Cooling the lighting booth

[Ryan Albrecht]

Anybody have a good (quiet) fan they use to cool down their lighting booth? Mine routinely gets to 80 degrees during a show, and there's just not a ton of air circulation. Looking to buy, but really don't want to repeatedly buy fans.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Was this an "addition"? If not connected to building hvac I'm curious if fire sprinklered?

If cool outside booth consider transfer grills and a fan in one. Will do a better job than just a fan in the room.

 

[Ryan Albrecht]

It's built into the back wall of the auditorium, but it's got the racks in it and gets quite warm. There is a sprinkler in the booth, but the HVAC has to be turned off/down for performances due to noise.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

I just dont think a fan is a good permanent solution. No chance of getting a real mechanical engineer to design a proper solution - quiet cooling.

 

[FMEng]

There are only two ways to do it:

1. Move cooler air from one space into the hotter space.
2. Air condition the space.

If the dimmers are in a small, enclosed room, I would install a mini-split air conditoner. We use Mitsubishi Mr. Slims for cooling transmitter rooms all the time. They are remarkably quiet and have proven reliable. They make both residential and commercial models. Go commercial. Figure $3,000 to $5,000 for 10,000 BTU.

In fact, now that I think about it, the college next door has a Mr. Slim in the lighting booth of their black box, and another in the dimmer room.

 

[Aaron Becker]

+1 for air conditioning. It's really the only way you're going to get it from 80 to a comfortable or chilly 66-72.

 

[Van]

I get the idea, Moving air in 80 degrees is better than stale air in 80 degrees I use a little desk fan that I picked up at Fred Meyers, a regional Wal-Mart kind of store.My Office mates like it HOT in the office and we certainly don't need anymore noise. I use a little 6" diameter "Air Monster". I can point it right at me without bothering anyone else. It moves a ton of air and keeps me quite comfortable when the rest of these skinny kids and soaking up the Heat....

Yes, a Mr. Slim is a GREAT answer and probably THE way to go, somewhere down the line. like when you get a $20k grant for 'cooling off the booth'. No a desk fan will not cool the dimmers of dissipate any heat, but it will certainly make you feel more comfortable sitting there.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Is there a way to get some sort of exhaust duct near the rack?

 

[RonHebbard]

Is there a way to get some sort of exhaust duct near the rack?

@StradivariusBone You're recalling memories and making me giggle:
First memory board I met.
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 1973, Hamilton Place Great Hall.
Strand Century system IDM-Q, Instant Dimmer Memory-Cue.
2 full height 44 RU 23" wide racks. [Predecessors to 19" racks]
Lots of power supplies. LOTS AND LOTS of PC cards.
Drum memory. Lots of heat and lots of noise.
Had to keep the booth windows closed in an attempt to shield the patrons from the banshee whining of the memory drum.
Booth was too hot for the equipment let alone the operators.
City of Hamilton, the owners, demanded something be done.
General contractor x-ray'd the concrete floor slab beneath one of the two racks and carefully selected a "safe" location to push a 10" diameter core bit up from a basement corridor.
The carefully chosen "safe" location nailed three conduits bang on.
The General Manager, George MacPherson, kept the core, resplendent with its 3 piercings, for his personal office door stop.
Once they'd core drilled their hole, an air conditioner was installed in a basement corridor with it's cool output routed up via a duct into the bottom of the rack. Next problem was condensation with the comparatively cold air hitting the electronics. The IDM-Cue, as originally installed, was capable of storing 800 cues for 80 channels initially installed with rack space and powering to expand to 100 channels, which occurred a few years later.
Two tall racks, all that noise and all that heat.
Decades later, you could get all of that capability and more in an 11 pound board that'd fit under your arm.
Times have changed and then there's the X-32 but that's another thread.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[RonHebbard]

@StradivariusBone You're recalling memories and making me giggle:
First memory board I met.
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 1973, Hamilton Place Great Hall.
Strand Century system IDM-Q, Instant Dimmer Memory-Cue.
2 full height 44 RU 23" wide racks. [Predecessors to 19" racks]
Lots of power supplies. LOTS AND LOTS of PC cards.
Drum memory. Lots of heat and lots of noise.
Had to keep the booth windows closed in an attempt to shield the patrons from the banshee whining of the memory drum.
Booth was too hot for the equipment let alone the operators.
City of Hamilton, the owners, demanded something be done.
General contractor x-ray'd the concrete floor slab beneath one of the two racks and carefully selected a "safe" location to push a 10" diameter core bit up from a basement corridor.
The carefully chosen "safe" location nailed three conduits bang on.
The General Manager, George MacPherson, kept the core, resplendent with its 3 piercings, for his personal office door stop.
Once they'd core drilled their hole, an air conditioner was installed in a basement corridor with it's cool output routed up via a duct into the bottom of the rack. Next problem was condensation with the comparatively cold air hitting the electronics. The IDM-Cue, as originally installed, was capable of storing 800 cues for 80 channels initially installed with rack space and powering to expand to 100 channels, which occurred a few years later.
Two tall racks, all that noise and all that heat.
Decades later, you could get all of that capability and more in an 11 pound board that'd fit under your arm.
Times have changed and then there's the X-32 but that's another thread.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

@StradivariusBone @JohnD @GreyWyvern A few years later, 1977, I moved on to become IA head of sound in Stratford's main venue, their Festival Theatre. Upon my arrival, I learned they had another of only four Century Strand IDM System Cues in Canada, this one having been originally built to record, store and playback 600 cues by 100 channels expandable to 120 channels. Their booth was centered at the rear of their then 220 degree wrapped balcony with about a 3' high crawl space under the booth floor above the public balcony slab. Directly beneath the IDM-Cue's racks they had a tiny. custom manufactured, air conditioning system which operated on constantly flowing domestic cold water. Not chilled water, only potable water constantly flowing through a heat exchanger which went on to supply washrooms and other needs within the building. This was at a time when there were very few air conditioned spaces anywhere in any of the Festival's properties. The artistic director and executive producer's office shared a small, window mounted unit and the dimmer room had a through the wall unit installed. Even having cold water at balcony level was a 'big deal' in the Festival's main building in 1977 as the lobby washrooms were in the basement and nowhere else on the entire upper level of the circular building had water, hot or cold. The electronics tech' and I kept a used commercial sized pickle jar at one end of our equipment maintenance bench to have water on hand for soaking the sponges on our Weller temperature controlled soldering stations. Periodically, we'd have to walk our former 'pickle jar' down to the green room kitchen and request permission to enter and refresh our water supply.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Next problem was condensation with the comparatively cold air hitting the electronic

air conditioning system which operated on constantly flowing domestic cold water. Not chilled water, only potable water constantly flowing through a heat exchanger which went on to supply washrooms and other needs within the building

Ultimately that's going to be the problem with any solution involving routing cold air into the booth. It's not getting the cold in, but getting the heat (aka moisture) out of the room that's the issue. If you pump cool air into a hot room it will just condense whatever moisture content is in there onto whatever surfaces there are. And to paraphrase Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius, 'Some things in here don't react well to [water]'.

If you can get some sort of outside exhaust set up you can always get a portable AC unit, but you're not going to get around the necessity of having a heat exchanger of some type and access to a space or the outdoors with which to exchange that heat content with.

 

[josh88]

Anybody have a good (quiet) fan they use to cool down their lighting booth? Mine routinely gets to 80 degrees during a show, and there's just not a ton of air circulation. Looking to buy, but really don't want to repeatedly buy fans.

If I recall theres a decent amount of space in your booth right? its fairly long if my memory serves right, might be able to create a little wind tunnel to get air circulating. If not a small desk fan at each station like the Joe E. used to have before they tore down those theatres at bg. That booth was wicked hot during shows.

I did walk past one of those dyson air blade fans in target and they are remarkably quiet but also a pretty expensive option

 

[Ryan Albrecht]

Air circulation is what I'll have to go with. Couple of fans as suggested to move the air around. I've got a decent amount of room so this should work...or at least keep the sweating to a minimum.


Thanks all