Overloading Dimmer without blowing it up?

[Les]

I don't think 4x 600w lamps would give you any trouble. Just be sure to give it plenty of run time during rehearsals. I don't have a manual handy for your racks, but perhaps someone around here might know if they are reliable to 100% capacity. My experience is that EDI racks are pretty resilient. The fact that you have them limited at 90% helps.

One note about overloading -- even though the dimmers seemed to handle it, be mindful not to overload the wiring leading to the dimmers . If you have #12 wiring in your system, you were definitely risking it with that 28 amps. You need #10 wiring for that kind of current. Just a note .

 

[Robert]

I remember trying this in my younger days. I too thought that if I did the simple math I could overload a dimmer to a certain percentage and get away with it. I found out that that I was way below 50% output on the board before the breaker would trip. So if you ignore the possiblity that you are violating NEC codes and are happy with a level below 50% you might get away with doing this.
As others have said, the compromise should be elsewhere. Perhaps a re-patch with another dimmer during the show? I used to designin a school with 18 6Kw dimmers and a telephone patch. We did re-patches almost every scene during musicals.

 

[LightTamer]

I would LOVE to have a lighting patch bay, but we don't have one. Everything is straight out of the rack to 2 or 3 outputs on bars over the stage. (We don't even have real lighting truss here)

Like i said, i would NEVER overload something like that or try to pull that much power for long. It was basically -plug, test, "oh, cool, it works," unplug- on the 750 watt lamp.

But really, what's wrong with wires catching on fire? I thought that was cool these days!