Lighting fixture truss/pipe clamps- your favorites?

Kelite

Senior Account Executive
Premium Member
Greetings all!

With such a diverse community of lighting folks here, what better forum to ask -

Lighting fixture truss/pipe clamps- which style/brand/design/color are your favorites?


Go!
 
I like the Lightsource products, particularly the mega-swivel, mini-clamp, mega-coupler, or mega-claw depending on the purpose.
 
The Light Source Slim Couplers & Slim Claws for most things unless it needs the heavy duty stuff or has a single rig point then it's Mega Couplers & Mega Claws for weight or stability. The Slim Couplers are perfect for LED PARs and the like.
 
Anything Light Source really. I strongly dislike all those European/Asian formed flatstock hook things.


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I like the mega claws and slim claws for moving lights. TC clamps for lekos, pars, etc. Half couplers are ok for light weight fixtures. I hate half couplers on moving lights or any other heavy fixtures, makes it really hard to do anything with them by yourself.
 
ETC cast clamps are garbage, as are all other cast C-clamps(G-clamps?) They damage truss, and they are much more likely to crack and drop your fixture and a chunk of metal. Old school stagehands love them though, because old people hate change, they are too lazy to hold the weight of a fixture while closing a half-coupler, and taking longer to do something is good when you get paid by the hour.

The light source has a variety of good clamps. For any conventional I choose a Half-coupler(mega coupler) that through bolts, and uses a belville washer.
I have the mini-claws for some things, and I would not but them again. They get stuck closed on a pipe, the T-handle gets in the way on truss, and if you have a fixture with two clamps, its hard to remove the fixture from a truss. Mega claw, or slim claw all the way.

Also, no wingnuts on Mega Couplers, aluminum block style nut.
 
ETC cast clamps are garbage, as are all other cast C-clamps(G-clamps?) They damage truss, and they are much more likely to crack and drop your fixture and a chunk of metal. Old school stagehands love them though, because old people hate change, they are too lazy to hold the weight of a fixture while closing a half-coupler, and taking longer to do something is good when you get paid by the hour.

The light source has a variety of good clamps. For any conventional I choose a Half-coupler(mega coupler) that through bolts, and uses a belville washer.
I have the mini-claws for some things, and I would not but them again. They get stuck closed on a pipe, the T-handle gets in the way on truss, and if you have a fixture with two clamps, its hard to remove the fixture from a truss. Mega claw, or slim claw all the way.

Also, no wingnuts on Mega Couplers, aluminum block style nut.

Traditional c-clamps still have their place with conventional fixtures attached to steel pipe. Using half couplers almost always requires two people to hang or remove a moving light, that's the problem. With mega claws or trigger clamps I can hang or remove something the size of a Mac 2k by myself, that's just not possible with half couplers.
 
I would not use half couplers on moving lights, just conventionals. I still don't like C-clamps, except the odd case where I need to clamp to square tube, or small diameter pipe.
 
The ProX Trigger clamp allows one person to hang heavy fixtures. Rated for 500#

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I'm pretty happy with most clamps I've used with the exception of these ones
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I just don't trust these, and the space I found them in was using them for fixtures over the audience. Made it my personal goal to get as many of them out of the air as possible.
 
ETC cast clamps are garbage, as are all other cast C-clamps(G-clamps?) They damage truss, and they are much more likely to crack and drop your fixture and a chunk of metal. Old school stagehands love them though, because old people hate change, they are too lazy to hold the weight of a fixture while closing a half-coupler, and taking longer to do something is good when you get paid by the hour.

The light source has a variety of good clamps. For any conventional I choose a Half-coupler(mega coupler) that through bolts, and uses a belville washer.
I have the mini-claws for some things, and I would not but them again. They get stuck closed on a pipe, the T-handle gets in the way on truss, and if you have a fixture with two clamps, its hard to remove the fixture from a truss. Mega claw, or slim claw all the way.

Also, no wingnuts on Mega Couplers, aluminum block style nut.
If your hanging to pipe not truss ETC clamps do fine. I am the same age as you, and have never had any issues with hanging lights quickly: I can do 2 to 3 conventionals a min if I try.


I have the old HUB tracks in my venue. Now there is a system that should be taken out back and shot...

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Conventional c clamps, cast Iron, machined aluminum or otherwise, are not intended for use on aluminum truss and rental houses that supply them for that use without at least sending a bag of truss protectors are likely not only cutting corners with their clamp inventory.

As for breaking, I've never seen a broken ETC clamp, as I believe the extra spine helps to strengthen the casting (although I'm sure they can and have been broken). I have seen two or three examples of broken Altman clamps, but honestly I've seen far more bent bolts than I have broken clamps.

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I'm pretty happy with most clamps I've used with the exception of these ones
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I just don't trust these, and the space I found them in was using them for fixtures over the audience. Made it my personal goal to get as many of them out of the air as possible.

Yes. Those clamps and all their variations are a scourge upon the earth. Although they ARE better than those plastic half coupler types.


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ETC cast clamps are garbage, as are all other cast C-clamps(G-clamps?) They damage truss, and they are much more likely to crack and drop your fixture and a chunk of metal. Old school stagehands love them though, because old people hate change, they are too lazy to hold the weight of a fixture while closing a half-coupler, and taking longer to do something is good when you get paid by the hour.

The light source has a variety of good clamps. For any conventional I choose a Half-coupler(mega coupler) that through bolts, and uses a belville washer.
I have the mini-claws for some things, and I would not but them again. They get stuck closed on a pipe, the T-handle gets in the way on truss, and if you have a fixture with two clamps, its hard to remove the fixture from a truss. Mega claw, or slim claw all the way.

Also, no wingnuts on Mega Couplers, aluminum block style nut.

"Garbage" ?. Pretty bold statement 'ya think Mike ?

In 40 years in the business I've had 1 - exactly 1, iron c-clamp fail and this was at least 30-35 years ago. The ETC provided clamp is fine for the intended purpose. No, we don't hang them on truss, just schedule 80 steel. No I don't use them on side-arms (you can't actually). No I don't do double clamps with them. Just intended purpose.

As well, ETC has been providing this clamp to users on a couple of million S4's of assorted types since '92 or so. You would think if there were problems, we'd have heard of them.
 
I have been converting all my c-clamps on all fixtures (except our movers - those have triggers) to the ETC cast clamps. While it may be true they could fail (I've yet to see one begin to deform, or heaven forbid, let go though), that's one of the reasons why we have safeties. And they are, in my opinion, a far better design than almost all other C-clamps I've had in my hands. Inspect your gear, use as intended, eat more fibre, use common sense, destroy what you don't trust, don't forget to tip your waitresses.
 
We don't use the ETC (or anyone's) cast iron clamp because it is not load rated. (Yes, UL approves of it as part of the sited assembly, but their testing seems inadequate for structural integrity.) And while braking is rare, it's not unheard of. For a thousand or two dollars in a project of many million dollars with several hundred thousand in lighting, not worth it to me to skimp on this. YMMV. (And perhaps cast iron c-clamps, ETCs' is one of if not the best - so not garbage - just not for me.)
 

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