Replace wall switches/rotary dimmers with intelligent system?

[snedecor]

We have a fairly small sanctuary with incandescent pendant lighting in the house, split up in 5 zones (front to back), along with 8 directional stage illumination lights.

The 5 zones probably do not have more than 1200 watts per zone.

Control is currently (none!):

Pendant lights have 5 on/off wall switches in the sanctuary, and rotary dimmers in the video booth. Wall switches have to be on before dimmers will work.

Stage lights are all controlled via dimmers in the video booth, no wall switches, those push to toggle on/off and rotate to dim.

We'd like to replace the controls with something more modern.

With the pendant lights, we'd like to maintain at least on/off at the wall switches, but be able to "override" the wall switches and control from the video booth even if they are off.

I'm guessing we need an intelligent controller, where the wall switches as well as the video booth controls just send a signal to the controller, but I'm a novice at this.

In the video booth, the ability to "flash" the house lights, or dim all of them at once would be good, as well.

Any tips, links to educate me, or ideas on ways to go would be greatly appreciated!

Blessings,

Gayle Snedecor

[waynehoskins]

The first solution that comes to my mind is one or two ETC Smart series wall-mount dimmer racks paired up with virtually any control board. The Smart racks can interface with their Smartlink system (there's a Smartlink module for the Smart rack) to provide the architectural control you want (wall stations with some number of buttons that do predefined things). The racks come in two flavors, a 6x2.4k and a 12x1.2k. For your application I suspect 1.2s would be sufficient, though I might use two so there's more room for growth.

For control, many options. There are manual boards, memory boards, computer-based solutions, and they (virtually) all use a standard protocol, DMX-512.

A couple of big-picture things to consider. First, dimmers are expensive. A good board can be expensive. The Smart series is dirt-cheap for dimmers, but normal people will think they're expensive. Secondly, you'd need a qualified electrician to install them. I suppose that's true of even wall dimmers, but theatrical dimmers even more so. All that to say, it's not just as easy as an afternoon trip to Home Depot, a few hundred dollars, and an hour with a screwdriver. Good thing to do, most definitely, and one to do well. You want to have somebody who knows lighting to help you along in the process, somebody like a lighting consultant, system designer, or even the TD of a local theatre.

[sempei13]

I didn't spend too much time looking at it, but I found a 1000 watt version, so 1200 is possible. I've got another brand of these: Insteon in my house. It's nice to turn lights on from across the house. It's a similar technology to X10, but two-way (for feedback). Just an idea.

Paul

[Esoteric]

The absolute best system is an ETC Smart system. You can get 12 10A dimmers pretty cheaply, then add a wall panel and DMX controller.

[snedecor]

Thanks Wayne, Paul, and Mike!

I'll start looking into the costs involved, so that I can make a case to the Church.

I'm still a dead novice about lighting, so how about a few questions...

1) Is it possible to control from two locations (the wall of the sanctuary as well as the video booth) without interfering one with the other? The sanctuary is sometimes used when no one is in the video booth, so we have to be able to turn the lights on/off.

2) How far can the local control panel be from the dimmers? The wall that the current light switches are on separates the sanctuary from the foyer, so no room to put dimmers close by.

3) Do the dimmers cause any type of RF interference? We have wireless mics, and wireless monitors. Before we moved the audio cables, we had a buzz in the audio that was worse when the house lights were on, but moving the wires seemed to fix that issue. The video booth (where we could consider putting the dimmers) has computer, video mixer, DVD player and recorder, video amps and distribution and controls for 2 projectors.

Thanks,

Oh, and any links to "DMX for novices" type information?

[waynehoskins]

1. The beauty of architectural control systems integrated with theatrical dimmers is that you can have multiple wall stations on the architectural system (e.g., Smartlink, Unison) to allow "normal people" (janitors, professors, etc.) to turn lights on and off, without having to use the performance control system (board, PC). Wall preset stations are generally on a Last-Takes-Precedence arrangement, but the overall architectural system and the performance system merge together on a Highest-Takes-Precedence basis.

2. I believe the distance limits for both (architectural and DMX) are in the thousands of feet, perhaps many hundreds at worst. Generally dimmers are located in an electrical room that's somewhat near the lights (that is, within hundreds of feet).

3. Dimming will tend to generate some electromagnetic interference, which won't likely affect wireless mics or IEMs, but may impose itself on nearby cabling. Theatrical dimmers will be much better filtered in this regard than household dimmers, and with most any well-built dimming system and well-designed audio/video systems it's largely a nonissue.

[Esoteric]

Yeah, we are always careful with our cable runs, taking possible audio interference in mind. But I have never had a case of control cabling causing interference. It is just too low voltage.