Control/Dimming Worst Dimmers You've Worked With

Dondaley

Member
I am a music major at college, not a theater major, but I do know how to run a board (basically).
I have had the distinct displeasure of working with four DJ grade NSI dimmers. We are running about 16 Altman Lekos, and the dimmers are fused with cartridge fuses no bigger than what you find in x-mas lights.
Now, my dept. has an opera/musical theater program which puts on a show every year, and the last couple of years we've been doing it in our space (though we hope to do it next door in the brand new black box which has nice new ETC dimmers, next year), anyhow, these fuses like to blow at the slightest thought of over load (although I'm not sure we really have the right fuses), and the worst part is that the fuses are in these four little chambers on the bottom of the dimmers, and if you accidentally put the cover(s) for theses chambers back in/on with no fuse in there you'll never get them off/out to put a fuse in there:evil:.
If it were up to me, and if the dept. actually had any money to work with, I'd deep six those !@#$%^ NSI dimmers and re wire the place so they could run off of a portable dimmer unit (like a portable Sensor+, or CD 80).

So, those are the worst dimmers I've worked with, how about you?
 
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...So, those are the worst dimmers I've worked with, how about you?
For totally different reasons, I'd say it's a toss up between the Sensor CEM+ and, in the late 1970's, a thirty-year old installation of dimmer, resistance that had never seen any maintenance.

...and the dimmers are fused with cartridge fuses no bigger than what you find in x-mas lights. ...
The 5x20mm glass fuse is available in a wide variety of current and voltage ratings and styles and is a standard in most industries.

Your tales of blowing fuses as a condemnation of all dimmer, shoebox speaks more about your knowledge and experience than the quality of the dimmers in question. The OCPD is there for a reason--to save lives. If you're blowing fuses, there's likely a good reason. Are you using the exact type as specified by NSI? Are you overloading the circuit, even by a little? If you can't remember to insert a fuse, even a blown one, into a spring-loaded fuseholder and then later find it difficult to remove the cover, is that really the fault of the dimmer?

Shoebox dimmers cost $80-400 for four 600W channels. Sensor and CD80 are about $4000 for twelve 2400W channels, plus power feed distribution. Sure, I'd like a Cadillac Excalade EXT, but my Toyota Pickup gets me where I want to go. Dimmers are tools, a means to an end, not the end itself.
 
Shoebox dimmers are what they are. Although these were NSI, there are a whole bunch of brands that are in that group. Almost all use those fuses, fuse holders, and undersized triacs. They range in price from about $80 to about $260 and vary a bit in quality. For the casual user, who is running 600 watt loads or less, they do ok. They are the alternative of using real dimmers which are many times higher in price.

Most have a rating of 10 amps per channel, and an overall max for the pack of 1800 to 2400 watts. Note how they say 10 amps as compared to 1.2kw. They are really not reliable above 600 watts as they usually use 15 amp triacs and are more likely to pop the fuse or toast the triac at 1kw due to inrush.

Some of the packs come with a 14/3 cord, which de-rates them to 15 amps total. Some have a 12/3 cord, but a 15 amp plug. Few (if any) have a UL rating.

FIne for the party crowd, and I admit to having a couple laying around, but they are what they are!

EDIT: Looks like Derek beat me to the post !!!

EDIT #2: As for the worst dimmers, well.... I can remember the days of resistance plate and auto-transformer dimmers, where you needed to work out in a gym to prep for a show ;)
 
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I've worked with the NSI dimmers in the past and I have to say that they work just fine. You have to load them correctly (no 750w or 1kw loads!!!) or else you'll blow fuses, but for 500w Fresnels they work great. There is a reason they are fused the way they are, it's the most power the dimmers, and the supply circuit can deal with!

There are MUCH WORSE shoebox dimmers out there, a local highschool uses some particularly evil ones along-side their NSIs that not only do you have to completely remove the back cover to change the fuses (essentially, take the pack ALL THE WAY DOWN), but they've had several channels fail on the packs.

At least you have the NSIs, which are much more durable, and allow you to swap fuses in the air!

Why do you need to put the fuse-holder back into the pack without a fuse in it anyway? If it's blown and you don't have a replacement, put the blown one back in until you have one! Thats what I do! That way the holder does not go missing.

Knowing the limitations of your gear is paramount to using it correctly. Think of it like trying to use a sledgehammer to drive a finishing-nail. it may get the job done, but not well or easily. Shoebox dimmers are meant for certain situations, where full installed dimmer racks are just not a good solution.

Hey, even with a full installed dimmer system. Sometimes its nice to be able to have a few channels of extra dimming where/when you need them ;) .

Edit: JD beat me to my post lol.
 
I've worked with the NSI dimmers in the past and I have to say that they work just fine. You have to load them correctly (no 750w or 1kw loads!!!) or else you'll blow fuses, but for 500w Fresnels they work great. There is a reason they are fused the way they are, it's the most power the dimmers, and the supply circuit can deal with!

There are MUCH WORSE shoebox dimmers out there, a local highschool uses some particularly evil ones along-side their NSIs that not only do you have to completely remove the back cover to change the fuses (essentially, take the pack ALL THE WAY DOWN), but they've had several channels fail on the packs.

At least you have the NSIs, which are much more durable, and allow you to swap fuses in the air!

Why do you need to put the fuse-holder back into the pack without a fuse in it anyway? If it's blown and you don't have a replacement, put the blown one back in until you have one! Thats what I do! That way the holder does not go missing.

Knowing the limitations of your gear is paramount to using it correctly. Think of it like trying to use a sledgehammer to drive a finishing-nail. it may get the job done, but not well or easily. Shoebox dimmers are meant for certain situations, where full installed dimmer racks are just not a good solution.

Hey, even with a full installed dimmer system. Sometimes its nice to be able to have a few channels of extra dimming where/when you need them ;) .

Edit: JD beat me to my post lol.

Like I said, I'm a music major, not a theater major. I kind of fell into handling the dimmers/lights in the dept. because I was the only one with any experience whatsoever with lights.
I realize that I probably should have put even a dead fuse back in, but at the time (right before the show), I didn't know the covers would be impossible to get out. The music dept. is the only entity on campus with shoe-box dimmers, and yes they are o.k. for what they do, and are better than nothing, but it would be nice to have the real thing (hell, it could be theater dept. property and we could bum it off of them for all I care).
I didn't mean my comments as a condmenation of all dimmers in the category of shoebox type dimmers, nor even NSI, I'm just saying those are the least pleasant dimmers I've worked with.
 
Oh, to remove a fallen fuse cap, try double sided tape on the back of a pencil eraser. Just a matter of moving it to the right location and shouldn't take much to pull it out.
 
I've used modern cheap shoebox dimmers, but the least dependable electronic dimmer I have ever used was the old (1960's vintage) edkatrons. The fuses would regularly blow when a lamp blew. Even though the fuses were fast blow fuses ( read hard to find and expensive ) frequently the triac would blow before the fuse. The lamp sing was LOUD.

But for all that, for the time it was considered an ok dimmer.

My point - Dimmer tachnology today is a LOT better than it used to be. Today's inexpensive dimmers are more reliable than the first generation units.
 
Have to admit, I wish today's "Junk" was around back in the 70s ! It would have been considered "Deluxe" and "Super!" The first dimmer system I had, I built from scratch using the old SK3509 triacs. 48 channels worth. (Remember RCA's SK line of universal parts?) Probably took me 800 hours to build it, but back then time was all but free!

I would have given an arm and a leg for some of the Chinese stuff of today, that in 1970 dollars, would have worked out to about $20 for a four channel shoebox dimmer. I think when those old 12x3 EDI Scrimmers came out I paid around $3,000 (Which in today's dollars would be above 10 grand. )
 
We used to have to train monkeys to hold shades over the fronts of the gas lights when we wanted to fade...... Them were some finicky dimmers I tell ya.......
 
Although I'm not exactly an NSI fanboy, I too would take them any day over the "Wall O' Resistance Dimmers" we had in high school. If things go bad on an NSI shoe box it just stops working. If things go bad on a resistance dimmer sparks fly and fire shoots out. :shock: It was about my sophomore year in high school when someone told me, don't turn dimmer #2 on, it causes a fire to start inside the dimmer panel... and they weren't joking.

By the way, if you are looking for a shoebox, check out the Leprecon ULD series. They come in a nice variety of model options stage pin/edison/Soca, 1800/3600 watts, 4/6 channel outputs. Read the specs here. They cost more then most portables at 4 channels/1800 watts around $500, but I'm really impressed with the build quality. I installed them in a small semi-permanent system recently and they are really slick. I'll let you know in a few years how they held up.
 
I too would take them any day over the "Wall O' Resistance Dimmers"

The thing I remember was the HEAT! Junior High had plate dimmers and the "Cage" would turn into a convection oven. Then in High School, we had "Modern" Auto-transformer dimmers and they were so much cooler!

....as for the monkeys... Big safety issue keeping the stage free of those banana peels !
 
The thing I remember was the HEAT! Junior High had plate dimmers and the "Cage" would turn into a convection oven. Then in High School, we had "Modern" Auto-transformer dimmers and they were so much cooler!

....as for the monkeys... Big safety issue keeping the stage free of those banana peels !

I've got two little Elation 4 ch dimmer packs

each channels i capped at 5amps. Smaller then you standard shoebox dimmer but they run my little 3 1/2 inky's just fine, and even a 575 S4 with the 110v lamp in it fairly reliably. though bumping a source 4 to full on these guys has tripped the the internal breaker the channel a couple of times. :)

I've always wanted a Lighting Helper Monkey? know where i can pick one up?
 
So, those are the worst dimmers I've worked with, how about you?

Without doubt, the worst dimmers I have ever seen were made in about 1977 by a company called Kan-Tek. Funny, the things one remembers as one gets older:

1. The enclosure had awful wood-grain contact paper covering it. It got sticky and gooey as the pack heated up.
2. The master circuit consisted of a light bulb and six photocells (one for each dimmer), coupled together inside a sawed-off paper Dixie cup. This design was required because the dimmers had no isolated power supplies: they all operated at line potential everywhere in the control circuit. Clearly, clever industrial espionage had uncovered a wall box dimmer circuit that somehow merited copying, never mind that it was totally unsuitable for a professional dimmer pack.
3. The chokes were hunks of scrap-iron covered in white surgical tape and hand- wound with four or five turns of #12 THHN.
4. And from deep in my memory: the salesman was a guy named Hal Denman.

[Edit by Mod: See this thread http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/5703-attention-lighting-historians.html .]

Sometime ask me about the worst control console I ever saw. :cool:
ST
 
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Without doubt, the worst dimmers I have ever seen were made in about 1977 by a company called Kan-Tek. Funny, the things one remembers as one gets older:

1. The enclosure had awful wood-grain contact paper covering it. It got sticky and gooey as the pack heated up.
2. The master circuit consisted of a light bulb and six photocells (one for each dimmer), coupled together inside a sawed-off paper Dixie cup. This design was required because the dimmers had no isolated power supplies: they all operated at line potential everywhere in the control circuit. Clearly, clever industrial espionage had uncovered a wall box dimmer circuit that somehow merited copying, never mind that it was totally unsuitable for a professional dimmer pack.
3. The chokes were hunks of scrap-iron covered in white surgical tape and hand- wound with four or five turns of #12 THHN.
4. And from deep in my memory: the salesman was a guy named Hal Denman.

[Edit by Mod: See this thread http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/5703-attention-lighting-historians.html .]

Sometime ask me about the worst control console I ever saw. :cool:
ST

OK SteveTerry! What Is the worst control console you ever saw?
 
How about a Panache ? ever run one of those ?
 
I would have to say NSI D6000 Dimmer packs ..... Blaaa. Buzz when you dim them and have these stupid fuses that get stuck inside when they pop.
 
...Did they ever make a decent control product?
The Patchman was quite good.;) And for a very short time, between the original Strand-Century Light Palette and the ETC Obsession I, the Prestige 1000/2000/3000s were the best consoles in the industry.
 
I would have to say NSI D6000 Dimmer packs ..... Blaaa. Buzz when you dim them and have these stupid fuses that get stuck inside when they pop.

Those things scare me... :sick:
 

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