How NOT to re-wire your lights.

gafftapegreenia

CBMod
CB Mods
Check out this. No, your eyes do not deceive you, those spots are wired with orange extension cord. However, if anyone is looking for some old Strands in America, these look to be those lovely bi-focal shuttered versions.
 
What I'm wondering is how 2 Strand (UK) Model 264As got to Fargo, ND, in the first place?
 
It's not 2-ought, it's not 4-ought...it's Orange-ought
 
Yes but the orange cable is safe because they used a sharpie to color it black (or perhaps that's char residue from the intense heat the cable creates).
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This may be a silly question but how can you tell it's not orange silcon cable?
 
This may be a silly question but how can you tell it's not orange silcon cable?

Yea, there is a high-temp orange silicon cable around. I have seen it, but never bothered look to see who made it or the designation code. Real odd to put an orange cable on a theater light, even with the "sharpie" mod.
 
This may be a silly question but how can you tell it's not orange silcon cable?

I don't know about down under, but that's pretty unusual stuff around here. I think it's far more likely that someone felt the asbestos wire was dangerous so they cut up an old extension cord and replaced it.
 
Here the standard wire is orange and getting black can be a problem.The first run of Prolites [local brand] all had orange cable.
 
Here it would be the reverse - orange silicone cable? Never seen it before.

Good hunting/spotting, I didn't see the orange until I searched due to the spray paint on it. Though for that price, I could see stripping the wiring and replacing it within the budget for what the fixtures are worth to me at least. Nine+ more months and I might be back on the antique/unusual fixture buying market. Until than... as long as they didn't screw up the fixture too much - gee how is the 16/3 SJTOW garage grade extension cord terminated at the lamp base or attached to it??? One can also assume they were not technical enough to screw it up too badly.

Wonder how much they charge to change the plugs to Edison and how well wired that change over would be given the ability to wire what is it like 75C wire to a 200C fixture? Could be interesting - and some theater will buy them and ...... thus why I go into long messages on how to do stuff so as to teach.

Never mind, long story short, nice lights wiring for that price I would replace.
 
Here the standard wire is orange and getting black can be a problem.The first run of Prolites [local brand] all had orange cable.
Odd I don't remeber seeing orange cable while I was there...weird.
 
As much as I wish I had some beautiful old Strands to show off, I just don't have the money/cannot currently justify buying them.
 
I'm surprised that nobody picked up on one of the most unique features of the Patt 264 from the photos: It has eight shutters. Four are hard edge (the black handles) and four have a comb edge (the red handles) to produce a soft-edged cut.

ST
 
And why didn't a US manufacturer follow suit with two sets of shutters, Mr. Terry? Like the oval-beam Fresnel, just too advanced for the American market?

I admit I did not notice this. I knew Strand (UK) made such an animal, but never learned the numbers. I preferred 6x9, 6x12...

If the shipping costs weren't so outrageous, I'd bid on them.

Final and most important day for me today: dress reh., perf, and L/O. ONLY a 15 hour day, until 4am. See you'll Sunday afternoon.
 
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This may be a stupid question, but why is there a set of barn doors included? I thought that the shutters were supposed to do that.
 
Strange as it may seem Strand in the UK did actually use orange silicon cable on ellipsoidals and floods around 1974. When they built the new High school I attended the patt 137 floods, the Patt 23s and Patt 263s had a mixture of silicon orange cable as shown and three seperate insulated black conductors. For some reason there was a mix. All this equipment was new from Strand and installed by Strand. During this time in the UK we were going through three day weeks due to miner's strikes etc so all sorts of things were in short supply so a lot of make do was going on at manufacturers.

The 263s and 264s were certainly sold in Canada.
 
264's were just the standard FOH lamp and the twin shutter system was invaluable, also they were the only lamp which could burn at any angle, when the Quartz lamps came out and due to a design fault those lamps seemed to last forever, I had 16 in a commercial theatre rig for 5 years and didn't change a lamp, I still have the spares in the shed.[240v]
 

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