Street Lights

Smatticus

Active Member
We just borrowed two streetlights from our community theatre for the musical we are doing at our high school. They have wooden boxes for bases, PVC piping for the post, and large plastic globes for the actual light. I'm going to wire these up so I can control them with the lighting board during the show but I'm not sure what type or size bulb would be suitable for this. I'm planning to wire up some sockets, place them inside the fixtures, run wire through the posts, then at the base run standard extension cord to a stage pin adapter so I can control it with a dimmer. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
 
Well, you can stick any lamp you want in ther for the most part. The part you do have to worry about is wattage your dimmer pack will throw to the lamp. So you got to do some math. Usually if you put the fader for the channel on about 25-35% is usually enough power without blowing the lamp. Thats about the easiest way to do it without useing step down/up converters.
 
White plastic ball looking globe? Or something that more looks like a UFO?
I would just put a line voltage medium socket in the fixture and install what ever lamp will create the maximum desired effect you need without dimming it this way it will stay as white as possible. Also use at least a inside frost if not a soft white lamp. As for wattage, again match wattage up to need - anywhere from 100w to 15 Watt. Anything above 100w perhaps even above 60w will require extra cooling or you can melt the globe. Even so some kind of vent might be helpful. Do you want a glow or some kind of lighthouse effect?

If you want more of an amber source of light or pinkish to match up with a sodium or mercury vapor source, either put a bug light in it or a translucent amber lamp in the fixture which will show thru as more of a point source than the frosted bug lamp. Otherwise you can get various "lifestyles" pink tinted lamps or pink dipped lamps to simulate other colorings, or blue and "Renewal" type color corrected to blue lamps to hit more of the metal hallide feel. But I would definately just go with a line voltage incandescant lamp as the source unless you need it really bright in which case you will have to do some extra special cooling.
 
Almost all of our fittings have a max wattage rating on them and tend to be either 60W or 100W, so check if there is anything marked there and keep within the rating.

Other that that, follow Ship's directions.
 
Yeah, it looks like a large frosted glass ball but it's made out of plastic, we're basically just planning to make it look like a lighted streetlamp, nothing extraordinarly bright or of any specific color, I just want to be able to control them with the lighting system because one I can vary the intensity and it is programmed into the cues and two so turning them on and off doesn't have to be in the hands of the stage people who might screw it up or forget. I think I'll go with a low wattage incandescant bulb then, maybe like a 40w. I'll check it out today, thanks!
 
We got a streetlight from the city, it was bent so we had to shim it up but it came with all the parts needed. I rember the bulb being similer to the ones in a gym high wattage but I dont rember how much off hand.
 
Yesterday I bought 40W incandescent bulbs and the sockets and wire I need to rig up the street lights, fortunately we also decided where they will go on the stage too. I'll give this a try and let you know how it works out, thanks for your suggestions.
 
I wired up the lights today and set up the street lamps, they look really good, thanks for your help, I can't wait to see how they work with the show! :)
 

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