House lighting control

[sandall]

It's worth talking to GDS - their LED stuff gives a nice quality of light and can be used in places other than theatres - it's also not too costly

Depends what you mean by "costly" - this is for a village hall.

[J Pearce]

GDS units aren’t necessarily much more expensive than similar architectural LED units, but have the extra control options.

 

Yes it’s a village hall, but therefore you may not need many units.

[strand600X]

Try Ben at Push The Button. He did our 3 venues with GDS stuff.

I reccomend a chat.

 

bAz

[bik]

Many thanks for all the replies! The lighting fixtures have been specified by the architects as a particular make and model with "switch dimming" and so far I haven't been able to find an interface that would allow parallel control from DMX. I did have a chat with the electrician this morning and his proposal was for a second control panel next to the lighting desk at a cost of around £2000, and still no DMX interface! This might go ahead but it would be up to the architects to agree.

 

I'm still trying to find a solution but I'm becoming more resigned to having to rig our own house lights of some description, perhaps linear halogen as suggested on here but even they are becoming more difficult to find as most floods now seem to be LED and not necessarily dimmable (did find some linear halogen fixtures on CEF's website). I'll also have a look at the GDS products.

[Robertdazzler]

I too was faced with this problem some years ago when my local authority planned to upgrade the hall we use. Despite asking for dimmable house lights our requests were ignored. it turns out the new light fittings were already ordered before our first meeting with the council electrical guy. the room has been painted with a white ceiling and we now light the house with 3kW of light thrown up on it and driven from one of our DMX channels. The result is a subdued level but adequate in my opinion. A local professional theatre has house lighting that is so bright that the stage looks decidedly dim when the show is running. My favourite solution would be the cheap linear halogen lamps from the likes of B&Q. I know a number of places where that is done.

[Tomo]

Many thanks for all the replies! The lighting fixtures have been specified by the architects as a particular make and model with "switch dimming" and so far I haven't been able to find an interface that would allow parallel control from DMX.

What is the particular make and model?

 

"Switch dimming" is usually "push and hold to dim, tap to snap on/off", using mains voltage signalling up the DALI wires.

A lot of DALI fittings have it, but as it's an alternate use of the same wires that would otherwise have a control signal, it cannot be combined with any other control system.

 

To be blunt, it sounds like the architect/electrician doesn't know how to design theatrical spaces.

Push back hard - point out that their suggestion is not suitable and will require the use of extensive tungsten lighting, when there are many suitable LED alternatives that would not.

[mark_h]

The location of the controls for the house lights should be considered (this applies even if a secondary system is used for theatre productions). When in theatre mode it is a good idea to not have the controls accessible to the audience as there is the potential for abuse. A neat example I have seen, in a church hall, is having the switches onstage that switch the house lights between DMX and standard light switches.

 

Some examples of badly placed switches:

-A church where the two controls were located in one of the pews (that could be lent on by the congregation/audience) the other was in the stage area of the sanctuary so to use it during an event would be visible.

- A cinema where the cleaners lights were controlled from the corridor entrance to the screen (hidden behind an inviting looking lift up hatch). These were often abused by the delightful customers. To make matters worse these were two-way switches with the other switch in projection so there was no fixed on position. A better example of this I have seen had the switch high up on the back wall or high up in a viable section of the cinemas foyer.

[bik]

"Switch dimming" is usually "push and hold to dim, tap to snap on/off", using mains voltage signalling up the DALI wires.

A lot of DALI fittings have it, but as it's an alternate use of the same wires that would otherwise have a control signal, it cannot be combined with any other control system.

 

That's the type of "switch dimming" that's been proposed. The manufacturer's specs offer switch dimming or DALI dimming as separate options to be specified when ordering so I plan to give them a call after the holiday to ask what the relative prices are, then find out how much a DMX to DALI converter would cost.

[mac.calder]

Don't do DMX to DALI. It can work in certain situations, but more often than not gives really poor results.. The speed of DALI is very very slow compared to DMX and is not intended to be dimmed the same way as DMX dims (DMX dims by sending 255 then 254 then 253 for each channel etc over a period of time, DALI dims by doing "Dim to X over Y seconds" - or more frequently "group X to Y% over Z seconds").