Creative House Light Patching

[Clubitz]

Hey all, I'm trying to control my venue's houselights through our lightboard. The system runs through our dimmer rack (a very old Strand CCR 600) but completely bypasses our slide patch board, and instead opts to control from 3 separate control panels. One of them, luckily enough, runs from this finicky box that runs directly next to our board. I was wondering if anyone has solutions of how to patch this system into the lightboard, I'm completely down to order some parts and do some circuit building if needed.

We'd be looking to patch through the non-dim buttons, each individual house slider, and the house take control button.

Stage 1-6 button does nothing. I'm curious if any of you have run into similar systems and have some light to shed on this thing.

Thanks y'all

 

[EdSavoie]

The system runs through our dimmer rack (a very old Strand CCR 600) but completely bypasses our slide patch board, and instead opts to control from 3 separate control panels. One of them, luckily enough, runs from this finicky box that runs directly next to our board. I was wondering if anyone has solutions of how to patch this system into the lightboard

Hello!
I'd be VERY CAUTIOUS about messing with this, the obvious warnings of shock hazards and all that aside, given that we're talking about house lights, and you mention that your dimmer rack separates control for this from your patchboard, you might be seeing a mix of remote switches to turn on the house lights, which that box is likely tapping into. (Are you aware of any wall switches that control the lights, or perhaps something that looks like a lightswitch, but instead has a little slit in the middle of it?)


More importantly however, I'd be cautious that whatever you do doesn't cut or interface with the panic interface. Hopefully This rack has an seperate contact for the fire alarms to activate panic, as it is on the Strand CD80 lineup starting a few years later, but any improper modification to the panic system might also interfere with the ability for a fire alarm tie in to force the house lights to full, as has been code in most places for a rather long time.

From the brochure for the CCR 600:

The house-lights shall be instantly switched to full intensity upon energization of any "Panic" switching any of the designated locations.
The house-lights shall return to the control of the house-light controllers upon energization of any ''Normal" switch.

If you can, you can also try contacting (what's left of) Strand, they should be able to point you to the local integrator who could have as-built system diagrams still kicking around. I had such luck several years ago getting someone to pull them up for my old high school. Granted, that was over a decade more recent than this rack.

 

[RickR]

Here's a creative approach. Swap the house lights to standard dimmers in the rack and those to be non-dim for more LEDs. You'll still have to solve any remote house control locations but @jfleenor and some DFD.COM stuff can handle that.