What do you leave on 24/7

What do you leave ON 24/7


  • Total voters
    114
Actually it's not. Blue more negatively affects the photoreceptors in your eyes that are responsible for night vision. It's why you see Red illumination used in the military and as an offering on vendors who offer lights - for example Littlite offers white and red on their switchable lights. Getting ready to order a couple of those myself to illuminate the areas where our computers are better.


I have to bring up the first Nintendo home console It was a little Mario tennis game that used red to show up the figures. You couldn't play an hour without developing a headache from the red. And when your stage is black if you sit out in the audience which color are you going to pick up more often if some spills a bit onto stage? Personally I see red (as we have tried it in multiple venues the outcome always going to blue) before I ever see the blue. Which is also why when they are doing retrofits of new systems many companies put in blue glass bulbs in the metal cages for the running lights back stage.
 
... And when your stage is black if you sit out in the audience which color are you going to pick up more often if some spills a bit onto stage? Personally I see red (as we have tried it in multiple venues the outcome always going to blue) before I ever see the blue. ...

It has more to due with contrast that it does brightness. While it is true that Red has a shorter wavelength than blue and thusly travels a shorter distance, Red shows as more contrast in a darkened room than Blue will. Thusly, Blue is the prefered Running light...IMHO
 
Incandescent sources provide a much greater amount of light on the red side of the spectrum than the blue side of the spectrum. So, if you are using an incandescent source for your running lights, then a blue gel will block more light than a red gel. This is also why your blue gel will burn faster than your red gel. So, with a LED source, red makes sense due to it working better for your eyes. But since so many people have running lights that are not connected to a dimmable source, it is common practice to reduce the amount of light being emitted as possible.
 
We have two sets of work lights (one set above the grid, and another above each wing). We tend to leave the higher work lights on just for ease of traversing the stage. We make sure to power off our light and sound boards as well as our main wireless snake to save power, but I have a habit of forgetting to turn off the handheld wireless receivers. We also tend to leave a few of the booth lights and equity lamps on out of habit. Other than that, we make sure to turn pretty much everything else off.
 
I feel that almost everything on that list should be turned off and I would go even a step further to say that scroller power should be unpluged every night or when you shut everything down. It helps save the fan and the power supply and scrollers should not always be on. Also it helps save the life of the scroller. The only thing that can stay on is dimmers that are built into a space otherwise everything should be turned off/unpluged.
 
Hello!

Decades ago I was head of sound at Canada's Stratford Shakespearean Festival. (1977 - 82)
The monitor/page and intercom systems ran 24/7 year round.
Being in one of our snowbelts there were no performances in any of our theatres during winter.
In the main theatre, when I powered up sound in the spring it stayed on 'til after Halloween.
Power amps were 13 Crown D150's, 1 DC300 and 1 D60.
Most springs we'd lose a filter cap in one or two of the D150's upon power up. I'd install a new pair in each faulty amp and we'd be good to go for another season. Once successfully powered up things normally ran problem free for an entire season.

Previous to changing careers into theatre, I did commercial AM broadcast maintenance for 13 years where everything ran 24/7.

As I'm sliding into retirement I'm doing an amount of amateur theatre. As LX boards have become computers I'm seeing more and more UPS's. Once you've got a UPS in the booth you may as well have it power your ClearCom so you can still communicate during the potential panic of a power outage.

Thanks for the memories!

Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
The thought just crossed my head that except for a few power outages, our dimmer racks have been on for a very long time.... (and probably never cleaned...).

Mine are from when they first started doing dimmers, our system has barely been cleaned, maybe about 3 out of the 30 dimmers in the rack have been cleaned, and thats only because they tend to stop working. We would turn them off, but the house lights are wired to them along with the fact that they may not turn back on.. the rack operates every outlet in the theatre (the house, booths, offices).
 
All 4 Sensor racks stay on 24/7, in own room with own AC unit which runs 24/7/365. The size of the transformer in the room is bigger than a VW I bet. I usually leave the grid on to cast light onto stage, but because of strange programing in the unison system, I have everything in unison (house, work and orchestra) shut off at 3am. So I park 2 s4 on a pipe backstage L and R with blue in them to at least come into some light. I call those my ghost light. Speaking of, I leave my Empahisis computer on 24/7. I am afraid it will not boot up one day. Already done so much work to it, just want it to hang on till we go for a bond.
I also leave the amp/processing rack on during long runs or back to back (...to back to back to...) events. It is in a room by itself, cooled year round. I do shut it down for long dark periods and holidays. My digital snake head and studio out are always on, except for long breaks. All consoles and FOH processing is shut off every night. I might leave my Mac Pro on at FOH, but it also serves files and iTunes in the building.
 
Most of the racks I'm familiar with shut themselves down (hibernate) with no control signal present. I wouldn't shut them off unless they were being serviced or were not going to be used for an extensive length of time.

This year I worked in the a/v department at my school. There are plenty of 20+ year old Carvers and Crowns that have never been turned off, and still function properly. We usually stick with multiple smaller passively cooled amps for each room; only the largest lecture halls get fan cooled amps. Dust is a big issue, and with hundreds of rooms to keep an eye on, we don't have the time or manpower to pay attention to that many filters.
 
I don't know if Curtis looks here but some years ago he did a pretty careful analysis of depowering dimmer racks remotely - to nominally save quiescent power - and found that the initial cost of this - big relay with controls to booth and stage - would virtually never pay back since a Sensor rack drew less than 10 watts when dimmers were set to 0.

We have moved to mostly distributing power and data - no central dimmers or if any - a 6 pack for odd architectural loads that self dimming does not do well - and most circuits are relay controlled for depowering in off hours, but not house and work and utility and not the architectural control (Paradigm, nee. Unsion, e.g.). We don't do a/v systems but pretty sure that designer sets up all to be depowered in off hours. A few clocks, house and house control, and of course alarms and detectors and such. Dumb fixed speed motors are essentially depowered when not moving; haven't studied machines using VFD's but suspect there is a quiescent load, and perhaps a contactor is in order. Of course most e-stops - traditionally - would lift the power anyways - so that is an option.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back