Motorized Fly System

[BillConnerFASTC]

Can you say what the top speed is, to help others compare? I know that a decent flyman can get counterweight up to the 300-400 fpm range. Most so called "packaged hoists" tend to top out around 180 fpm, and of course fixed speeds are usually in the 20 - 30 fpm range.

I'd agree that on all but the simplest fixed speed load sensing and slack line detection are important features, standard or available as options on most hoists.

 

[JohnD]

One advantage to a motorized system not mentioned so far is the ease of restricting access.

 

[SteveB]

Can you say what the top speed is, to help others compare? I know that a decent flyman can get counterweight up to the 300-400 fpm range. Most so called "packaged hoists" tend to top out around 180 fpm, and of course fixed speeds are usually in the 20 - 30 fpm range.

I'd agree that on all but the simplest fixed speed load sensing and slack line detection are important features, standard or available as options on most hoists.

The NY Times article on the Met Opera upgrade said this:

"There are 93 motors but only 30 drives to operate them. In the future each motor will have its own drive. The weight capacity for a single piece of lifted scenery will double, to 2,200 pounds, and so will the speed. Backdrops will have the capacity to be moved to within less than a quarter-inch of the desired position, instead of within roughly four inches. And they will be able to plunge down quickly, solving one of the most common complaints of directors, Mr. Sellars said.

“We can never get our curtains to drop fast enough. It can take roughly 10 seconds for some backdrops to fall the full 45 feet of the Met proscenium.

The overhaul will also allow slower drops. In the recently introduced production of Verdi’s “Traviata,” for example, a floral backdrop is meant to descend slowly, over roughly nine minutes, but the Met’s motors were incapable of such a controlled fall. So stagehands had to rig up a separate pulley system to work together with the motor."

So the complaint was that the current system has a 270 ft per second speed limitation and that the new system will be much faster as well as more accurate.

I also recall reading (somewhere - still looking for that article) that rather then having full length battens motorized, they will be segmenting to 3 sections per "lineset", so gaining the ability to fly pieces without using the entire batten.

The full NYT article is here, you may need to subscribe. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/a...-on-60-million-renovation.html?pagewanted=all

This is on the LiveDesign site: Technical Renovation at Metropolitan Opera House | News content from Live Design Magazine


FWIW, Our Clancy systems move slowly. I believe this was the cheapest motorized upgrade we could get and speed was not in the budget. It doesn't really matter as we have not as yet used them as a scenic fly move, but as Kyle stated in previous posts, needing to repeatedly bounce an electric to deck focus can take time. I believe our upgrade for 7 linesets ran $200,000 installed.

 

[StradivariusBone]

We motorized 7 of our electric and ladder positions about 6 years ago.

If you don't mind my asking, what was the price range on that retrofit? We've got two dedicated electrics with these compensating cable assemblies and truss with baskets for the multi-cable that weighs about a ton by itself. PITA is an understatement. It's SECOA built though.

 

[sk8rsdad]

If you don't mind my asking, what was the price range on that retrofit? We've got two dedicated electrics with these compensating cable assemblies and truss with baskets for the multi-cable that weighs about a ton by itself. PITA is an understatement. It's SECOA built though.

I believe our upgrade for 7 linesets ran $200,000 installed.

So that would be around $29,000 per lineset. By way of irrelevant comparison, we installed 9 lineshaft winch systems (different brand, different configuration, different requirements, different weight limits, did I mention "different" often enough?) for $14,000 per lineset.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

If you can live with the counterweight set with a motor assist, that would be a lot less. Powerassist from Clancy is one but at least SECOA and Thern have similar and have hear you could use an EXO version of the Prodigy. I use $12,000 for a budget price, They all would give you about a thousand pounds normally. Whiter after cable and bare pipe weight that is always enough or whether you still have to balance occasionally is not clear.

$29,000 seems high for fixed speed. Have two 30+ set Prodigy systems - mix of models - averaging in the $20,000 each range. For a basic slow dumb set, $20,000-22,000 is not bad. Though if you start messing with feeders much, I find they end up getting replaced along with plug strips more often than I would have thought. And high speed high capacity - upwards to $50,000 per set plus some expensive console on top of that.

I'd like to know how the above $200,000 was contracted and what it included besides the machines and controls.

It will vary a lot depending on so many things.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Either way, outside of what we as a HS PAC could afford on our own without grants or other assistance from our county. One of the lineset schedules supplied by SECOA indicated that a winch-assisted electric option was considered, but most likely discarded during the "cut" phase of the design.

 

[SteveB]

I'd like to know how the above $200,000 was contracted and what it included besides the machines and controls.

.

- As I think back......The arbors for 5 electrics needed to be replaced and the t-tracks needed to be re-mounted to accommodate a new and different arbor. As note, the existing electrics were dual single track arbors "married" at the pipe, thus you needed to haul 2 adjacent purchase lines to get the electric moved. All our linesets are otherwise on 6" centers and the newer winch system needed the room for the floor motors, so won't work on a system on 6" centers unless you remove an adjacent lineset.

As well, the original arbors are all custom (as is the entire counterweight fly rail), a result of the building stage wall being built at an angle that is not perpendicular to the proscenium, so wedges had to be installed on the track glide blocks (new and old) to shim the arbor(s) so that they are parallel to the proscenium. Possibly much additional labor costs for all that.

- It's NYC and even though the installer was I Weiss (non-union AFAIK and a good company), the City University Contracts office always add's 5-10% or more for cost over-runs, etc.... thus a $200,000 budget. I have no idea how much I Weiss was paid.


As comment, it was not in the budget to install the Clancy Scene Control master control units, thus the individual winches have separate control heads with lock-out keys, up.down buttons, a dead-mans button and a target indicator. About the only operating quirk we find is a result of the very basic design of the control head, that has a single neon indicator that lights when you hit ANY target. There are 4 heights you can set as targets, with 4 as the lowest, 1 the highest. If you want to lower an electric/pipe from say - target 2 to deck, you will stop at 3 and 4 on the way down. The operator MUST pay attention as to which target they want to be at when you restore to trim height. If they "forget" that they stopped at 3, then you are at the wrong trim height. The indicator lights tell you are at a target, just not which one. If Clancy were smart, they would modify the head unit to have a small LCD display that indicates "1-2-3-4" for which target you are at. Would make life easier for the crew. In retrospective, I would budget for a master control unit (which can be added after the fact).

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Either way, outside of what we as a HS PAC could afford on our own without grants or other assistance from our county. One of the lineset schedules supplied by SECOA indicated that a winch-assisted electric option was considered, but most likely discarded during the "cut" phase of the design.

It seems unfortunately to be a now or never world for high school stage equipment - once when new and not again till a major redo in 20 or 30 or more years. Too bad they are forced to work that way.

On the other hand, focus on motorizing electrics for safety concerns and it being more common now anyway - for safety - "for the kids" - and when they finally get around to it just let it be dear its the time to fix some other things - like all the rigging and maybe the lighting as well. I find getting one significant issue funded makes it possible to pile on others.

 

[StradivariusBone]

We just finished getting our house lights replaced (EYW 500w halogens) for the second time since it was built in 1995, so we're well past the new phase of things, but financially Florida school districts are still rebounding from the torpedoing property taxes.

In any event, it's good to know there is an application and protocol to allow for a retrofit winch to be installed. It's sometimes good to drop aforementioned knowledge at opportune moments.

 

[agbobeck]

We always load our single purchase system from the deck. Our TD believes it is safer for students to load from the deck then our loading bridge


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[cmckeeman]

We always load our single purchase system from the deck. Our TD believes it is safer for students to load from the deck then our loading bridge


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The only benefit is that there is no fall risk and no drop risk, but it makes for a runaway risk.

 

[agbobeck]

Yea it's the drop/fall risk that we are concerned with . We have been doing it that way for so long. We have learned how to do it safely with no runaways in 8 years. I would like to use the bridge but our facility manager locked us out of the bridge because of his safety concerned.


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[BillConnerFASTC]

Your facility manager obviously is ignorant of stage rigging.

 

[agbobeck]

Yup.


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[derekleffew]

Student injured in 'Peter Pan' play mishap

 

[VCTMike]

Student injured in 'Peter Pan' play mishap

Taking down the set and some how he went up and hit his head on the scaffolding???? Runaway batten? Something is weird here....sure doesn't sound like it was related to any flying equipment or at least the explanation offered implies it was only 'set' related....

 

[josh88]

Well the picture shows them lowering him, and it says got him down. It looks like there was a runaway or some kind of out of weight scenario and he either held on, or got caught and lifted up.


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[sk8rsdad]

This article offers a little more information. On what little information is provided it sounds like a runaway while the student was on the fly gallery. It's hard to imagine how else he hit his head and didn't fall to the stage floor.

 

[VCTMike]

That article makes it sound like they unloaded the arbor without having it secured or attached to a winch and when it went he hung on for dear life, although it could have cost him his life.