Smoke and burning smell from Sil30 shutters.

[SceneMaster]

Hi

 

My sil30s which are new second hand form a theatre and have been just serviced and PAT tested make a fine smoke and burning smell when the shutters get put into the beam when they are fully out the lights are fine with no smoke ore burning. One of the shutters was left in for a while smoking and burning to see what happened and now the burning has seem to have ceased when only that shutters in. I wondered what was causing this and is it natural if the lights have just been cleaned and services (not by me) for this to happen and if I leave all the lights doing this for a while the burning and smoke will stop. Wondering if it was just cleaning fluid or grease which caused the problem from the service? I had a sil follow spot do the same when I service it myself and I definitely didn’t use cleaning fluid. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks for your time,

 

SceneMaster

[SceneMaster]

Also I forgot to add is it ok to remove shutters completly from a light (sil30) when they are not needed at all for in that certain position and would only get in the way?

[paulears]

you can certainly take 'em out - I expect someone thought the shutters were a little stiff and wd40'd them - nice and smooth, but the smoke the oil produces stinks. once they've burnt off, they should be fine again.

[Stu]

Also I forgot to add is it ok to remove shutters completly from a light (sil30) when they are not needed at all for in that certain position and would only get in the way?

Just to clarify, do you mean take completely out of the lantern as in to store elsewhere, or so they are out of the optics?

 

Just want to check cos if it's the former I wouldn't recommend it as things have a habit of getting lost :)

 

Stu

[WiLL]

I would never recommend taking shutters out of a lantern. Because chances are in the next rig you'll need them, but forget they're missing until you try and focus them at the top of a tally.

The smoke is probably just wd40 as Paul says, just ignore the smoke and hope your venue doesn't have sprinklers ;)

[marc]

We had some on a show that had the same problem,

 

When we took the light to bits, it turned out that the bright spark that had sold them to the hire company we had got them off had decided that it was a great idea to paint the shutters with silver paint! ;)

 

Lots of smoke and burning, we were very lucky that the paint did not catch fire I guess,

 

Mk

[Just Some Bloke]

As others have said, the smoking isn't a problem and will soon burn off.

 

On the other point, I have had a similar problem when trying to fit loads of lanterns into a small space and, yes, sometimes I have taken a shutter or two out in order to gain space, but bear in mind 2 points: 1) take out as few shutters as you can get away with and put them back after the show or you'll lose them and 2) Lanterns produce heat so lots of lanterns in a small space will produce lots of heat if all used at the same time. Not a problem if they're being used at different times (e.g. several gobos onto the cyc which all need to be as central as poss but will only be used one at a time) or they're being used together but only for a short time (e.g. a composite gobo used for just one state).

 

In other words go ahead but be careful!

[Martin]

IIRC you can only remove two shutters from Sil's. You can't even dismantle the shutter assembly as it's riveted together

 

Marc, I suspect that the 'silver paint' was some kind of low temp anti sieze grease. It's normally silver, high temperature stuff.

[marc]

Thanks martin,

 

Could well have been, it burnt well thats all I can say!

 

Needless to say the hire company makes sure they check all lights for a burn in now as they were a little lax before said incident!

 

I take it you recommend the high temp silver grease over wd40 then!?

 

Marc

[Just Some Bloke]

IIRC you can only remove two shutters from Sil's.  You can't even dismantle the shutter assembly as it's riveted together

On most of the Sils I've worked with the shutters are always particularly keen to make a break for freedom. When focussing, the command "take all the shutters out" results in just that: you pull too hard and are holding shutter in one hand and Sil in the other!

[Martin]

I take it you recommend the high temp silver grease over wd40 then!?

WD40 is great stuff, just don't us it near hot lanterns!

 

The silver anti-sieze grease works well on stiff focus mechanisms, but it's not great in shutters. Last time I tried graphite powder on shutters, which was okay. You need to rub it in with your fingers though.

 

 

Just Some Bloke @ 29 Jun 2004, 01:28 PM

On most of the Sils I've worked with the shutters are always particularly keen to make a break for freedom.

I think CCT made at least two different versions of the Sil, so they may have changed the design of the shutters at some point.

[Guest lightnix]

When I was running a little lighting dept., the conventional (no pun intended) wisdom was to use Silicon Grease. Is this no longer the case ?

[Narf]

I would agree with Martin using Graphite Powder works well on shutters and doesn’t burn off like general oils like WD40 do.

 

Also found that on most types of profiles they use pressure to keep them in place, which usually means that if you bend the correct part slightly you can add or remove pressure to allow movement. (Works really well on prelude’s) ;)

[paulears]

I seem to remember vari*lite putting stickers warning of torture, death and destruction if you put anything at all on their follow spot iris or shutters!

[robloxley]

If the shutters are stiff it's often because they're not flat - some time in the workshop with a hammer solves this. Sils have been through 4 incarnations and the Turbo shutters are definitely different from those for the earlier models. Some lanterns do have a little 'rivet' on the end of the shutter to stop it coming out, whilst most rely on the size of the shutter gate slot to stop the shutter coming out.