First off to gafftaper:
We're not planing on getting
LED strips, mostly because its a six figure money to revamp the on
stage electrics with
asbestos and needing to upgrade to boxes where the
electric unplugs for fire code reasons
Next off to cutlunch
Sylak a lot of good stuff has been said about
LED lighting so I will comment about something else.
First when you say
House lights does this mean the lights that provide the light for the audience to get in the
theatre? Which is what it would mean here in NZ. Or are you using to indicate the
theatre lights that are over the audience to light the
stage?
House lights as in lights which provide light over the audience.
Now my first thought would be why are you blowing so many lights? I have done shows with two week runs + rehearsal time and only had at most two lights blow and that was due to old age. What model strip lights are you using and have these got the correct rated bulbs in them.
The
auditorium is alot used during the day as a class room, so with the
wing planel/panic buttons on, we have both strips and
house lights on blowing them. As to model. I'm not sure but i do know we have the proper rated bulbs in them (150
Watt)
Are people blowing bulbs when they focus them? This is quite easy to do if you have the
level set to high when moving them during focus.
Are you using pre-heat ?
The Fresles aren't where we're blowing bulbs, but we did get a nice hidden compliant about
power usage regarding our lights, hence why we're looking at
LED's
Also how clean is your
power supply ? Do you notice sudden dips and spikes in the odinary lights.
No, it's very constant. I believe we got the dimer
system completely redone in '95, but not to sure about that, I'll check it out.
Your school might buy you the
LED lights but if they are complaing about the lamp budget wait to they see the cost of
LED fittings.
They offered the
LED's because they have the view of even if the fixtures are more expensive, they'll be saving energy and
bulb costs in the long run
Also a lot of the time blowing an excessive number lamps can come down to bad practice. It is this bad practice that needs to be worked on.
The last time we actually bought Strip and
House bulbs (before this year) was 5 years ago, but its pretty expensive whenever we do (6 boxes of each 150w and 200w bulbs)
If you look into this problem and manage to bring it under control the School District will look more favourably on the drama department in the future.
Well they're buying us a Congo Jr next year so...
I know you won't have an exact figure but what sort % of bulbs need replacing each year?
About 60%-80% of the Strips, and probably about 70% of the
House Lights
By the way I am not anti
LED lighting I just think you should get a handle on the cause of the problem. This would apply especially if there is a problem with the
power supply which could then damage the
LED lights as well.
Like mentioned earlier, the problem is that we actually have some drama-style classes that use the aud, that i don't think we should
drop (improv and public speaking) and they use strips/
house for 1-2 periods each day (90 minutes per period because of the
block scheduling) plus you add concerts, club meetings, and performances as well as other assemblies, so we're already doing what we can.
To Van:
As always, your wisdom like insight brings thought to the table. thanks for the input
And in general:
With what we're going for, replacing the Fresnels on 1st and 2nd
electric electric with
LED's and our old scoops with
Cyc lights (with
cyc lights being a priority) the idea is to save money on lamps and energy despite the cost.