Key for Locking Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer Rack

[JimP0771]

Hi all

This is a strange question. I was wondering if anyone here knows where I could find a key to lock the door on a Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack. The one I have is used and the place I got it from had no idea where the key was the day I went to pick the rack up from that location years back. For years I have been using it without the key to lock the door on the dimmer rack. I am sure people here know the door I am talking about. I will however say that it is the door the covers the breakers that are to the left side of the dimmer modules. Would this be a standard key? Can I go to a hardware store and buy one and use that? It is not the biggest of deals but I would be nice to be able to lock people out of the dimmer rack that I do not want using it.

Thanks

 

[RonHebbard]

Hi all

This is a strange question. I was wondering if anyone here knows where I could find a key to lock the door on a Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack. The one I have is used and the place I got it from had no idea where the key was the day I went to pick the rack up from that location years back. For years I have been using it without the key to lock the door on the dimmer rack. I am sure people here know the door I am talking about. I will however say that it is the door the covers the breakers that are to the left side of the dimmer modules. Would this be a standard key? Can I go to a hardware store and buy one and use that? It is not the biggest of deals but I would be nice to be able to lock people out of the dimmer rack that I do not want using it.

Thanks

@JimP0771 As a long retired geezer who hasn't seen a Colortran rack since 1992; what I think I'm remembering on the two doors of a bussed pair of wall mounted Colortran racks was a more or less standard panel lock which could be readily removed with a wrench on the rear side of the door, taken to any REAL dedicated lock shop (NOT the lock department of your local big box retailer) where you could either purchase a new, physically identical lock, complete with two keys, OR have the locksmith cut you a key to fit your existing lock which you could replace on your rack and have additional keys copied at any store cutting keys; they'd need to identify the correct blank, have one in stock or order one in, and cut you an extra key. At that point, cut two or three extras and lock a few securely away for future use.

If you've a tame locksmith in your family circle, have her / him drop by for a free performance and ask them to peek at your lock while they're there.

Alternately, if you're on good terms with someone still servicing your Colortran dimmers, odds are in your favor that your lock MAY be one of a dozen or so commonly used by Colortran, they may possess a key, in which case borrow it, test it, make three copies, test all of your copies, then return their original with profuse thanks.
Optimistically five other posts have rolled in while I've been typing.

@Ron Foley Have you, and / or Chris Mentis, any better suggestions for O/P @JimP0771 ???
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Try Lite-Trol.

 

[Dionysus]

I've done some service work on a few of these racks and have one in one of my venues. I've copied the key from one for "emergency" usage.
However if you can't find one locally and don't want to see about someone shipping you one I'm sure it's a pretty standard key...
I'd remove the lock from the rack and take it to a locksmith, they'll easily whip up some keys for it, they just have to measure the pins (or try stock keys to see if any match).

 

[JimP0771]

I've done some service work on a few of these racks and have one in one of my venues. I've copied the key from one for "emergency" usage.
However if you can't find one locally and don't want to see about someone shipping you one I'm sure it's a pretty standard key...
I'd remove the lock from the rack and take it to a locksmith, they'll easily whip up some keys for it, they just have to measure the pins (or try stock keys to see if any match).

I am thinking of just popping the locks out all together and not worry about it. As it turns out. We may be uninstalling the system from its current location to move our theater group to a new building and setting it up there. So we may not need that. Thanks for your suggestion. It is a good one though.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

If you do pop the locks, be sure the latch still works - important to cooling system.

 

[RonHebbard]

If you do pop the locks, be sure the latch still works - important to cooling system.

@JimP0771 Be sure the latches still work AND at least cover the hole(s) where the lock(s) used to be with a layer or two of the tape of your choice; yes, keeping the lock hole blocked air tight is THAT important to the cooling system, especially in regard to it pulling an acceptable air flow past the air flow sensor behind the little slots in the lower left front corner of each dimmer rack.

Loss of adequate air flow through those vents can potentially result in the air flow vane switch putting the rack into a safe mode guaranteeing it'll neither catch fire nor leave you in darkness (although you may not appreciate finding you no longer have control and all your dimmers are parked at some "safe" level. 80% is coming to mind.)
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[TimMc]

I am thinking of just popping the locks out all together and not worry about it. As it turns out. We may be uninstalling the system from its current location to move our theater group to a new building and setting it up there. So we may not need that. Thanks for your suggestion. It is a good one though.

Pop them out and take them to a locksmith. For $25 you'll have keys. Consider these locks to be safety devices; you don't need anyone deliberately or accidentally doing stuff inside an energized dimmer rack.

 

[JimP0771]

Wait but the Cortran ENR 96 Has to have the locks in the door for the cooling. The small cooling slots on the control mods are no where near the door that closes over the fuses switches and none of those fuse switches look like they have any sort of cooling slots or anything near them if I am remembering correctly

 

[TimMc]

Wait but the Cortran ENR 96 Has to have the locks in the door for the cooling. The small cooling slots on the control mods are no where near the door that closes over the fuses switches and none of those fuse switches look like they have any sort of cooling slots or anything near them if I am remembering correctly

What's your point? When the dimmers are not in use, pop the locks out and do the locksmith run. If you're concerned about cooling, tape the door shut and cover the lock hole with gaff tape until you reinstall the lock. This ain't rocket surgery or brain science...

 

[RonHebbard]

Wait but the Cortran ENR 96 Has to have the locks in the door for the cooling. The small cooling slots on the control mods are no where near the door that closes over the fuses switches and none of those fuse switches look like they have any sort of cooling slots or anything near them if I am remembering correctly

@JimP0771 In my memory (1990) The door we're speaking of closed to prevent access to the plug in dimmer modules.
Each module housed two 2.4 Kw dimmers and their individual circuit breakers.
In the case of the racks I'm remembering, each rack housed 12 dual dimmer modules / 24 2.4 Kw dimmers.
In our installation, two racks were wall mounted immediately adjacent to each other with their 3 phase 5 wire 120 / 208 volt mains power buses running through both racks.
Each of the racks housed two fans in the top sucking fresh air through the dimmers and exhausting warm air out the top.
All dimmer modules had to remain in place for adequate cooling. All racks shipped / installed with less than a full complement of dimmers had unused slots filled with plastic "air dam" modules to prevent air from being sucked in via unoccupied dimmer slots rather than from the bottom and up to cool all dimmers.
On the lower left front corner of each rack, (both racks in the case of our installation) were three tiny horizontal cooling slots, they appeared small and insignificant but were essential to proper operation. Immediately behind those tiny ventilation slots was a sensor with a tiny adjacent heating coil.
If the air slots were blocked, the heater overheated the sensor putting the rack in a "safe" mode where the end user lost control and all dimmers came to a level of 80% (My memory of the exact level may be incorrect) a level the rack felt it could safely maintain with its reduced cooling.
The rack went to 80% rather than plunging you, your performers and patrons into darkness.

The reduced air flow passing through the three, tiny, seemingly insignificant slots could be due to any, or any combination, of the following:
- Cooling fans running slow or seized.
- Dimmer modules being omitted permitting air to enter part way up the rack and thus potentially inadequately cooling dimmers below the missing module.
- Air dams being omitted.
This was in the case of the original racks, the racks with aluminum mains buses.
Later racks had Hall Effect sensors added to detect any cooling fans spinning slowly or seized.
The Colortran Mothership sent an international crew across all of North America retrofitting Hall Effect sensors within ALL racks to monitor the speed of all cooling fans.
That's all my memory and I can tell you from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with racks built in 1989 and installed in 1990.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[FMEng]

ENRs are old enough that the fans are ready to fail if they haven't already been replaced at least once.