The eigth grader orientation day at my high school is coming up and part of it is each group such as band and sports and gamer's club set up booths in the gym to attract new members. I am gonna set up a super-duper techie booth with live cameras and whatnot but my one question is about the elipscan. The motors that move the mirror already plug into a wall outlet, but the light that shines into the mirror, a source4, uses stagepin, and i don't have a small portable wall outlet powered dimmer rack. What would happen if i plugged one end of a stagepin-edison adapter into a wall outlet and the other end directly into the instrument? I'm hoping it will just make the light shine at full but I really have no idea if this is common practice or really stupid and gonna explode.
source4+wall outlet = ?
- Thread starterFlorple
- Start date
It will work just fine. However, make sure that you have enough power for everything you are bringing! If your booth is powered off something like a power strip, they are usually only fused for 15A total which is 1800W (no more than three source fours lamped at 575W). However, if you and the booth next to you plug in power strips to the same outlet, you are sharing probably a 20A (2400W) circuit. So make sure that you really know how much power you need or your booth could go from cool to flop in seconds!
Yes, it will just bring the instrument to full intensity. We have an extension cable attached to a hot wall circuit which we carry around during hangs to help troubleshoot instruments that aren't working. And obviously keep an eye on how much power is running into each wall circuit. I don't know how much power the elipscan eats up, but just make sure you do the math before you put them on the same circuit.
Remember that just because an outlet is rated for 15 or 20 amps, that doesn't mean that what is on that particular outlet is the TOTAL load for that circuit. It is possible that that outlet is wired to other outlets as well and whatever is on those outlets will add to the total load for the circuit.
quarterfront
Member
FYI, a single Source-4 with a 575W lamp is going to draw about 5 amps.
natethegreat
Member
you are definitely able to plug in a source four. over this past school year we had our theatre renovated and so one of our shows and all of our practices were done in a cafetorium that was made available to us by our principal. we hung batons from the metal girding (above the suspended ceiling) and used dimmer packs and daisy chained the dimmer packs. we found that absolute max is 3 575W source fours per circuit. in the future, if its for small venues where color temp isnt that much of a deal go for 300W bulbs, you'll be able to add a 4th source four on the circuit. a little extreme for what your doing, but if you want to be able to dim it you can definitely take a dimmer wall switch and hook it up to the light and then to the wall socket so that you can dim the source four.
Ok I know you are new here so I'll go easy on you, but nevertheless,
They are called battens, not batons.
Source 4's can be lamped at 750, 550 (Dimmer Doubling only) 575 or 375. There are no 300 watt lamps for them. And it's preferred to call them lamps, not bulbs.
While the "wall dimmer switch in a portable box" method has been done for years and will continue to be, grabbing the cheapest rotary dimmer from the hardware store and doing this method is frowned upon, and it against electrical code. Dimmers like that are meant to be installed permanently and often for lower wattage situations. No more than one Source 4 can be put on one. Now, a person can certainly buy a "wall type" dimmer suitable for the purpose, but of course, they are alot more heavy duty and alot more expensive.
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You couldn't. The device you describe,
is a male stagepin to female Edison adapter:
20A Stage Pin to Edison House Adapter 5001116 - Mole-Richardson Electrical Distribution, Boxes, Cables, Plugs
natethegreat
Member
porkchop
Well-Known Member
Having been someone that Derek has corrected numerous times over my membership here I understand the step back and justify method but did you really modify the lamp base and order the special 375W bulbs meant only for dimmer doubling on an ETC sensor rack? That seems like an awful lot of money/time for rehearsals in a "cafetorium." It sounds more like you lamped at 575W lamps, played nice with your fixtures, and just barely make it under 2400W (20a @ 120w, where 575 * 4 = 2300W). Also I have no idea what "es ist mir egal" means, I have a feeling I can guess through context, but more common terms would make you more understandable.
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porkchop
Well-Known Member
I Got tired of editing my last post so I will further say that HPL 375W lamps use just over 3 amps so yes if you bought them specially for rehearsals you could fit 4 even on a 15 amp wall breaker, but I still doubt that is the case unless you use 375W lamps in your actual theatre. Also dimmer doubling lamps are 77V 550W lamps that would pop breakers faster than 120 V 575W lamps because of the higher amperage used per lamp. In numbers the 77V 550W dimmer doubling lamps require just over 7 amps each while 120V 575W require just under 5 amps each. So in the end the 120V lamp are still a better option for fixture/circuit.
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natethegreat
Member
It should work just fine. I set up the light for the same thing at my school last year and it went off fine. Just make sure that you do not plug it into a power strip and the light should work.
Lightingguy32
Active Member
It should work fine.
renegadeblack
Active Member
The plain and simple of it is, yes. If you have pretty much only that light on the circuit, maybe with the exception of the motor controls, you will be fine to use a female stage pin to male edison adapter. As was said though, make sure you know what you have on your circuit because it can go from cool to suck in a hopefully relatively short amount of time hoping that you have functional circuit breakers, if you don't, a pyro effect would be pretty cool
JD
Well-Known Member
Ah... just in case it was not covered; Needless to say, you cannot run one of the 77 volt "dimmer doubling" lamps off a 120 volt wall outlet. It would be popsville for the lamp.
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