Conventional Fixtures s4jr filament vs. booming speaker system...

[sforza]

hello all, I'm new to the forum - this is my first post, though over the past couple months your collective wisdom has played an instrumental role in helping me install a small new theatrical lighting setup in a theater/music/dance performance space. thank you all very much for that, and thanks in advance for your help with the following (no doubt dopey) question. (I tried to dig up a solid answer by searching, but only got a vague sense from what I found...)

we have dead-hung a very simple grid from the ceiling i-beams, but there are several spots in the long+narrow space we could not cover. a couple key areas I would like to down-light are directly under the two huge speakers suspended in the corners beside the stage. I can't name the models of these monsters off the top of my head, but they are 3'w by 4't by 3'd to give you a sense of the concert-worthiness of the units. anyway, the speakers are chain-suspended from steel pipes which are clamped to the i-beams above.

my question is - am I an idiot to install s4jr units and/or fresnels on these speaker-suspending steel pipes, thus hanging my lights within about a foot of the speakers (behind and to the side of them, specifically)? am I right to suspect this is a sure way to drastically shorten the life of my filaments? (the units are fitted with "long life" HPL's, fyi.)

again, thanks for your help.

 

[Dover]

I do not think it will be a problem. The HPL is a very hardy lamp, I have seen Source 4s survive 300+ miles of bad road on a meat rack in the back of a semi. I have also had subs in one venue powerful enough to rattle the spare lights on the catwalk and did not notice a reduction in lamp life of the source 4s 10 feet in front of the subs. So unless you have a lot of high volume thunder or gunshot cues for your show I would not worry to much about it.

Dover

 

[n1ist]

Just make sure the rigging on those pipes (and their hang points) is sufficient for the extra load of the fixtures and cables.
/mike

 

[Kelite]

Welcome to the ControlBooth, sforza-

In addition to welcoming you as a member within the forum, I also commend you for having foresight to ask the particular question you have. My guess is that a number of lighting installations take place without so much as a thought of other peripheral factors- one being resounding pulses from a PA or concert speaker system. As Dover and n1ist have pointed out, continue your due diligence regarding your actual rigging and original hang point limits, and you should be in good shape for the long run.

I'm curious, how did you find out about the ControlBooth lighting forum?

All my best,

 

[sforza]

well, that's great to hear, guys. I will fear filament strength no longer.

the rigging for the speaker support pipes seems quite solid, but I want to augment it with aircraft cable and swage sleeves (as "maxi-safeties" of a sort) before hanging the lights. quoth my college TD: err on the side of safety over-kill when you have a killer over-head.

I found controlbooth while googling for info on the best LED units for the money (ended up going with Colorkey 1w pars which are quite effective for our purposes). but as I mentioned, I culled almost every piece of information I needed to build a solid new lighting system from the posts on this forum - what a resource!

Many thanks again. more questions to follow, no doubt...

 

[DuckJordan]

only thing i can think of is make sure you don't have your power cables hung right next to the speakers or speaker lines, nothings worse than having a buzz over your sytem... it wouldn't be bad as it isn't on the pre-amp side but it could still effect the sound you would be placing out.