Vintage Lighting Vintage 3 channel board with "Superior Electric" Powerstat dimmers- in use this weekend!

valvashon

New Member
Alki Elementary school in West Seattle is being torn down and replaced starting this summer. The school musical this year is being produced on the stage at the school this year, after being virtual or at the nearby high school theatre for many years. With my TV engineering background, I volunteered to do the lighting.
This is the super cool vintage 1954 lighting board. Everything in the auditorium can be controlled with the on off switches next to the glass fuses; if you leave that switch off and turn on the bank switch under the dimmer assign three position switch you can control individual banks with the giant powerstat dimmers at the bottom. The bottom three switches in the fuse panel send power to the dimmers and there is also a switch under the dimmers that shut them off.
This is an early example (I'm guessing) of an assignable lightiing board and it's a little hard to figure out because of all the switches but the 9 year old running it (short kids show, a few simple cues) is doing a really good job of it.
Except for a few missing knobs it's in good shape and everything works. Stage lighting consists of school supplied 75 watt equivalent LED's that I have put gels on for color. The rear grid has sockets that these screw into and three of these make a "bank" of lights. Front grid has two light banks plus three (two prong!) outlets that make another bank. I have plugged three 650's into the outlets and aimed them at the main character, dimming them to 60%. These 650's are converted Polaris 1K units with new sockets and lamps which hit the reflector reasonably well. In the auditorium there are 6 mid-century looking can lights with the 75 watt LED's in them. These are on dimmers (4 on 1 and 2 on 1) for control but run full.
Sorry for all the stickers and tape labels on the board but it's in use this weekend and then again one last time for the school auction thing. Blue tape covers up the knobs and switches for the house lights that have been converted to fluorescent and can't be dimmed any longer.
I'm guessing that this thing might have some parts or historical value when it's all done and that the demo company sees this and doesn't just pitch it.
 

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Unless it is specifically called out in the demolition specs, it will get scrapped. Yes, it's cool to us, but nobody else would find any value in it.

Rescue a knob or a nameplate as a memory, and let it go. That's what I did with an old, mint condition Ariel Davis dimmer panel. I saved one section of the unique slider patch, because it was relatively small and a manageable weight.

Superior Electric is still around and making those variacs. The panel looks very much like the 1970 vintage one in high school, possibly made Major Electric. That design was around a long time.
 
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This is definitely a cool piece of history, however, @FMEng is correct. There is really no value to anyone other than the "cool" factor, it will end up getting scrapped unless you specifically want to step up and save it. You might want to see if you can save the variacs when its on its way out. I have a number of variacs laying around the shop, all of which get used occasionally. They are a great tool to have around.
 
The day before demo starts, tape a piece of paper to it saying "Please call Val at XXX YYY-ZZZZ the day before demolition reaches this wall".

Hopefully, you have a suitable vehicle (SUV or the like). Keep it empty.

Hell; it can't hurt to try....
 
There was a similar setup at one of the Jr. High schools I attended built I believe in the late 40's early 50's. But the selector switches were all up high and they were 6 position. Below were 6 dimmers (variacs) on ling protruding handles, and a master. If you wanted the master to control the dimmer, you turned the handle of the dimmer vertical. Horizontal kept it from mechanically latching on to the master when the master was moved up or down. 3 dimmers were larger, higher wattage, 3 were smaller. But the auditorium only had 2 continuous strips of par downlight strip lights with 3 circuits, red, blue, and alternating green and yellow (Don't ask nobody knew) The house catwalk had 6 6" ellipsodials. The followspot receptacle in the projection booth had a stage-pin connector on a plate and above it another to assign that receptacle to a dial at the dimmerboard (backstage) or operate independantly on it's own local variac surface mounted to the wall.

It was great, everything had that odor all old burning stuff has - and steel oil, and carbon dust, and ozone. The finish on the panel covers was like a blue-grey hammered steel with a gloss coat. One dimmer was supposedly blown, In HS I found out they have carbon brushes which get worn out and sfail to make contact so I went back and fixed it by asking the head custodian to let me in to fix the bad dimmer. He said there's 2 now... I said OK both bad dimmers then.

Oddly the house lights could not be dimmed, only circuit breakers could turn them on or off other than keyed on/off panic buttons at 2 auditotium entrances and 2 pushbuttons backstage in the dimmerboard cage. The switching was done with a 3 phase contactor. They didn't like the way it would go BANG! when you used the pushbuttons so they just used the breakers all the time.
 
There was a similar setup at one of the Jr. High schools I attended built I believe in the late 40's early 50's.
I started theater lighting in high school. I thought I was old but you have me beat.
But the selector switches were all up high and they were 6 position. Below were 6 dimmers (variacs) on ling protruding handles, and a master. If you wanted the master to control the dimmer, you turned the handle of the dimmer vertical. Horizontal kept it from mechanically latching on to the master when the master was moved up or down. 3 dimmers were larger, higher wattage, 3 were smaller.
The panel we had was very similar but we had 9 dimmers in 2 rows.
The house catwalk had 6 6" ellipsodials.
Nice. The house at this school was a cafetorium with 6 ellipsoidals on a bar about 20' from the floor. I told my teacher that I wanted to adjust the focus on them and after a couple days I got called out from class to find an extension ladder set up by the custodians. I was told to have at it.
Oddly the house lights could not be dimmed, only circuit breakers could turn them on or off other than keyed on/off panic buttons at 2 auditotium entrances and 2 pushbuttons backstage in the dimmerboard cage. The switching was done with a 3 phase contactor.
Maybe not so odd. I remember the house lights were on a separate contactor that also went BANG.
 
I started theater lighting in high school. I thought I was old but you have me beat.
[/QUOTE]
I graduated in 1984. Went to 3 high schools, 2 Jr Highs, and 2 Elementary schools. Divorces are toughest on the kids.
The panel we had was very similar but we had 9 dimmers in 2 rows.
[/QUOTE]
The other Jr. High had 5 rows of 6 dimmers, and a 7th submaster handle (except the top row) that the 6 dimmers would latch onto to pull the whole row down if the handle was turned. Then at the end a huge lever which was the grand master which would latch onto the submasters if the submaster's handle was turned. There was no dial or corded patching. T

op row of 6 was for the gymnasium/ auditorium lights. The pushbuttons on the walls at every door controlled all the gyms lights, even though the gym had walls to divide it into 4 quarters. 4 of the dimmers worked each quarter the other 2 did nothing. The keyed pushbuttons slected dim or direct, so direct meant a contactor bypassed the dimmer settings, the lower dim button changed the state of he contactor to connect the gym lights to their respective zone dimmer, so... during a production the house lights dould dim up and down... but during school all they needed was on or off,.

The next 4 rows, top did the rear stage batten, a permanent continuous row of strip lights 3 circuits, red blue green... the next 3 dimmers were for receptacles built into the strip lights wiring trough. There were no fixtures. At the center and extreme stage L and R there were odd receptacles, basically a rectangular hole with copper or brass contacts on each side. These were for some higher power lights. Now idea how many total receptacles or how they were circuited amongst the 3 dimmers. No ground prongs on any of them btw.

Front batten identical to rear. but on the third row of dimmers.

The 4th row 1st dimmer controlled 3 lekos recessed into the gym ceiling behind a rotatable ellipsodial shaped cutouts in steel plates, there were 3 groups of 3 fixtures, one each on each dimmer. The last 3 dimmers in the row labeled spares.

The entire 5th row was labeled spares as well. Theis board was about 12' long, 8' tall and 30-36" thick freestanding right beside the steps that lead to the door from the stage left. 24" of room between the board and the railing. This building was from the early 70's.
Nice. The house at this school was a cafetorium with 6 ellipsoidals on a bar about 20' from the floor. I told my teacher that I wanted to adjust the focus on them and after a couple days I got called out from class to find an extension ladder set up by the custodians. I was told to have at it.
[/QUOTE]

Yep - they know. In the 1st more modern school i was only in 6th and 87th grades so, no go I just operated, but in the next school described in an earlier post with the patch selector switches, I was doing that in 8th grade and went back in 9th and 10th when I was in the high school. That at least had a closet with a permanent ladder to the catwalk for the apron lights.

Then the high school had a remote 0-10v dimmer board and a cable patch panel located at the very top by the backstage ceiling, had to climb a wall mounted ladder 2 flights to het to the hatch in the patch room's floor and climb up and in. There were the dimmers on individual racks with 50a breakers each, and 6-circuit socket strips and cables on weights in a compartment one for each receptacle in the autitorium. There were 4 non-dims as well. I left that school 1st quarter of 10th grade and sometime after the new year that auditorium burned down and suffered a complete gut job right down to the bones. It was rebuilt exactly the same except they could not source the lighting control equip. as specified in the original architectural plans for the building and put something else in that I was told made everyone unhappy.

Maybe not so odd. I remember the house lights were on a separate contactor that also went BANG.
 
Alki Elementary school in West Seattle is being torn down and replaced starting this summer. The school musical this year is being produced on the stage at the school this year, after being virtual or at the nearby high school theatre for many years. With my TV engineering background, I volunteered to do the lighting.
This is the super cool vintage 1954 lighting board. Everything in the auditorium can be controlled with the on off switches next to the glass fuses; if you leave that switch off and turn on the bank switch under the dimmer assign three position switch you can control individual banks with the giant powerstat dimmers at the bottom. The bottom three switches in the fuse panel send power to the dimmers and there is also a switch under the dimmers that shut them off.
This is an early example (I'm guessing) of an assignable lightiing board and it's a little hard to figure out because of all the switches but the 9 year old running it (short kids show, a few simple cues) is doing a really good job of it.
Except for a few missing knobs it's in good shape and everything works. Stage lighting consists of school supplied 75 watt equivalent LED's that I have put gels on for color. The rear grid has sockets that these screw into and three of these make a "bank" of lights. Front grid has two light banks plus three (two prong!) outlets that make another bank. I have plugged three 650's into the outlets and aimed them at the main character, dimming them to 60%. These 650's are converted Polaris 1K units with new sockets and lamps which hit the reflector reasonably well. In the auditorium there are 6 mid-century looking can lights with the 75 watt LED's in them. These are on dimmers (4 on 1 and 2 on 1) for control but run full.
Sorry for all the stickers and tape labels on the board but it's in use this weekend and then again one last time for the school auction thing. Blue tape covers up the knobs and switches for the house lights that have been converted to fluorescent and can't be dimmed any longer.
I'm guessing that this thing might have some parts or historical value when it's all done and that the demo company sees this and doesn't just pitch it.
Seattle too fare from NY but I'd love to have that on my man cave wall...
 
Why, yes, as a matter of fact. Last ran one in 1993. Quite an amazing console for its time. Anything specific you wanna know?
Nah, that's what they installed in My HS back in 1984. It folded up like a briefcase, compared to the 6' wide, 3' deep console it replaced. Theatre arts tech. director thought we got scammed. The patchboard disappeared, the dimmer rack was replaced they used to slide out heavy as cinder blocks, now they're circuit cards... and patching was done I think through the dimmerboard? Lost 40 6K dimmers for 48 2400 or 4800 watters (can't remember.) But added no more circuits to the 3 battens which each only had 16 circuits, no rear wall plugs nor side light plugs so... there really oughta be a law.
 
Hey, I can talk about the dinosaur in my profile pic now. It's young me in middle school amazed by the patch bay of a late 1950s Major autotransformer board. 40 dimmers total. 4 rows of 10 across. Top row was 6K and the rest were 2.4K. At that time only 5 of the 6Ks and roughly half of the 2.4Ks were still operable. Almost none of the grandmaster locks worked. The center panel had the contactor main and master and the company switch. The huge box on top was the motorized dimmer for the house lights.
I cut my teeth on that board. With two ops a 2 ft. stick and some contorting we could make some great looking fades and crossfades. LOL.
 

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