Small (Potentially Portable) Stage Lighting

[MarfaLights]

That is easily the coolest thing I've seen all week. I had no idea such an adapter existed, very cool!

If you plug the track light into that fancy adapter, do you get free electricity?

 

[StradivariusBone]

So reviving an older thread- To catch up for those who don't want to read through 3 pages of it- I work part-time for my church as their AV tech and I was previously approached about upgrades to our kid ministry's performance/multi-purpose room. At the time I did a cursory glance and the money kinda petered out so the project died. Recently I was asked to revisit this and putting fresh eyes on the project has caused me to realize that there is some seriously dodgy stuff going on there.

Namely, they have two EV sx300's hung incorrectly and their track lighting they are using is only suspended with drywall anchors through the ceiling tiles. Nothing goes into metal at any point. So this is now on my front burner at getting it fixed as quickly and safely as possible.

Here's some photos-

This is from about the middle of the room, looking towards their stage area. There is another EV hung to the left, just out of the picture. The two rows of track lighting are being held up by the ceiling tiles only.

This is a picture of how these things are suspended. Bent eye lags, dog chain, and quick links. It's like the hat trick of bad rigging.

Better view of the hardware they used/made.


So I've started pricing out the MB100 kits and other hardware. Since this is dead hung, is Grade 30 chain an acceptable choice for this application? I know of the very long and verbose thread arguing the merits the phrase "overhead lifting", and I don't wish to reproduce that here. I will happily spec the safest chain if that's where the argument is now.

As far as the rafters go, I was thinking of bridging a piece of unistrut on top of the joists and lagging the unistrut into the wood from the top then using an eye bolt to provide a point. Does this make sense? I thought about bolting a shouldered eye through the joist (which are 2x8), or possibly getting really long eye bolts and going vertically through the joist, but both worry me with regards to weakening the joist.

As far as the lighting goes, the track lights are fed from junction boxes into flex conduit so I don't think it will be too hard to put those into junction boxes and mount them in the ceiling grid to provide power for the lighting. My plan there is to provide two "battens" of unistrut and mount a healthy mixture of LED and PAR38's fed from two shoebox dimmers. Not sure if the track lights are on separate breakers, but I don't intend on using more than 10 amps worth of lighting in any event.

I was also thinking that suspending the unistrut track for the lighting in a similar fashion as the speakers. Then instead of chain, dropping all-thread to suspend the longer piece for the lighting. I've been talking to a rigging friend of mine from a neighboring theatre and plan on talking to an electrician friend who's messed with unistrut before, but as always I like to get the opinion of the booth.

Thanks!

 

[RickR]

There are some new parts for working with T-bar. Look into Independent Support Clips. Cooper make similar stuff, of course. They allow for good support for the track lighting or even small(<50lbs) point loads. The real key is that they have support attachments from above so the T-bar isn't part of the chain.

While I've done a lot of stuff with strut, it's good to know that lighting track is intended to be self supporting. Most commercial electricians know strut and track lighting.

 

[JChenault]

As far as the rafters go, I was thinking of bridging a piece of unistrut on top of the joists and lagging the unistrut into the wood from the top then using an eye bolt to provide a point. Does this make sense? I thought about bolting a shouldered eye through the joist (which are 2x8), or possibly getting really long eye bolts and going vertically through the joist, but both worry me with regards to weakening the joist.

I am not a rigger nor do I play one on TV - however have you considered simply passing the chain around the joist. using a shackle to close the loop, and hanging the speaker from the chain? You have to be precise with your lengths ( depending on chain size , etc) but this might be an easier way to do it. No holes to drill. No eye bolt ( possibly non rated) to fail. You do have the chain possibly digging into the joist, but this does not seem like a major issue in the application.

( In my space we needed to hang light pipes and a focus track front of house. There were some sturdy joists and we ran 1 1/2 inch pipe over the top of the joist , overlapping several joists to spread the load. Tacked it down with plumbers tape, and then simply passed chain from the pipe hanger on the light pipe over the top pipe and back down. Worked beautifully. This method was recommended by the manufacturer of the focus track )