Dimmers
- Thread starterStageTech620
- Start date
mikeydoesstuff
Active Member
StageTech620
Member
Ok. Can someone look this up for me? I'm pretty sure I know how to do it, I just want a confirmation. If you look back in this thread, there is a link to the manual, which has the install instructions. There you will find the pinouts. I am looking to run it off of a 15/20 amp breaker. (Single Phase)
JChenault
Well-Known Member
So rereading this thread, I find myself quite confused about what you are trying to do and why.
My real question is "Why are you trying to upgrade to a rack mounted dimmer system"
If the goal is to add more fixtures to the rig (I am assuming this is part of what you are trying to accomplish) - you will need to get more power into the space. To do this you will have to have a licensed electrician come in and do the work. The first step in this will be to determine if the service to the building is single phase 120V power, single phase 120/240 volt power, or three phase power.
Once you have figured this out, you need to decide if you want a centralized system, a distributed system, or a rack mounted system.
For a distributed system, you would have the electrician add some additional outlets to the theatre near where you want your fixtures to be, and you would purchase additional dimmer packs similar to what you have now. A fairly easy addition. ( Note - if all you want is more control, you can simply plug additional packs into your existing outlets and have more dimmers, although you will not be able to control additional fixtures. ) One nice thing about adding femali recepticles for the dimmers is that you can economically add some additional outlets and either use them to control additional packs in the future, or to move packs around as your needs change, or as power for LED fixtures as things evolve.
If you want a centralized system where you home run individual cables to one location, you would add outlets in that room, get in some additional dimmer packs, and plug the fixtures into the dimmer packs.
Note that neither of these is a rack mounted system. The dimmer packs you purchase want to have female Edison connectors wired into the pack by the manufacturer.
If you want to go rack mounted you will need to get a bunch of power to a central location. Based on the amount of power, and type of feed, you can determine what might work for you. The next thing is to figure out how you are going to get the power to your fixtures. The best way to do this is to get plugs mounted in your theatre, near where you plan to put your fixtures, that are permanently connected to the rack mounted dimmers. This work must be done by a licensed electreician. ( you could have all of your female Edisonsin the same room as the rack, but then you have to home run cables for all of your fixtures)
You do not want to open the back of the dimmer pack and simply connect up some wire going to cable terminating in a pigtail. Without proper strain relief you will, over time, stress the connections until one of them works loose, shorting out god only knows what. If you want to use a rack mounted system, the only safe way ( IMHO) is to permanently wire the output into some female receptacle so that there is no stress or strain on the connection.
Now if the issue is maintenance of the packs, your best bet is to either:
So I guess I am challenging why you want a rack mounted system. I would also suggest you clarify what kind of power you have coming into the building if you want to control more fixtures.
Good luck. Hope this helps.
My real question is "Why are you trying to upgrade to a rack mounted dimmer system"
- Do you want to add more fixtures to the rig?
- Do you want more control of the fixtures you have?
- Are you worried about maintenance of distributed packs?
- Does someone think it would just look better and be more professional?
- Scattered about the theatre - your outlets are distributed, the dimmers are near the outlets, and the fixtures plug directly into the dimmers. Lets call this a distributed arrangement.
- In a central location. You have your 10 Edison outlets in a closet or something, you have the 10 dimmers in the closet, and you run cable for all fixtures to that closet and plug them in.
If the goal is to add more fixtures to the rig (I am assuming this is part of what you are trying to accomplish) - you will need to get more power into the space. To do this you will have to have a licensed electrician come in and do the work. The first step in this will be to determine if the service to the building is single phase 120V power, single phase 120/240 volt power, or three phase power.
Once you have figured this out, you need to decide if you want a centralized system, a distributed system, or a rack mounted system.
For a distributed system, you would have the electrician add some additional outlets to the theatre near where you want your fixtures to be, and you would purchase additional dimmer packs similar to what you have now. A fairly easy addition. ( Note - if all you want is more control, you can simply plug additional packs into your existing outlets and have more dimmers, although you will not be able to control additional fixtures. ) One nice thing about adding femali recepticles for the dimmers is that you can economically add some additional outlets and either use them to control additional packs in the future, or to move packs around as your needs change, or as power for LED fixtures as things evolve.
If you want a centralized system where you home run individual cables to one location, you would add outlets in that room, get in some additional dimmer packs, and plug the fixtures into the dimmer packs.
Note that neither of these is a rack mounted system. The dimmer packs you purchase want to have female Edison connectors wired into the pack by the manufacturer.
If you want to go rack mounted you will need to get a bunch of power to a central location. Based on the amount of power, and type of feed, you can determine what might work for you. The next thing is to figure out how you are going to get the power to your fixtures. The best way to do this is to get plugs mounted in your theatre, near where you plan to put your fixtures, that are permanently connected to the rack mounted dimmers. This work must be done by a licensed electreician. ( you could have all of your female Edisonsin the same room as the rack, but then you have to home run cables for all of your fixtures)
You do not want to open the back of the dimmer pack and simply connect up some wire going to cable terminating in a pigtail. Without proper strain relief you will, over time, stress the connections until one of them works loose, shorting out god only knows what. If you want to use a rack mounted system, the only safe way ( IMHO) is to permanently wire the output into some female receptacle so that there is no stress or strain on the connection.
Now if the issue is maintenance of the packs, your best bet is to either:
- Buy lots of cheap disposable packs so you have spares ( yuck)
- Buy a higher quality product that is less likely to fail. I would still buy an extra so if you need to repair one you have a replacement.
So I guess I am challenging why you want a rack mounted system. I would also suggest you clarify what kind of power you have coming into the building if you want to control more fixtures.
Good luck. Hope this helps.
You can't. Not without an electrician.
StageTech620
Member
Ok. But how do I do single phase?
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
You can't run it off multiple breakers as pointed out above because the neutral terminal is only large enough for one neutral, and I don't think anyone here is going to contradict that. Your total load is 20 amp per phase and you are on a single phase so total load is 20 amps - end of story. Stop wishing the pack you have or want to buy won't do what you want it to. Buy some ETC Smart Bars instead, and you can run 4 - 575 watt units on each, individually controlled, all set up from factory to plug into a single 20 amp outlet. Plus they do a lot more and are pretty quiet.
I'm not sure it has been clearly explained why this can't be done.
Using one breaker, with single phase input, the hot and neutral feed lugs are handling 20A. Using three breakers [unsafe] on single phase to feed this pack, each phase input sees 20A, but the neutral has to handle 60A, and it was only designed for 20A. That's three times its current rating, patently unsafe and runs the risk of a fire situation.
Hope that helps in understanding the issue.
David
Using one breaker, with single phase input, the hot and neutral feed lugs are handling 20A. Using three breakers [unsafe] on single phase to feed this pack, each phase input sees 20A, but the neutral has to handle 60A, and it was only designed for 20A. That's three times its current rating, patently unsafe and runs the risk of a fire situation.
Hope that helps in understanding the issue.
David
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StageTech620
Member
Ok. So I can't make up a 3-phase. I understand that. But I can do single phase 20 Amp. So how do I do that?
StageTech620
Member
Oh! Ok! Now that makes sense! So it is possible to do it by running it only off 1 Edison though. Right? (So only 20 Amps MAX?)
Yes.
There may indeed be other ways to connect this pack, as has been suggested. If you have truly single phase power, which I doubt, then the above is the only solution. If you have bi-phase [120/240V] or three-phase [120/208V], which can be determined by an electrician, then you can possibly run more dimmers in the pack at higher power if there's enough space in the breaker panel.
Since you're in a community theater [I once was as well], perhaps there is a volunteer that is an electrician or electrical engineer. You could also ask if any of the board members have engineer or electrician friends that might want to come by one evening after work to look at both the power panel and the instructions. It's amazing what kind of assistance folks can help you with.
David
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JD
Well-Known Member
The key take-away here is the limiting factor is how the manufacturer chose to layout the terminal strip. There are other manufacturers out there. Unless you already bought this pack, check around. Running the pack like a shoe-box dimmer off one 20 amp plug will work, but I would suspect you are not getting much bang for the buck. It's just a design layout shortcoming.
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
Also asking for high voltage wiring help is really not safe online. Your space may have hots reversed, grounds lifted or not properly wired. For anyone to take on the responsibility with never having a first hand knowledge of how your building is wired is just asking for a law suit. Stop asking how to wire high voltage on the internet no one is going to help you here.
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mikeydoesstuff
Active Member
Dionysus
Well-Known Member
AGAIN IF you have to ask this question DO NOT attempt to hook it up yourself. HIRE A LICENSED ELECTRICIAN!
JD
Well-Known Member
That's a given, but in this case a moot point.I thought the key take away was "if you don't know how to do it safely, hire an electrician."
The pack design limits the neutral to #12, so there is nothing an electrician could do to set this pack up to run full capacity off single phase power.
(Short of the non-code, warranty voiding, and UL listing voiding modification of the pack, or the other equally wrong work-around that we all know.)
Robert
Well-Known Member
Let's close this thread.
Stagetech will not accept the answers he has been give and will likely keep trying to get a different one.
I'm sorry man, it's not safe or sound practices.
Wiring up a three phase rack on single phase will cause the neutrals to be unbalanced and the dimmers will fire randomly. Poor grounding will do the same. It's just not going to work. I'm sorry you cannot get the answer you want.
Close the thread.
Stagetech will not accept the answers he has been give and will likely keep trying to get a different one.
I'm sorry man, it's not safe or sound practices.
Wiring up a three phase rack on single phase will cause the neutrals to be unbalanced and the dimmers will fire randomly. Poor grounding will do the same. It's just not going to work. I'm sorry you cannot get the answer you want.
Close the thread.
Dionysus
Well-Known Member
The Neutrals are Unbalanced 100% ANYWAYS, that's why you may need more than a 12 AWG netural. That's how they get 120v on each phase.
If the hots are balanced with singlephase you get 240v and no load on the neutral at all (really NONE), the more unbalanced the more load on the neutral.
for Singlephase as long as each hot leg is on a different phase they can share a neutral conductor of the same wire gauge unbalanced. This is why when you set up say a sensor pack to singlephase you set it up to alternate phases to use two. The Neutral and two hots are all the same size. Once you need to add a third phase (a copy of one of the other two) you need to increase the wire size accordingly, which is why you need to up the wire size to accommodate the additional load (if each phase has 20 amps, you will need a neutral good for 40 amps).
The only reason I've resulted to saying this is for clarification. I had avoided it before.
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