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Parellipsphere 170 not in Fixture Library?


ianm55

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Hi everyone,

 

I'm needing to add the Parellipsphere 170mm to my project for plotting a house hang. I've been able to retrieve the symbol of the fixture from separate sources, but don't have the full 3d model I can do pre vis with. Does anyone have a file for this particular fixture with the zoom lens, or has any idea where it might be in the fixture library in 2019? Thanks.

Screen Shot 2018-12-17 at 9.57.14 AM.png

Screen Shot 2018-12-17 at 9.57.52 AM.png

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32 minutes ago, Rob Books said:

that being said, it was a bit of interesting history lesson trying to get a little bit of the info on this fixture.  Built by Electro Control, Inc which was bought by Strand; which is now owned by Philips. most were built from 1967 to 1986.  so this partially predates my time in the theater, and personally I have never run across any that I know of.

you can put in a request for this to be added to the libraries through the Vision webpage, though Mark might not be able to find all the info he needs to add it to the libraries.

May I say that at the time, the fixture was a stellar addition to most anyone's lighting inventory. A truly flat sharp field, miles better than the same generation of Altmans.

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Last time I used one was in the 90's, and the theater had trouble sourcing the EGJ lamps, so when we had a burn out it would go out of inventory.

 

They're in my Photometrics Handbook, p. 348, Electro Controls Model No. 7367A, with the dimensions 25 11/16 x 15 ½ x 26 5/16.  Weight 22.5 lbs (I remember the body being cast steel).

 

The plot still opens in 2019!  I just used the generic axial zoom ERS symbol, which in 3D looks like this:

 

 

Parellipsphere_3D.png

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2 hours ago, JBenghiat said:

Last time I used one was in the 90's, and the theater had trouble sourcing the EGJ lamps, so when we had a burn out it would go out of inventory.

 

They're in my Photometrics Handbook, p. 348, Electro Controls Model No. 7367A, with the dimensions 25 11/16 x 15 ½ x 26 5/16.  Weight 22.5 lbs (I remember the body being cast steel).

 

The plot still opens in 2019!  I just used the generic axial zoom ERS symbol, which in 3D looks like this:

 

 

Parellipsphere_3D.png

Where on your website is this particular handbook available?

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6 hours ago, Rob Books said:

one of the discussions I came across on a theater board about it had mixed feelings, seems if it was benched correctly so everything lined up it was great, but if the lamp was off it would go through lamps like butter. 

when one of the night clubs here in Baltimore closed, one of my friends rummaged through their old light equipment, so very old stuff in there.  I love some of the older equipment, my first dimmer system in High School was the old rheostat handle dimmers, took up one whole wall of the backstage area.  The year after I graduated, they pulled that system and put in a control board.  

 

Not only lamps, but color as well they'd go through. When in tune though, they sang. Of course I'd run into them as the third fixture from centerline in Someone's Rep Plot Somewhere, all the rest being Altman Off Axial fixtures and the wash would be lumpy as bad gravy. Growing up in a small town outside NYC I came up in equity summer stock theater where on the weekends we'd showcase a great many of the NYC dance companies as they began their summer tours. Three racks - eventually four - of six handle autotransformer dimmers. A nightmare. When I toured the college theater department in and saw the wall-sized "computer lighting board" I knew life was going to get much much better.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Fortunately, the racks of autotransformer dimmers were before my time.  When I started in college the dimmers the building had a rack of 24 dimmers and about 90-100 circuits between the onstage electrics and the FOH position.  I remember pulling the circuit plug from the mess of overhead cables and plugging into the appropriate dimmer  much like a switchboard operator in the early 20th century telephone days.  The best part was fighting the counterweight on the cable to pull in through the birds nest in the wall to get enough slack to properly plug into the rack.  This was all controlled by a Microvision FX (the kind with the scroll wheel carved from granite) and a backstage "Stage Manager" control board in the rehearsal and dressing room space.  Inevitably, some actor would always place a prop or lean on the board and turn on the house lights during one of the dress rehearsals which would trigger the TD to remember to pull the key on the board.  Of course, the summer after I graduated they received a large funding contribution and upgraded to a dual 96 rack ETC Sensor system and dimmer per circuit wiring and one of those fancy Digital to Analog converter boxes and a new Express 48/96 board and buttons stations.

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My high school had red, blue and white border lights (remember roundels?) controlled by circuit breakers. Ugh. 

 

Now, can we get Spotlight symbols for Kliegl Bros and for Major fixtures?  I’ll expect to see some dry rotted asbestos leads on the 3D portion. 

Edited by scottmoore
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2 hours ago, Rob Books said:

 

we don't need no stinkin' ground Wires!

 

Aside,

I was working on a show, standing on a pipe tower that had been built into the theater.  had one light that as soon as we brought it up would blow the lamp.  I had just replaced the lamp, waiting to see if it happened again, they bring up the light and I get a little jolt.  someone had crossed wired the plug on the fixture, and the live was running through the ground, the pipes and me. Pulled that base and replaced it. 

Oh how I love this thread!

I got one: Sometime in the early early 90's in a former communist concrete palace of entertainment, just then being converted to a performing arts space by a young Hungarian guy, passionate about contemporary dance. He created opportunities for small dance companies, like the many I worked for in NYC. Anyways, I found myself on the top of a box truss 25' or so above the concrete deck facing the rasty old Hungarian head electrician holding the local equivalent of a two by four which he was threatening to club me with. Why? Well, aside the contretemps he and I had had about hanging my additions to the house rep plot, he was there to 'protect' me. I focusing the rig myself, mostly old PAR 64s. Not a one had a porcelain, they all had bare end lugs. At 220V he was there to break the connection should I do something stupid like reach in to rotate the lamp as one was wont to do back in those days.

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I had a house full of Parellipspheres in 1986 in the SF bay area. My main memory is trying to get lamps that fit. The reflector was designed for a halogen retrofit, but if the base ceramic was too tall it wouldn't go all the way in. The lamp still met specs for the standard version but was useless to me. 

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1. Late 70s tour of Mexico City suburbs, checking circuits with wetted index fingers. 

2. 1990 creation of a performance space out of a gymnasium, by creating 2 holes with sledge hammers through the brick wall to the small black box next door and its 100 circuits and 40 dimmers. 

3. The early 70s with 3 luxtral 6 packs, 1 - 6 circuit scrimmer in the hallway outside the black box, powered by the 100 amp stole plug, cable running down the hallway and through a door.

37 years too many stories.

 

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I ran into the “zip cord wrapped around the prongs of a PAR 64 rig”  Over 200 PAR 64s each with an individual 18g piece of zip cord. I later peeked into the dimmer racks and found the incoming power was just bundles of zip cord to each pack. 

 

Ran an entire show off of two bus generators in a blizzard once....

Edited by scottmoore
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

One of my previous employers ran into a really special example in China. He was doing site visits looking for a venue for a client and visited a venue in southern China. The venue was a theater style venue, in a rural area and from the front of house side looked pretty good. It had a huge parcan rig which being as it was around 2013 or so he thought, not ideal but it's china and this is better than I expected. He then made the mistake of looking at the at the lighting console and found out it was self built by the venue's 'electrician', it consisted of a table covered in rubber matting with 2 strips of wood holding a series of bare wires a few centimeters above it and a pair of hammer style 'drum sticks' with cables attached. the bare wires were the live wires and 'drums sticks' had the neutrals attached. The house 'electrician' very proudly gave a demonstration complete with sparks flying everywhere, apparently there was more light coming from the console back stage than came out of the parcans.

 

Needless to say my ex employer rapidly made his excuses and left as fast as he could. Some of what happens in China and the ex soviet republics has to be seen to be believed.

 

 

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