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Topic: Share your worst electrical nightmare!

Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 11-05-2004 09:34 PM

Or...if you only partly translate Au Bon Pain you get "the good pain."

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Bob Healey
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: Milford, CT
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 11-07-2004 12:37 AM

This one's not my worst disaster in terms of wattage or equipment damanged, but working live theater tonight, the power supply for the lighting console died during act ii. Thank goodness for followspots and a backup console, but it was a variety show willing to move a later video into the run queue to accomodate me. I think the building's cursed - if I'm not drawing ground currents, power supplies fail, lamps blow, or things just generally don't work. Get them out of the building to another venue and everything works perfectly.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-07-2004 09:36 AM

Ahhhh, You must be using a Strand(ed) console!! I used to repair LOTS of those... throw a few Colortrans in there too.

Mark @ CLACO

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 11-07-2004 12:05 PM

Agh! Colortran! Getawaygetaway! Bad juju! [Big Grin]

I was sentenced to a year of dealing with both a Colortran 3000 and a Scene Master 60 in the Las Vegas Hilton Main Showroom. Plus another two years with a Colortran 1000 on La Cage at the Riviera, and just for good measure another summer with a Colortran 2000+ with Scene Master 60 for backup (?) in the jousting arena at the Excalibur. That and a dimmer rack fire at the Excalibur (the wonderful Colortran ENR plastic-cased dimmers stuffed into a rack wired with Aluminum).

Oh, and the wonderful spontaneous free-form light shows the Excalibur system would spontaneously create--chase effects using every circuit in the place, self-loaded onto the playback faders. Sometimes this happened in the middle of a show (which required a long run through the kitchens to get to the dimmer racks and reset the data comm cards), but usually it was at 2 or 3am, well after we had left for the night. Ah, the phone calls we used to get from the graveyard shift building engineers, "You ought to see what your system is doing down here..."

Colortran made me long for the days of Kliegl and Century Izenour preset boards. Or Leprecons or Light Palettes. Or Q-Files. Or Performances or Performers. Even Great American. Anything else! Of course there wasn't much competition for Colortran in 'Vegas in the late '80s early '90s (Peterson & Vine sold a ton of them here), but still... [Roll Eyes]

Long live ETC! [beer]

[Edit: Me and my spelling...]

[ 11-07-2004, 07:29 PM: Message edited by: Paul Mayer ]

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 11-07-2004 01:36 PM

I don't think I've ever had an "electrical nightmare", since I've been pretty well in control of everything I've ever worked on. However, my youngest brother saw one several year' ago...

Distraught young woman in a downtown area, literally trying to run away from her problems -- with the police there trying to calm her and/or take her in for some reason. Suddenly, she breaks away and runs towards a power sub-station, climbs the chain link fence, and hops up on a transformer. She's screaming/crying about something or other and threatens to kill herself. But, before she can continue the threats, she gets taken up on her offer when she gets too close to some huge high-tension insulators and .... ZZZZZzzzzzaaaaaaappppp!!! Auuuuuuughggghhhh!!!! She FRIES ALIVE! My brother couldn't believe it. He said her clothes burned away like tissue paper and her tits exploded.

It was a paragraph in the newspaper the next day. They said she was upset over losing a boyfriend or some trite.

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Bob Healey
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: Milford, CT
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 11-07-2004 05:22 PM

The board was a Leprecon. Never had a problem with it for the 5 years I've been using it. The power supply was going to be replaced since the case got cracked, but it had been functioning that way for 2+ years with no problems.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 11-07-2004 09:17 PM

quote: Tim Reed
Distraught young woman in a downtown area, literally trying to run away from her problems -- with the police there trying to calm her and/or take her in for some reason. Suddenly, she breaks away and runs towards a power sub-station, climbs the chain link fence, and hops up on a transformer. She's screaming/crying about something or other and threatens to kill herself. But, before she can continue the threats, she gets taken up on her offer when she gets too close to some huge high-tension insulators and .... ZZZZZzzzzzaaaaaaappppp!!! Auuuuuuughggghhhh!!!! She FRIES ALIVE! My brother couldn't believe it. He said her clothes burned away like tissue paper and her tits exploded.

Remember this one?:

http://members.tripod.com/%7EStormTrooper_2/index2.htm

quote:
In Approx. Feb 1996,This person who is high on PCP was trying to kill himself. This situation lasted for about 45 minutes. This being toward the end of the situation,the person had already walked from A previous power pole by means of walking on the low voltage wire and hanging on to the other wire that was around him. The Power Company had denergized the low voltage wire at this point. What you see now is this person on PCP accending the the level of HIGH VOLTAGE. The wires above him at this point are energized at 16,600 volts WYE system. "for all you overhead junkies

http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000475;p=3#000032

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-07-2004 10:21 PM

It's funny when I hear people talk about Strand boards like that. I've got 3 of them. (GSX, LBX & 520i) The prep school that's attached to this college has a Strand MX console. We have very few problems with any of those boards.

According to my research, the ghosting problem is often a manifestation of poor wiring in the DMX control lines or because of the use of the wrong type of cable. Cable that's suitable for microphones is often not suitable for DMX.

If you have any branches or "T's" in your DMX lines, that's a recipe for disaster. Poor connections, improper shielding and/or isolation of the lines can cause problems. The only times I have problems with dimmers ghosting are when the DMX control cable that goes from the colsole to the dimmer is left disconnected.

This is not meant to say that you have any of those problems in your system(s) but I have seen problems like that happen.

I hear a lot of people say that they prefer E.T.C. boards for various reasons. I have little experience with E.T.C. and lots of experience with Strand. I think of things the other way around. In defense of Strand boards, I will say that I really like the way they handle intelligent/moving lights. They also speak SMPTE code and MIDI. I've seen some guys who can use that to make a console sit up on its hind legs and bark!

I will admit that Strand's command syntax can be pretty counterintuitive at times but once you get the hang of it things aren't difficult at all.

I just ran a show today: Lights, sound, video, powerpoint, CD playback and CD recording. I was able to do it all by myself and I hardly ever had to get off my stool to do it.

I think it's all about what equipment you were brought up on.

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 01-27-2016 07:17 PM

It has been 4097 days since the last post.

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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God

Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004

posted 01-27-2016 07:17 PM

Been quite a while since any action on this thread, so keep the stories coming!!

Luckily I have stayed out of harm's way of late...

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Paul Dorobialski
Film Handler

Posts: 11
From: west allis wisconsin
Registered: Mar 2013

posted 01-27-2016 08:15 PM

The last projectionist position I held, the theatre owner failed to order a new set of brushes for the Transverter generator, then that fateful Saturday night green flame ran all around the commutator. I called him to come up to the booth & take a "looky see". By golly, you know those brushes showed up like magic on a Sunday morning! Another time I was servicing a RCA PG-92 system, 4 watt driver amp with a 40 watt power amp, 845's & 866 rectifiers. While I was squatting down holding in the interlock button with my right knee & very carefully trying to get the probe of the voltmeter on the fuse clip of the 120 volt plate primary transformer, the plate cap of the rectifier arced over into my right hand thru my body and out my right knee. It felt like 3 strong men shook the shit out of my arm & kicked me across the room. Now mind you, I was following the directions of the service tech I worked for!

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Donald Brown
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 131
From: Lincoln, DE
Registered: Sep 2009

posted 01-28-2016 05:22 PM

The most unequivocally frightening electrical installation that I have ever encountered was at the Fair Oaks Drive-In Theatre near Middletown, NY. The former operator was reportedly a technician with a regional power company, and the work that was left behind when the theatre re-opened in 2015 defies description. The concept of an identified or protected circuit was lost somewhere in the wiring modifications that had been undertaken during the previous twenty years. The alterations to the wiring system were so deficient that the work could have been featured in a text book illustrating code violations!

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Buck Wilson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 894
From: St. Joseph MO, USA
Registered: Sep 2010

posted 01-29-2016 02:25 AM

I was constantly shocking myself while timing Speco LP270s. Didn't help when half of the cover plates were missing allowing my elbow to bump the innards while threading. Seemed like it was every damn day.

Not much more exciting than that though.

I guess I've been bit by a car's ignition system a couple of times doing diag work.... Those hurt real good.

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 01-29-2016 12:00 PM

Waaaaaaay back in 1971 when I first started in this buisness, The first
"permanant" job The Union assigned me to was a REALLY old theater (1917)
that still had a lot of the 'original' equipment in use.

The electrical power in the booth went through an old open knife switch
panel that look like it came off of the FRANKENSTEIN laboratory movie set.
For some unexplained reason, the booth lights were on the same circuit as
some of the equipment that was turned off at that panel every night at closing.

After a few "shocking" evenings of bumping around in the dark trying to find
the knife-switch panel, I learned very quickly to carry a flashlight to work.

They arc rectifiers were the old wall-mounted rack type that had huge mercury
vapor tube rectifiers mounted (unprotected) on the front. One night when I
threw the power switch on it, one of the tubes exploded violently. I was covered
with shards of glass, and I assume, bits of mercury.

The thing I was most thankful for was that I just happened to be looking
away from the panel at the time, or I'm sure I would have gotten glass in one,
or both, eyes. I was always a little paranoid about those tubes because at that
time I had a friend who lost an eye when he got glass & phosphorus powder in his
eye when a fluorescent lamp exploded in his face a few months prior to this incident.

Until they replaced the old glass mercury tubes with "Sil-Tubes (remember them? )
I always made sure I had my back turned to that panel every night when I powered
that rectifier panel up, in case of another explosion.

The theater eventually burned to the ground. (No, I wasn't working that nite!)

TODAY's FUN FOTOS:
This switch/fuse panel is still in use at a 1913 theater here in SF.
The little brass plate on the lower left says it was manufactured
by the "Railway Telegraph & Switch Company"

This switch controls the electric chair in the managers office- [evil]

>Actually, it's the "Main" service switch.
(Yes, they only have single phase power)

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-29-2016 06:38 PM

This panel was still in use as of y2k at a 1930s cinema:

It is probably still there and in use, actually.

I have been pretty lucky with electricity and have never been zapped with anything greater than 120v/60Hz. I generally won't touch anything more complicated than replacing a light switch, though. I wired up a 208v three-phase rectifier once, but that was with explicit instructions from someone I trust. I did have a fun little sparking experience involving accidentally cutting through an AC cord when cutting a zip tie off of a bundle of wires once, but I was using insulated wire cutters for that.

I have only seen mercury tubes in use once, and that was in someone's private home, not an operating theatre. I have worked in a couple of places (including the one with the above electrical panel) that were (and probably are) still using Sil-tube rectifiers and/or exciter supplies.

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