Pan Screw or Yoke Bolt?

[zuixro]

All of our fixtures have Sure Clamps, so we don't have the "F*** it nut". Usually I use the Yoke Bolt.

 

[derekleffew]

Wow, ALL of your fixtures have Sure Clamps? That must have been expensive!

Rosco/JR Clancy Sure Clamp

 

[zuixro]

Wow, ALL of your fixtures have Sure Clamps? That must have been expensive!

Rosco/JR Clancy Sure Clamp

Yep, all of them. Except for the two ETC Revolutions. 80ish S4's and 40ish fresnels. Plus all of our drop boxes (2 each x 12 drop boxes). Plus all our PAR's (I don't even know how many) and the old Kliegl ERS's (They still see regular use in the studio, don't laugh).

Yeah, we have a lot of Sure Clamps. We just did a huge lighting upgrade like 4 years ago (at least $500k).

 

[MrsFooter]

At Footer's old high school, they very often use 19 Degree S4's for spotlights. A year or so ago, we attended opening night of The Wiz, when in the middle of the second act one of the spots suddenly dropped and swung wildly and there was a clatter and a cry from the audience.

The students were told to pivot their "spots" by loosening the pan screw, but decided it was easier to use the yoke bolt instead. After an act and a half of back and forth, the yoke bolt had worked its way loose of the clamp and the fixture fell out. It was saved from crashing to the house only by its safety, and even still the gel frame fell out of the fixture and hit an audience member below. No one was hurt, but it looked very badly on the theatre.

What I'm trying to say is that if we were meant to pan using the yoke bolt, they wouldn't have bothered putting a pan screw on the clamp. There are already too many lazy morons working in technical theatre, why be part of the problem?

 

[Les]

Maybe more people would embrace the pan screw if they made the d***ed thing easier to work with.

For me, the pan screw / yoke bolt debate is more of a "do as I say not as I do" kind of thing. If I am teaching a bunch of new crew members, it's pan screw all the way. If I am on a catwalk touching up focus and the beam needs to move 2' stage right, maybe I'll swing the instrument using the yoke. If it feels too tight, I'll make the necessary adjustments to the yoke bolt (you want it tight but not so tight that it's bound up). If it feels too loose, I'll re-tighten the yoke bolt. I will use the pan screw before I take a wrench to the yoke bolt though. One good thing about touching every instrument's yoke, is that it allows you to confirm that they are all the correct tightness. Some of you will not agree, and I accept that. It's not something that I will teach to a bunch of new recruits (unless you count this post), but I am familiar enough with what I'm doing to not get the yoke too tight, or so loose that it can be moved by someone bumping up against it (or falling and proceed to swing wildly about in the air).

Something tells me that the next debate will be along the lines of connecting and disconnecting instruments under load or cutting power first.

 

[chris325]

It was saved from crashing to the house only by its safety, and even still the gel frame fell out of the fixture and hit an audience member below. No one was hurt, but it looked very badly on the theatre.

How did an audience member get hit by an (assumed) hot gel frame and walk away unhurt?

Also, for all those not using safety cables, here's a great reason to invest.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

I usually use what is convenient at the time, but of course I always check to make sure the bolt is tight enough afterwards if I do use it.
We have safety cables on all our lights. And two on these long heavy multilight fixtures.
Our yoke bolts are really long too.

 

[MrsFooter]

How did an audience member get hit by an (assumed) hot gel frame and walk away unhurt?

Also, for all those not using safety cables, here's a great reason to invest.

I've been informed that my memory was faulty, and she wasn't hit by a gel frame, she was hit by the yoke bolt that fell out. I imagine the reason she didn't get hurt is because it probably fell into her lap, as opposed to falling squarely in the center of her skull. I'm not entirely sure, since we were sitting much further back and, well, it was dark.

 

[dcollins]

If it's a source four, the gel frame would have been clipped in anyway to prevent it from falling out and hitting people.

 

[jmac]

99% of the time, I don't loosen the yoke bolt to pan an instrument. I pan the instrument by grabbing the yoke and pointing it in the direction I want. If I want the pool of light 5' more to the right, this is easy, even if the instrument is overly locked-down (in which case I might even deliberately loosen it off a little). [Maybe I should stress, I only do this with subtle changes and touchups -- a little bit that-a-way] If panning to the left, I always make sure the yoke bolt is the proper tightness after I'm finished. For more drastic changes, yes I use the pan screw. In my experience, it is hard to over-torque a c-clamp's yoke bolt as long as it's using a proper flat washer. Not unheard of, but I have had WAY more issues with mega clamps and their belleville washers. That and the ETC lock washers.

I should also mention that many of the venues I work in have their FOH positions so that the instruments are yoked out about 45* because of low clearance between the pipe and the catwalk deck. In these cases, the pan screw is fairly inaccessible. I use the pan screw whenever possible, but the constraints on clearance sometimes don't allow it.

What are the issues with the ETC lock washer (gets too tight?), or pro/con versus the flat washer? Just got some c-clamps from BMI with the flat washer, and didn't know if I should change them to the lock washers, or change my ETC c-clamp lock washers to flat ones...

 

[jmac]

I have been slowly swapping out our old Altman C-clamps out with Global Truss trigger clamps which only have the single nut at the yoke.

From the factory they come with M10x1.5 wingnuts, which we have swapped out for standard hex nuts for additional holding power when you need to mount an instrument on a vertical pipe.

Recently got some Global Truss Pro Clamps to go with a crank stand t-bar. I noticed the yoke bolt is 3/8" in lieu of 1/2" (is this ok?), and there is nothing to keep the bolt from spinning when you tighten the stop nut. You need an Allen wrench. Seems rather inconvenient to have to carry the A-wrench around.

Thoughts? Should I have gotten the Trigger clamp model? It looks like the bolt head is held in place. What are other advantages of the trigger clamp? Thanks.

 

[Grog12]

All of our fixtures have Sure Clamps, so we don't have the "F*** it nut". Usually I use the Yoke Bolt.

Man, no top hanging at your school eh?

 

[zuixro]

Man, no top hanging at your school eh?

You can manage it. You just have to lift up on it, and tighten it down really well. We have 2 rows of pipes on all the FOH positions so we don't usually have to top hang.

Now that I think about it, that was like $10k in clamps. Wow.

 

[Grog12]

You can manage it. You just have to lift up on it, and tighten it down really well. We have 2 rows of pipes on all the FOH positions so we don't usually have to top hang.

Now that I think about it, that was like $10k in clamps. Wow.

Yeah, you should stop doing that as its not designed to top hang. They function correctly when the weight pulls down on them and not the other way around.

 

[zuixro]

Yeah, you should stop doing that as its not designed to top hang. They function correctly when the weight pulls down on them and not the other way around.

I didn't think you could top hang them, but I was told by multiple people that it was ok to do. Usually the ones that are top hung are so tightened down, that we just end up leaving them there.

Side hanging them kinda worries me, they feel like they're about to slip off.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

I was hanging lights for our next show today (Source 4 ERS's and PAR's) and I realized why I like the pan screw. When using a c-wrench, as I normally do, (Since I really only want to carry one wrench) it takes less adjustment of the knurled knob to go between the pan screw/clamp bolt than it does to go between the yoke bolt/clamp bolt, thus its a time saver, AND lessens how much one needs to move their thumb to adjust the wrench, thus a time save, less repetitive motion, and thus less carpo tunnel. I paid attention to how many loose yoke bolts I found and, as a majority, most were acceptable. Final tightening can be saved for the lighting focus.