Spring-Driven Socapex Cable Reels

[AlexDonkle]

Has anyone here successfully used spring-driven cable reels for feeding Socapex (and possibly DMX) from the ceiling down to a flying batten?

Discussing with a few manufacturers, but curious to hear from anyone here that may have done it before as I'm more familiar with the motorized reels linked to line arrays. Working on a small, flexible theatre at a university with no fixed electrics, no grid, and battens that travel ~15' total on a counterweight system. They own a Genie lift that reaches the roof (and a stage floor they can drive on without Plywood). One of the options we're looking at for flexibility is attaching spring-driven cable reels to a track mounted to the underside of the roof structure, as this would allow them to re-locate power between battens as needed.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

I have - fixed, not tracked - usually to orchestra shells but a few times to electrics - and it works but I don't like them. They clutch like a window shade so hate the sound when suddenly it retracts some slack.

The non-fixed electric presents challenges. I think I'd go towards festooning to a trolley with a block and fall lifting a cradle, but hard to say for particular applications.

 

[egilson1]

They are also not very budget friendly.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

They are also not very budget friendly.

It's not for budget I don't use them. If its the right answer, I'll do it. I've seen too many stages and auditoriums not used much or with very inelegant and sometimes unsafe "fixes" because of mismanagement of budget. The maintenance people and mechanical engineers are fighting for doing those systems well and don't give up. I'm bothered when the theatre people - trying to be helpful or nice guys or whatever - seem eager to give up a lot. It's not about how much better it will be from before to after to do what you use to do, but how good will it be in 25 years for doing then.

 

[STEVETERRY]

Has anyone here successfully used spring-driven cable reels for feeding Socapex (and possibly DMX) from the ceiling down to a flying batten?

Discussing with a few manufacturers, but curious to hear from anyone here that may have done it before as I'm more familiar with the motorized reels linked to line arrays. Working on a small, flexible theatre at a university with no fixed electrics, no grid, and battens that travel ~15' total on a counterweight system. They own a Genie lift that reaches the roof (and a stage floor they can drive on without Plywood). One of the options we're looking at for flexibility is attaching spring-driven cable reels to a track mounted to the underside of the roof structure, as this would allow them to re-locate power between battens as needed.

Don't forget the likely 50% diversity requirement from NEC table 520.44 in calculating the maximum load on each circuit in the cable. This could be even less than 50% given the temperature rise from the coiled cable on the reel at its playing trim. There might not be much load capacity actually available while staying below the ultimate insulation temperature of the cable. This is the reason that a reel should be the cable-handling weapon of last resort in a theatre, IMHO.

ST

 

[JD]

Two reasons not to:
One (covered above) in that a coiled cable will operate hotter and should be de-rated based on that.
Second is that spools by their nature tend to flex the cable tightly. (Compared to a wide loop) Ultimately, a stranded conductor is made up of many small solid conductors. When a wire bends, these conductors are stretched and/or compressed. At some point in time, the strands start to break and the wire drops in it's capacity. This can lead to hot spots or even open circuits when the final few strands break or flash open like a fuse. (One of the reasons I never liked the idea of buying used cable.) I've seen a number of cables do this over the 30 years I was in the biz. Using a fox/hound, you can usually find the area of the break. I have done postmortem on a few of these sections and the outside usually looks fine. The inside is a different story. So, is this really a big problem? Well, tight kinks are worse then a spool wind, but why do something like spool when there are other alternatives?

 

[de27192]

If it helps you, in my last venue we had about 40 spring-driven socapex 'reelers' and about 10 spring-driven Ethernet 'reelers'. Soca reelers carried 2 socas, ethernet reelers carried just the 1 cat5.

Personally I think that they suck big balls and you're far better hanging looms of socas over the side of your top gallery. But that's just me.

The system we had was reelers in the grid, on I-Beam tracks, moving up and down stage. 3 sets of tracks - 1 SL, 1 SC, 1 SR for soca, 1 track for Cat5 (MSR), 1 track for 125A 3phase (MSL) and then smaller tracks over the U/D bars at SL and SR. So as electrics bars changed show to show, you just roll the reelers up and down the grid. Reasonably simple, but does need you to have a solid grid (they're very heavy) with traps in for the cable to hang through. This could be a show-stopper for many, frankly I think it'd need a lot of work to add reelers without replacing the grid.

The main points I would make are:
- Have a decent way of patching lights into the socas. Since you're more limited on the number of socas going to each bar, dim and hot sharing a soca has to be plausible. So have a patchbay somewhere which allows you to patch this in, or use dimmer packs which allow any channel to be made a dimmer or a hot.
- Frequently maintain the reelers and their bearings otherwise they get really stiff. Also keep the edge of the drum tidy and free of nicks in the metal, techs running the reelers up by hand will get big chunks of flesh taken out if the drum spins around with any damage to the exposed edges.
- Have laminated labels (which techs can fill in) on the fixed end of the reeler and the cable end. It can be filled in at grid height when dimmers are patched, then when you drop the cable ends in, it's clear which dimmers are where.
- Practice the procedure for running the reelers up and down by hand, when attaching to and removing from a bar.
- Try to never run the cables at an angle to the bar (IE to get around beams in the roof). Running them with any angle on the cable knackers the bearing.

Personally I would say they're really useful for fixed trusses where they will stay attached and run up and down all day. But for LX Battens which change show-to-show (IE LX2 is Bar 13 on Show 1, Bar 15 on Show 2 and Bar 12 on Show 3), the process of re-positioning them, hand lowering and raising them, and re-patching them, is not worth it for me. I'd rather chuck a soca loom over the side.

 

[porkchop]

I've worked with lots of cable reels. I've never found a model that works reliably long term.

 

[TheLightmaster]

Are chainfalls or (better) motors out of the question? Seems like a cable pick is a much better solution. If a row are hung motor up, you can bring in the chain and attach whatever loom the show needs.