meet spec's, though I would first go check the spec's to see if the theatre consultant actually included these Mark 10's in the bid document specifications.
It still might be a whole lot easier to s_ _ t can the whole lot down the road and install something better. Best wait for some mucky-muck to complain a lot about the light show at 10%, then make your case.
Steve B.

I've got everyone looking into it and my Dean has seen the problem and is ready to scream if needed. They are trying to find out what the electrical sub actually used at this point. The problem is most of those guys have moved onto other projects now so it's hard to get answers right away.

 

[jmabray]

Call the architect and ask to see their copy of the electrical contractor's submittals. (These are usually prepared by the manufacturer of the equipment after they have a Purchase order so they are likely what was installed.)

Take a look at those and they should be what was installed. Then double check to make sure that is what they actually did install. If you find out that it is different, then you have recourse to go back to the arch and make them install something else - either what was spec'ed or at that point you might be able to get them to change it. You also have recourse to not pay the GC their final payment.....

However, in regards to changing it... These days there are many energy codes that the building has to meet as a whole. That might be the reason for the choice of Flour. in the first place. (Lower wattage consumption per Lumen of light) Retro fitting to incandescent fixtures might not be possible with out adding addtional circuits to the system. Just something to be on the look out for.

 

[derekleffew]

If the above doesn't work, I have a design for salt water dimmers than can control your Olivettes, but am still working on the StrandNET interface. I'm not sure how to make salt water dimmers ACN-compliant. And the parameters: fluid level, salinity, voltage, depth of electrode???

We're here for you, gafftaper !


As to your question about USERNAMES somewhere else. What I do is type the name, then highlight it and click the double-carrots[sic] < >, and then replace "HTML" with "user" inside both sets of brackets[ ]. Seems to have worked so far.

 

[JD]

You know, in theory at least, one should be able to design a Pulse Width Modulated ballast that would dim them quite well. The problem with fluorescents is that they need their full voltage to maintain an arc, but in PWM, you are sustaining that voltage pretty much all the way down to (but not including) zero. There is a similar problem with LEDs in that you can't change the junction voltage that much, so PWM becomes the answer there but for different reasons.

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