House and Stage Lights

[BMcIver]

Hey guys,

We started to do some remodeling and the next major thing is changing the lighting to a nice, yet affordable dimming system. We have a master electrician in the family, so we just need suggestions on types of light and equipment we need to get the job done. We want everything to be very modern, so we have no strings attached to the traditional look. We'll have a large sound booth built in the back, and eventually running Jands Vista software with a basic JV M1 lighting board to control future LED and spot lighting. The sanctuary is 100x50 with high ceilings that start at 20 feet and slant up to 40. We would also like all of the house lighting pointed down to hide the high ceiling and take away from the size.

Church Pictures Below (You'll have to fix the link)
h ttp://s1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb337/BJMcIver/Church%20Remodel/

[tpichler]

I think you may need to provide more guidance on the type of input you desire. You mentioned house lights so I'm going to get the ball rolling with my personal experience regarding house lights.

When we designed our current facility we went with an ETC dimmer panel. So much has changed in the last 5 years I would encourage you to try and think outside the conventional box (pun intended). For example: The rate at which we replace our house light bulbs as well as the effort required to get to them has caused me to think that LED based house lights may be a practical choice. Here are some things to consider, some are obvious some are more subtle: power consumed, HVAC load, color temperature, copper costs, aesthetic feel, audible filament noise, EMF filament noise, and bulb life.

You didn't mention any budget constraints but I bet there are some
And because you already selected a console I'm guessing you have some idea of what your solution will include. It seems like having some constraints helps get the forum momentum going. Do you intend to...
- Install a full panel based dimmer system (centralized dimming)
- Have localized dimmer packs (distributed dimming)
- Use only intelligent fixtures (RGB, moving heads, etc.) No conventional dimming needed
- Have some hybrid mix of all of the above

[Esoteric]

1. Do not do distributed dimming with the house light system. You are just asking for problems. High end distributed dimming (like Strands R40 system) can be okay for for theatrical lighting, but not for house lighting.

2. If you want to do LED be ready for a huge sticker shock. Not saying it isn't worth it, but you have to consider your costs. Especially if you only use your sanctuary 3 times a week.

What kind of budget are you looking at? Myself, I prefer an ETC Unison panels with some nice decorative can type lights.

Let us know a little more about the size of the room and your budget expectations and we would love to help you out.

Mike

PS Sorry if this post sounded a little terse. It was not meant that way.

[BMcIver]

Ok, thank you for the replies. LED house lighting is completely out of the question, and ROI is just not great enough reason to spend that kind of money. We will eventual have LED's, and intelligent lighting on the stage for effects, but that's off topic. The top consideration has been hanging some type of can lights from a kindorf framing system. With the amount of energy those old fixtures are pulling, the electrician said we would be pulling a lot less. Any suggestion a good type and brand of can light. Do you think the ETC Legacy Unison DR series dimming rack would do the job? I would like to convert to dmx and run it from the light board in the booth as well. Budget has been a touchy subject, can't really nail down an estimate for you, and I do understand the importance of that, but I have no say. Let just say it would be nice to get this done for less than $6000.00, but don't have a clue if that is even reasonable.

[Esoteric]

I think $6k might be a little low. But you can get the dimmers (ETC Unison) in that range, but it depends on what type of CAN you want if you can fit them in. You can't buy the Legacy series anymore (hence legacy), but I still think you can get the new ones in your budget.

A 24 rack would more than cover house lighting and provide a few leftover circuits for other things. All you need for DMX is a CAT5 cable (run in conduit) to a plug in your FOH position.

What do you think of these CANs?

http://www.craftmetal.com/lights/?se...&market=Church

Mike

[BMcIver]

Yeah, I figured I was coming in a bit low, but our electrician thinks we can still make it work nice around that range, and he's also able to get us a nice discount on materials ans equipment with the major electrical company he works for. The lights are close to what we're looking for, but in black. I added a few pictures to my photo bucket from the link above, don't know how much they'll help, but it sure is hard to find a close up of the lights we,re looking for. Well, since all we'll have to do is run the cat5 , do you thinks the basic Jands Vista M1 with the computer software will be sufficient to run both house and future stage lights/led light for starters. I read in one of the threads about someone having it configured so that the panel was disabled when it was being run from the booth, and the other way as well. Thoughts? Really appreciate all of your help!!!

[tpichler]

We have the ETC unison system. You can program the panel so that when a DMX signal is present it will do what the DMX is requesting and if the DMX is not present (like when you turn the computer or board off) then the ETC panel will listen to an external button panel that is wired directly to the panel. This work really well for us.

[Esoteric]

It is called a Smartlink System.

You will need a theatrical distributor for the ETC stuff, you won't be able to get it through traditional electrical distributors.

Be careful of industrial/commercial electricians and dealers in this area. They mean well, but something like this is really the realm of theatrical designers/suppliers.

[RickR]

I suggest getting a lighting expert involved. There are too many variables in the kinds of fixtures, spacing, brightnesses, glare, architecture, etc.. We can only give some general guidance. For example:

• If I were doing it I would consider some uplighting on the ceiling and hidden downlighting for regular reading lighting.
• No one can tell you how many dimmers you need until they know how many lights and their wattage.
• Can you use extra dimmers in the pack for stage lights??
• If you put lights very high up LEDs might be cheaper than renting the lift/scaffolding to change the bulbs.

Minor details: Unison "Legacy" is no longer sold. "Paradigm" is the new stuff. Unison "Smartlink" is a budget version that gives you limited buttons for wall controllers. "SmartPack" is 6 or 12 dimmers and even less expensive that uses the same buttons. Everything speaks DMX these days.

[Esoteric]

Yeah, some of us can look at a room Rick and tell about what size rack you would need to get a certain level of lighting in the room. Of course it is just an estimate, but I am usually pretty right on with it.

But you are completely right, get a lighting professional involved.

Yes, you can use any extra dimmers for stage lighting or you can just put in AFMs (about 1/7th the cost of the dimmer module).

You are also correct in that if the lights are very difficult to reach, then LED can be cheaper from a maintenance standpoint. In fact, so far my only house light LED conversion was because the church had to pay $30k+ every 18 months to change lamps in their sanctuary. But if you look in the pictures, they have removable chairs, which should make changing lamps a breeze (at the worst a $150 lift rental), so I don't think that applies to them.

Yeah, Unison can work with Paradigm or Heritage control stations, but those are going to be beyond the capabilities needed by the OP, and out of his budget. So for him, Unison with Smartlink is probably the way to go. In addition the Smartpack racks are probably gonna be a little small (since their largest units are 6x20A or 12x10A), and once you get to adding two or three and networking them, it gets just as expensive as installing one Unison rack.

Mike

[BMcIver]

Thanks Mike, that really helped in pointing us in the right direction! Unless of course Rick is interested in donating $10,000

[Esoteric]

My LED house light renovation (keep in mind it was a 3000 seat sanctuary) was $325,000. For your space it would be well over $10k.

Mike