Hello all,
I started with lighting in school working my way "up" for 6 years. Learned some basics on manual patch panels and autotransformes, became acquainted with Mr. McCandless. Finished school and haven't touched anything in more than 20 years. That's when the wife got involved with community theater. They were using the house lights and works lights for their production. Their primary space is a classic proscenium but they also use a lot of found spaces. With a bit of work fixing old equipment and a lot of begging they now have:
36 channels of 10A dimmers fixed to the stage hooked up to 125A 3ph service
24 channels of 10A portable dimmers 64A 3ph
12 Altman 360Q's
12 PAR 64's
2 Clay Paky Zoom 1200
All the dimmers are analog but thanks to a pair of demux's I'm able to run them from Obsidian Onyx running on a laptop with an xkeys keypad
They are really flexible and I pretty much have free run of the place. As long as all of my tools say Fluke on them, they and the insurance people are happy.
Due to "how great I was able to make their show look" I got involve with a children's theater the a friend of the wife runs. They are much better funded. It's all Source4's. Ellipsoids, pars, and fresnels, run by an ETC Element (the first one). A very nice bit of kit but they won't even let me climb a ladder. Lamp changes, focus, gels, everything must be done from a genie lift that they don't own and don't like to rent. Pretty much only every other year or so.
As for me I have a degree in electronic engineering and one in computer networking. I've been pretty good at actually making the lights turn on but I'm pretty marginal about making them look good.
I look forward to learning more. I would also like to thank all of you for the help you give. For experts to spend their time helping amateurs for no gain is truly appreciated.
-Danke
I started with lighting in school working my way "up" for 6 years. Learned some basics on manual patch panels and autotransformes, became acquainted with Mr. McCandless. Finished school and haven't touched anything in more than 20 years. That's when the wife got involved with community theater. They were using the house lights and works lights for their production. Their primary space is a classic proscenium but they also use a lot of found spaces. With a bit of work fixing old equipment and a lot of begging they now have:
36 channels of 10A dimmers fixed to the stage hooked up to 125A 3ph service
24 channels of 10A portable dimmers 64A 3ph
12 Altman 360Q's
12 PAR 64's
2 Clay Paky Zoom 1200
All the dimmers are analog but thanks to a pair of demux's I'm able to run them from Obsidian Onyx running on a laptop with an xkeys keypad
They are really flexible and I pretty much have free run of the place. As long as all of my tools say Fluke on them, they and the insurance people are happy.
Due to "how great I was able to make their show look" I got involve with a children's theater the a friend of the wife runs. They are much better funded. It's all Source4's. Ellipsoids, pars, and fresnels, run by an ETC Element (the first one). A very nice bit of kit but they won't even let me climb a ladder. Lamp changes, focus, gels, everything must be done from a genie lift that they don't own and don't like to rent. Pretty much only every other year or so.
As for me I have a degree in electronic engineering and one in computer networking. I've been pretty good at actually making the lights turn on but I'm pretty marginal about making them look good.
I look forward to learning more. I would also like to thank all of you for the help you give. For experts to spend their time helping amateurs for no gain is truly appreciated.
-Danke