The lighting and audio compamnies were different. It is very common in this town to run lights with
edison plugs. Typical rigs might have fixtures plugged into 6-bar pre-rig with
edison then with multi cables to the dimmers. Dual outputs on the
dimmer to allow for two-fering at the rack with no two-fering in the air. I have seen quite a number of professional lighting and AV companies use 15 amp
edison plugs on their systems. All of their systems seem to be designed with
dimmer per
circuit and
circuit per
fixture. They seem to part from the
conventional theatrical users which has max rated plugs and cables for each
dimmer, such as 20 amp
plug on 12
gauge cable to a 2.4k
dimmer. The AV companies also use 14
gauge wire for their multis and extensions. That does not, in my opinion make them less professional, just seems that they design their systems to run amd meet their needs and that of the
NEC. Only one rental
house in town commonly stocks fixtures with
stage pins and that is because they primarily rent to established theaters. When they cross rent or
send gear on an AV job, they
send out adaptors for
edison to
stage pin.
I also must mention that I have seen touring rigs n the past use plugs to
power their
speaker systems that are also availbale for elctrical uses. They just are not as common as an
edison extension
cord. Typically this was a
twist-lock type
plug to their speakers from their racks. I might be showing my age on this as I have not seen this in quite some time. Except in this case with the
edison plugs. Never imagined that it could show up anywhere else.
As for the audio company in my response, I pointed out the AC cable connections from their speakers to my co-worker and laughed. I could not believe the risk they were taking of blowing a $8000.00
speaker on a twenty dollar
cord.
As for my answer to the question, I know that
speaker runs are not shielded or grounded , that is why I (laughingly) mentioned that the plugs were not 3 pin to match the 3
conductor wire thay used. They used three
conductor cables for a two
conductor plug. While not technically wrong it could be considered wrong.
Why would a neutric NL 2
plug be rated to 250 volts AC? Just curious, I don't know.