Much gratitude for all this information. Makes a lot of sense now when I noticed one side of the 1st
electric border lights (red, blue, amber, 96 in all among 8 arrays on 1st and 2nd electrics ) started throwing amber with the
house lights. Yes, I unknowingly hot patched as I also watched a 1K
scoop on the
cyc dim as I move it to the left and pushed back in, purely coincidence in my forming the wrong idea. Full disclosure -- I'm an reasonably experienced sound guy (not a pro but been learning and doing for over 20 years) and I have dabbled with lighting in small
stage and dance studio productions, trying to help struggling friends get their show off the
ground.
I couldn't figure out where the patching was being done as worklights at the panel are blinding, and
deck worklights in general are almost nonexistent (early multi
LED floods in 4 medium bases along side and backstage walls with a twist timer on the wall near the
dimmer rack) so I couldn't really make out the markings on the sliders. Also, the underbalcony lights have never worked for the past 10 years through people I've know who taught at this middle school, this might help with troubleshooting since the
house chandeliers do work (someone put in
CFL twisties many years ago, they take a minute or so to warm up to provide decent illumination but I can see a huge problem if I needed them full on in an emergency. I guess the picture of the lack of adequate budget is keeping things from getting better.
Also, the
stage is used for dance classes, indoor PE activities, debate classes,
etc, and they
throw the ON/OFF
switch on the
EDI TCC to
power up all the lights for those activities (I've seen 3-4 of those 200watt bulbs blow filaments at a time); while helping on Memorial Day
Sunday with organizing the wardrobe in the building, we noticed all the
stage lights on including that 1K
scoop with a dark blue
gel aimed at a black drape only 2ft in front of it -- it was on since the previous Friday night and would have stayed on until Tuesday when school was back for the week... sorry, this is so frustrating to watch when they say there's no money.
So, this leads me to the next question which may have been answered in numerous other threads I've read, but I'll put it a little differently: Would faders at full behave electrically close enough to a straight
wire to provide
power to
DMX devices (fading would be via
DMX, not via the
power circuit)? I believe what I've read is that it's preferred to install a
relay in place of the
dimmer?
I'm attaching photos of the rest of the
dimmer rack and breakers, and the dreaded and laughed at taped instructions