So you want to be a Master Electrician ... Chris Tuttle / Spring 2003 Great! I'm writing this guide to help you out in solving problems before they come up, and I hope it will be useful to someone, at some point. It is split into two parts: (a) a chronological overview of your responsibilities, and (b) a list of useful knowledge about equipment you may have to use. I'm going to write this from the perspective of ABTech; your mileage may vary depending on where you are working. Part 1 / Overview The master electrician (ME) is the TIC of lighting loadin. They must make sure all the instruments are hung and cabled correctly. They may also be called upon to patch the lighting console, focus instruments, manage strike, and so on, depending on the demands of the lighting designer and/or TIC. Part 1 / Before Load-in Much of your work involves figuring out how all the instruments are going to be cabled; this kind of work can be finished before you enter the venue. Here is a suggested order of events: 1. Discussing the plot with the designer(s) Get a lighting plot from the lighting designer (LD). If necessary, also find out from the intelligent lighting designer (iLD) where those instruments are going to be hung and how they should be numbered. (Most of the time, this is on the lighting plot.) With the designers, write down which instruments go on the same channel. Often times, especially with the truss, multiple instruments go on the same dimmer, and it is important to know this before figuring out how to cable things. 2. Figuring out the dimmers Take the plot, and count the number of dimmers you need. We have three types of dimmers: 4 Anacondas (4 @ 1.5 kW), 1 rack dimmer (12 @ 1.5 kW), and 4 rack dimmers (6 @ 2.4 kW). If two instruments are "twofered", they are on the same dimmer. [More specific information about these is in part 2.] Usually, we are in Rangos. Rangos provides 11 circuits on the front-of-house electric (the bar in Rangos 1). It also provides 10 circuits in the two electrics on stage. Each outlet is labeled with its dimmer number. 3. Cable Runs [Power] Now that you know where dimmers are, and where the instruments are, you have to plan where to run cable. You have several types of cable at your disposal: (a) Multicable (a.k.a. Socapex): Carries 6 circuits. (b) "2 P and G" (a.k.a. Lighting cable ("LC")): Carries 1 circuit; uses stage pin connectors. (c) "Edison", "AC": Carries 1 circuit; uses traditional edison connectors. Since this is a very important responsibility of the M.E., let's consider a few examples. EXAMPLE 1: We have a truss with three bars of PAR cans on it; the two outside bars are supposed to be together, and the one in the middle is separate. We have access to the dimmer pack. SOLUTION: Run 3 socapex cables. Label two of them "1A and 1B", and run those to the two outside bars. Label the other run "2", and run it to the center bar. Connect 1A and 1B to the same dimmer. Connect "2" to another dimmer. Now the two outside bars will work together, and the center one will be separate. EXAMPLE 2: We have a truss with four bars of PAR cans and five other instruments on it. The bars of PAR cans are supposed to be cabled in pairs. Two of the five extra lights are twofered, but the rest are separate. SOLUTION: Run 5 socapex cables. 4 of these cables "1A", "1B", "2A", "2B" go to the four bars, and connect to two dimmers on the packs. The fifth socapex run splits out to fan tails. Three instruments are cabled directly into the fan tail. The other two are twofered and connected to another of the circuits on the fan tail. EXAMPLE 3: Four booms of 6 instruments each. Assume we don't have enough dimming in the packs to support one run of socapex per tree. SOLUTION: Use one Anaconda per boom to dim 4 of the instruments. Take a run of socapex and use fan tails to split it into 6 circuits. Run these six circuits to 6 of the remaining instruments. For the last two instruments, either find two empty dimmers in another run of socapex, or draw from the Rangos house dimmers over a long run of LC. When you work on laying out the cable, you may not have to specify things to this amount of detail. Usually, any reasonable cabling works out in the end. If you're really pressed for dimmers or cable, though, you will have to play tricks to maximize the number of dimmers you can put on every run of soca. In doing so, you will probably end up cabling games to make things work. Accounting for all the power sources goes a long way towards a smooth load-in. There are certainly a lot more examples than this; if you are interested, I have the plots from some of the lighting-intensive shows of Fall 2002 (including Dancers' Symposium), and I am happy to discuss those with you. 4. Cable Runs [Control] Powering the instruments is not enough; dimmers, strobes, and intelligent lights require control cable to operate. Without the help of special devices, control cables cannot be split. Therefore, a daisy chain of all the devices must be made. If the Rangos house dimmers are in use, the control cable must also be connected to a port in either the balcony or back stage left. GNULep and Little Lep can support only one DMX universe. This means that you cannot run two separate cables from the board, so you must use the DMX input port back stage. Scotch 'n' Soda's Express console (which we call the Excess) supports two universes. If you so desire, you can have one DMX chain running to the dimmers, Anacondas, and strobes, while another short piece runs to the DMX port in the Rangos balcony. In addition to Tech's DMX, we have access to SnS' two runs of DMX cable, provided they are not in use. These two cables are marked with purple tape around the connectors at one end. They live under the stage, rather than the tech room. *Please* make sure these go to the correct place after strike! Consider this example from Dancers' Symposium: The lighting console was in the balcony. The control cable ("DMX") was run down to the dimmer packs, which were sitting in the food service corridor. From the packs it was sent up the SnS pipe where it went through both strobe lights. Coming down the other side, it went through the four anacondas on stage, finishing in the control port back stage left. Since it ended in the Rangos port, a terminator was not required. Had the cable ended at another instrument, such as a strobe, a terminator would be placed in the "Out" port of the strobe. Looking like the end of a mic cable, this small device cancels the signal as it leaves the strobe, preventing any strange signals from "echoing" through the cable. Intelligent lights usually use a different console and protocol than the conventionals, and their control cable is run separately. Whereas DMX is usually five-pin XLR, the intelligent lights use three-pin XLR. They must also be terminated in the same manner as the conventionals. 5. DMX Addressing The lighting console sends commands to dimmers and strobes via number. Each dimmer or strobe gets a unique number from 1 to 512. You must make sure that these numbers do not collide. Here are the constraints: (a) Dimmers 1 to 48 are used by Rangos for the electrics and house lights. (Stage work lights are 22-25 ; house incandescents are 26-36 ; and the flourescents are 37-48.) (b) Our dimmer packs usually start at 51, and go through 51+24+12. (Do you see why?) (c) Strobes take 2 channels each (one channel each for rate and intensity). We usually put them at 128 and 130 because they are easy numbers to select with DIP switches. (d) Anacondas take 4 channels each (they have 4 dimmers.) We usually address those at 200, 300, 400, and 500, because these numbers are easy to remember. 6. Lighting Loadin: The Genie Usually, the Genie lift determines how fast we can get everything in the air. If it looks like this is going to be the case, figure out how the Genie will be used, and arrange things in your mind so that the Genie will not be wasted. This will expedite your load-in. This is _extremely_ important, so I will say it again: If the Genie is waiting for something else to happen, it is not being used efficiently. (1) 7. Flying Truss If you have a flown truss or other lighting which requires rigging, talk to the rigger and tell them about the hang. "We're flying the truss from the Rangos 2 mount points closer to the stage," is a useful thing for them to know. Part 1 / Load-in The time has come, and we're in the venue. Now what? Delegate! It's your responsibility to make sure everything happens, not to personally hang the lights. Keep your feet on the ground, a plot in your hand, and shell out work to everyone else. If you're busy with a light, and someone else is idle, you're probably doing something wrong. Here's the expanded view: 0. If there isn't much to do besides hang lights, and you have time, get a few people in early to re-lamp and pull gel in advance. Otherwise, there may be a long time at the beginning of load-in where people have to wait for the instruments to be ready. 1. If Genie time is an issue, get people up in the air A.S.A.P. with the tools and knowledge they need to deal with the hang. 2. Be available to answer questions people have about placement, lamping, gels, and so on. 3. Grab someone with experience, show them the plot, and ask them to hang anything that can be done from the ground for you. They'll be able to do it, and since they have experience they can grab some newbies and keep them busy as well. 4. Figure out your inventory. Typically, we'll be out of a color of gel that the lighting designer wants; coordinate substitutions with the LD. This may also happen with lamps, lenses or instruments, but it is not as likely, since the lighting designer usually knows our inventory. 5. Since you have considered where cables are going, you should label the appropriate pieces and tell the people hanging instruments where they go. 6. Once things get up, you'll want to power up the packs / plug in a little light board to see that everything is working and cabled properly. You will also have to mess with the patching in the dimmers if you are tying multiple bars of PARs together on the truss. Technical details about these things will be in Part 2. 7. Broken instruments should be fixed. I'll tackle a bit of this in Part 2. CASE STUDY #1: Lunar Gala 2000, courtesy of Rob Siemborski Load-in time was 5 hours, and we had a heavily loaded truss (36+ instruments), about 15 instruments on the SnS and FOH bars, and another 18 instruments to light the movie screen as a cyc. Given that the time was so limited and the hang was so heavy, all of the PARs were pulled and lamped before we got the room, and were sorted into groups by hang location. It was also convenient to split the design into three pieces and give each to an AME (this may not always be the case). The truss was hung and focused from itself by one crew. The cyc lights were hung and focused by a second crew (focus was done from the truss), and a third set of people manned the genie to take care of the FOH work. The ME managed things at a higher level, ensuring that the dimming and control cable was run for each crew before they needed it. There are often times that the LD is able to work with you if a particular part of the plot proves to be obnoxious or time consuming to hang. This is more true in our organization than in others, so it generally doesn't hurt to ask. Part 1 / Focus and Patch Congratulations! Things are in the air, and they all work. This is good. You've thought of everything, and so now all the little anacondas and dimmers and strobes are happy, and your lighting designer is *really* happy, because everything works and makes sense. What you do now depends on the expectations of the rest of your crew. You may end up focusing the lights. You may end up flipping the dimmers for the focus. You may end up patching the board to the specification of the lighting designer. Part 1 / Strike If it is expected of you to help manage strike, consider the same things you did for load-in: the Genie. The most time consuming work is in getting the truss(es) down and using the Genie lift to restore the venue to some semblance of order. Get the riggers in the air and the towers in the room to bring the truss down. Use this time to pull all the instruments off the stage electrics (they can be stripped bare in less than five minutes with a crew of 3 or 4 people). Keep the Genie busy, and the rest of strike will happen quickly. If things are a real mess, it may behoove you to manage the packing of the tech room. This is not a big deal, and it can really speed things up. Part 1 / Summary To distill everything down to a few simple lessons: (a) Plan ahead, but be flexible. (b) Keep your feet on the ground. (c) Keep the Genie moving. (d) Lock out the fucking panels. (1) Rob Siemborski Part 2 / Cable! Cable is your friend. Here are useful things to know about cable: Types: Multicable: (commercially called Socapex) 19 pin screw connectors carrying 6 grounded circuits. Lighting Cable: ("two pin and ground", "2 P & G") Cable with three pin grounded "stage pin" connectors (little black boxes with three metal pins). DMX: 5 pin or 3 pin XLR. There are two gray lengths that are to go to the balcony. 3 <-> 5: Converts 3 pin XLR to 5 pin XLR and back. 1 each. Terminators: Male XLR connectors with no cable. Use at the end of every DMX or intellibeam control chain. [Anacondas have internal termination controlled by a small red switch, and the Rangos house connectors are terminated.] Twofers: Split one stage pin male to two stage pin females. Cheaters: Adapt grounded male edison to grounded female stage pin. Rev. Cheaters: Adapt grounded female stage pin to grounded male edison. Fan tails: Split one male socapex to 6 female stage pin. Rev. Fan tails: Split one female socapex to 6 male stage pin. Hanging to bars: When hanging an instrument, place the connector to instrument near the C-clamp. You must leave slack on the power cables so that the instruments can be focused to arbitrary points. Tape connections with gaff tape if they are loose. When dressing a pipe, use tie line to attach the cable to the pipe. Cleanly coil all excess cable and attach it as well. If several cables are running off a pipe to the ground or another pipe, you can use friction tape to keep them together. Wrap the friction tape around the cable several times; it will bind to itself and hold the cable together. Do this every few feet for the distance required. Part 2 / Instrument Types PAR 64s / PAR cans: We own more of these than any other instrument. They are a simple can with a ceramic piece to attach to the lamp and a metal ring which holds the lamp in place. To re-lamp them, open the back of the can and remove the ceramic. Push the tabs on the ring together to remove it. Replace the lamp, and put everything back in the opposite order. We own all 1,000-watt lamps for these instruments. There are 4 primary lamp types: - MFL: ("Miffle") Medium Flood: 7 major lines in a criss-cross pattern. - WFL: ("Wiffle") Wide Flood: Many more than 7 major lines in a criss-cross pattern. - NSP: ("Nisp") Narrow Spot: Fuzzy - VNSP: ("V-Nisp") Very Narrow Spot: Clear There is also an "ARG" or "Miffle-Wiffle" which has 9 major lines. Usually you can use this instead of a MFL. We have a convention for color coding which should help with pulling instruments which are lamped correctly the first time. The colors become "warmer" as the beam becomes more focused: WFL: black , MFL: blue , ARG: purple, NSP: red, and VNSP: yellow. Tape is placed on the yoke of the instrument and on the shelves in lighting land where the lamps of that type are kept. If you re-lamp, also re-tape to preserve the convention. These instruments do not shine light equally in all directions; they have an axis where they shine wider. Rotate the ceramic piece on the back of the instrument to see how this "bottle" changes direction. The ceramic bit on the back of the lamp is oriented in the same direction as the longest part of the beam. Source Four Pars: These are the smaller, PAR-can-like instruments which are often used at small shows with the anacondas. Though they can handle 750-watt lamps, we use 575-watt lamps in these. Thus, you can put 4 of them on a single circuit. They have 4 lens types corresponding to the 4 types of PAR lamps. To change the lens, rotate the black ring around the front of the instrument until the indentations on the lens line up with the two retaining pieces. The lens should fall out after the black retaining piece on the inner rim of the instrument is depressed. Replace the lens with the buldge pointing *INWARD*. Incorrectly-replaced lenses cannot be removed without breaking them. The bottle of the instrument is changed by rotating the black ring on the outside-front of the instrument. Source Four Ellipsoidals: These instruments are long and cylindrical. They have a movable lens tube at one end and four metal handles protruding from the main body of the instrument. There are usually around ten of them hanging from the front-of-house electrics in both Rangos and McConomy. They use the same lamp as the Source Four Pars (which, again, is 575-watts). They have a space for a gobo, which is a metal disk placed in the instrument to project patterns. The orientation of the pattern can be changed by loosening a screw with rotates the barrel of the instrument. They also have shutters, which also follow that same rotation. When moving a shutter during focus, move the one opposite from where the lighting designer wants the cut. There are at least six barrel types, classified by the width of the resulting beam. They include: 5-, 10-, 19-, 26-, 36-, and 50-degree. ABTech does not own any 5-, 10- or 50- degree barrels because they are not typically useful. We do use the front-heavy 5- and 10-degree barrels for Greek Sing because the distance to the stage is very high. ABTech currently owns 8 each of barrels in 19-, 26- and 36-degrees. To change the barrel, remove the screw which holds the barrel in place and replace it with another barrel. Notice that the position of the barrel in the instrument modifies the sharpness of the beam. To change the lamp, twist the metal screw on the back of the instrument and carefully remove the "burn base", or back of the instrument. Remove and replace the lamp, but do not touch it, as the oils can cause the lamp to prematurely explode. Then, replace the burn base. Gobos are mounted in gobo frames. The frame is inserted in the slot next to one of shutters. The large slot is for an iris; we do not typically use these. Strobes: We own two strobes; they look like PAR cans. They are labeled with green tape on their yokes. They require a DMX connection and a power connection (they have stage pin connectors on them). Each strobe takes two DMX channels starting at the channel set via DIP switches on the back of the strobe. One channel controls velocity, and the other controls intensity. As mentioned before, a reasonable address choice for these instruments is 128 and 130 because they are easy to set and verify with the DIP switches. Strip Lights: Scotch and Soda owns four strip lights which we sometimes use for larger events. They are black, six feet in length, and have a series of small (90W) light bulbs in compartments down their entire length. Internally, there are three independent strings which alternate in sequence. There are three stage pin connectors on each end of the strip light. Thus, connector 1 powers lights 1, 4, 7, ..., and so on. The strip lights can be put in a chain very easily by matching the numbers on the power connectors. They can be hung using C-clamps or they can be placed on bases. The gels in the lights belong to Scotch 'n' Soda, and they should remain in the lights. Blacklights: We own two blacklights in the form of flourescent tubes. They can be mounted to bases using specially marked hardware in the bolt box. They should be on the same circuit. Usually, the "WERT" switch is used to turn them on and off. The switch is placed within reach of the stage manager or {his|her} assistant(s). Because they are flourescent, blacklights should not be placed on a dimmer. They should also not share a circuit with sound power. When being turned on or off, stage monitors should be muted at the crossover; otherwise, they will pop. Fog and Haze: The fogger and haze machines are usually placed back stage right in Rangos to be within reach of the stage manager. The haze effect works better when a fan is available to circulate the haze, but beware that a fan is an inductive load and should not be placed on the same circuit as a sound device. Haze is slow and should be started well before the event. Part 2 / Dimmers Our dimmer packs: We have a dimmer rack with 24 channels of 2,400 watt (2.4 kW) dimming and 12 channels of 1.5 kW dimming. The packs are powered via three phase power. If you are at all unsure of how to run power, ask an experienced tech member to assist you. The pack also provides 3 @ 20-amp edison "courtesy outlets" labeled A, B, and C. It requires a DMX control cable, and has a DMX output port as well, if the pack needs to be in the middle of a chain. To start the rack, bring up power to it, and flip the breakers at the bottom front. Make sure that the analog controller (a 1-rack-unit black device at the top with a red toggle switch) is powered, and that the corresponding courtesy outlet is turned on. Each channel of dimming has its own power switch; turn these on if they are off. Basic operation of the dimmers: (a) The red electrol (6x2.4) dimmers: The black buttons on each channel are test switches; depress them to force the channel to 100%. The "L" yellow light will illuminate to indicate that the channel is locally activated. Depress them again to stop testing the channel. When a DMX signal is controlling a channel, the red "R" LED will illuminate to indicate that the channel is remotely activated. (b) The black electrol (12x1.5) dimmers: The pack has many features; a quick reference card and/or the manual should be available. The start address of the red electrol dimmers is defined by the small wheels on the analog controller. As the Rangos dimmers end in the 40s, we usually set this number to 51. Changing the start address on the black dimmer rack is a bit more complicated, and hopefully we will soon have a quick-reference guide in the dimmer rack for doing things such as this. Patching the dimmers: When you plug two separate runs of socapex into the same (6x2.4) dimmer, you can have a problem where the lights do not line up as you want. Think about the pre-rigged PAR cans: if you have two bars, sometimes you want the first instrument on both to light at the same time, and sometimes you want them to be mirrored. We solve this via patching. On the back of the dimmer, next to the soca ports, there are a bunch of little black wires with electrical connectors on them. They carry signal. If, in the "A" block, a wire is plugged from 2 to 4, it means that, when the second DMX channel is activated, the fourth circuit on the socapex is activated. If the pack is patched at 51, then DMX channel 52 controls the fourth circuit on the multicable attached to port A. There is an identical block of wires for port B. Thus, any combination of twofers and controls is possible. After you get the lighting instruments up that you are going to use, and before the lighting focus can happen, you will have to adjust these wires so that they are consistent with the plot. Personally, I suggest starting with a 1-1 correspodance, looking at it, and going from there, one instrument at a time. I do not suggest moving these while channels are up, though I have seen people do it before. They don't carry much power. If you find that some of the red dimmers are not responding properly to DMX control, their control connection may be at fault. Make sure that the analog control unit is on and powered, and that the grey and black connectors going from the control unit to each of the four dimmer racks are firmly seated. The Anacondas: We currently own 4 Electrol Anaconda dimmers, each of which is capable of 4 channels of 1.2 kW dimming. They have two male edison electrical plugs, one DMX-in port, one DMX-out port, a red termination switch, and some buttons for local control. If the total amount of power drawn by all four connected instruments is greater than 2.4kW, the edison connectors must be on separate circuits. When they are on separate circuits, the Anaconda can support up to 4.8kW. This is extremely important. Anacondas get feisty if they do not have as much power as they want, and they will malfunction in somewhat-random yet always-annoying ways. Local control of the dimmer is based on a simle menu system: (a) L1->L4 control the intensity of channels 1-4. If these options are not available, change Loff to Lon, and look again. (b) "d###" controls the first DMX channel to be used. So, if we have it set to d100, then the Anaconda will listen on DMX channels 100, 101, 102, and 103, and respond appropriately. (c) Though not controlled by a menu, the small red switch controls if the Anaconda's internal termination is on. If this is the last item in a DMX chain, set this to 1. Otherwise, set it to 0. The Rangos House System: Rangos provides 21 channels of 2.4kW dimming which may be useful to us, and another 20 or so channels to power the lights in the room. They are usually addressed to DMX channels 1 through 40something. The house lights start at 22. You will notice that the front of house electric has labels from 1 to 11 on it; the corresponding outlets will respond to DMX commands on those channels. Each of the electrics has five circuits, and they are similarly labeled. There is an ETC Sensor 48-channel dimmer rack in the closet on the non-service-corridor side of Rangos 3. It's on the right as you leave Rangos. If a dimmer appears to be blown, this is where you can untrip the breakers. There are two input ports to the Rangos system. One is back stage left. The other is in the balcony. Rangos takes the maximum value of any inputs it sees. That is, if the light switches on the Rangos walls turn on all the lights at full power, and the lighting console says 5%, they will be at full power. To avoid this problem, use the Rangos master control panel to disable the switches and panels on the walls. Notes about Rangos control are elsewhere in part 2. The lights in the balcony and back stage are not controlled by the dimmer system, so they must be protected during a show. The McConomy House System: McConomy provides 11 dimmers per bar. It has a front-of-house electric which is labeled from 1 to 13. This is misleading, however, because two pairs of outlets are internally twofered. There are two electrics above the stage. As is the case with Rangos, the dimmers are 2.4 kW each. The single DMX input port to McConomy is in the stage left alcove. The dimmer rack for the house system is in the IT office off stage left. Part 2 / Rangos Panel The Rangos master control panel can control the dimmers on the front of house bar and on stage, and it can lock out the panels during a show. To change the lock on the panels, do the following: (a) Turn on the system, if necessary. (This will be obvious.) (b) Go to IT Setup, and enter the code. (c) Hit the "Disable Wall Panels While System Power is On" item. A green background indicates that the panels are locked. This can also be used to bring up the "work lights" without a console. These are referred to as "down lights" on the panel. Also, if you hit the "off" button instead of dimming the values on the panel to zero, the lights will go off but will remember where they are, so you can bring them back up without waiting for half of forever. Part 2 / Little Lep It is often convenient to test some instruments while they are being hung, especially those which are connected to the Rangos house dimmers. This can be done without getting out a large light board. Take Little Lep, which is next to the DJ Mixer on the second-from-the-bottom shelf underneath the toolbox and plug it into the Rangos control port. Little lep puts 54 channels of dimming on 18 faders by having a set of buttons on the top-ish right hand side which control which range of dimmers are being controlled. To turn on dimmers 14 and 24, do the following: (a) Hit the top of the three bank buttons to associate the faders with dimmers 1 through 18. (b) Move fader #14 to full. (c) Hit the middle of the three bank buttons to associate the faders with dimmers 19 through 36. (c) Move fader #6 (24 - 18) to full. Dimmers will remain at their positions until the faders move through the stored position. If Little Lep doesn't seem to be doing anything useful, it is probably in MIDI (not DMX) mode. Select the board configuration mode from the four buttons marked with grey diamonds on the lower right. (They say "Scene", "Chase", etc.) Manipulate the menu and find the "MIDI dmx" menu, and change it to "midi DMX". This should fix the problem.