lighting

[madgadget]

I cant really put the Laser above the strobe on the stand, unless I weld a suitable bracket or something (which I may do). It works fine and yes I love things to be totally spot on - I love attention to detail like that.

The subs are insane. They weigh 100kg each and still move along on floors like shown above. I purchased them of a friend of mine who is selling his setup. (he had 12 of them - I now have two) I cannot afford/justify his QSC/Crown amps or X-array tops yet!

The truss again was an amazing bargin think it was £130 or something. About the same I paid for the Proel speaker stands - BUT significantly stiffer/stronger than the Proel ones. - go figure !

[Dr Laser]

lol light envy... May I share my small setup?? I rarely use this lot for anything more than a couple of events a year, but its growing bit by bit... This was a photo just before taking it all down..

Attachment 7162

Its all DMX'ed etc..
1.5Kw strobe (draws over 14A@240 on fullpower !!
4x soundlab colour scans (£260 for the lot!! inc acceptable flight cases)
2x mojo spinmaster III
4x acme par 56
1x NRG RGY laser (200mw) my first ever laser...

Running on a dedicated pc with freestyler DMX

Sound:
2x Behringer B1580pro as tops
2x Turbo sound subs (copies improved ) with custom spec Precision devices drivers.
fed with 2 (soon to be three) Behringer EP2500 amps. One for tops two for bass in bridged mono (approx 2K rms per bass cab - those things are insane)
and a Soundcraft Sprirt ES mixer which I purchased for doing the occasional RSL broadcast I used to do.

Its obviously not the most highquality kit out there (except the subs which imo are true pro class, and my most recent purchase) but its a great combination that can be made to look very very good for the £ spent...

Just a little advise. Material to cover stands is Spandex aka Lycra. AND NO VISIBLE CABLES AT ALL. Use electrical tape to tape them behind the truss.

[madgadget]

Hahaha you nutcase I would do things like that if I did events like this more than 2-3 times a year hahaha. I like that idea however!! Top marks for image editing too lol

[Dr Laser]

I do shows 3 times a week and always do this type of things even for a very small party. For bigger parties I use naked trussings. It's not that hard to do nor time consuming. About an hour. This will make your setup more professional and more people will be interested in your service.

[madgadget]

Oh I couldn't agree more. Just at the moment I don't offer this as a service! Its just a bunch of kit I have that I would like to offer once I start to do something about it. Then yes for sure it would change dramatically from that image I posted I will for example make some kind of harness etc for the light stand to make assembly quick and simple - it takes too long right now. I like the idea of the material however. I am going to have a look for some of that.

[QUAZAR]

If you fit hook clamps on your lights, you can fix them any where you like. I dislike using drilled trussing, it loses a lot of strength. I also fitted distro boxes (16A or 32A in and 6 x IEC out) on the trussing. Saved an awfull lot of wiring


I had 4 Starlight Mk4 1200W movers
6 Tas Mini Ultrascan 250MSD
4 Clay Paky Mini Scans 300HTI
Martin Supermoon (modified to take 300W HTI lamp)
8 Twister 4
4 x Deathstar 2KW strobes
Hungaroflash 15 KW strobe
8 x 400W UV cannons
9m astralite truss
2 x 150KG 4.5m high winch stands

2 x SP2011
2 x ALC 68

2 x F100 foggers

That lot needed 120 Amp 3 phase to run.

[norty303]

If you fit hook clamps on your lights, you can fix them any where you like

I personally dislike using hook clamps for mounting anything bar par cans above the bar. You can get special clamps for top mounting and they don't simply fall off if the grip loosens.

Half couplers are not great either as they let go and fly open if unscrewed. I had a 20kg+ fixture drop over 6ft onto a sub contractors leg because an inexperienced person was used to just unscrewing g-clamps at pack down. Unfortunately I'd just been round and taken all the safety bonds off the lowered truss at the time.... Luckily the person who was bent over picking up one of the dropped safety bonds stood up in time or I could've been looking at a serious injury or even death. These things serve as a wake up call an I was lucky in this case.


I'm also not a big fan of the 'pseudo-truss' like in the picture. It looks like proper truss but doesn't perform like it, and I often see it being used severely overloaded and bending on the joins. The stands aren't very well rated and neither is the truss section.

Proper truss isn't that expensive (look at the Global Truss from Thomann) and is properly rated and can take a serious amount of weight safely.

[QUAZAR]

You dont necessarily need to mount above the top bar, just use the hook clamp on the top bar and have the light in between the bars. The yoke at 45 degree angle. Works well with lightweight fixtures like strobes. Wouldnt recommend it for intelligent fixtures though.

[oliverst14@hotmail.com]

totally agree there quazar do it all the time and it looks good.

hiya norty,

that particular truss (if its the same as mine) is extremly heavy duty, the up rights weigh a hell of alot and are not your normal cheap speaker stand type ones. mine is rated to 150kg whick is pretty good considering its a 6m truss. i have seen global truss from thormann and its very good stuff, i love the crank up stands but there £350 each and considering that this whole setup only cost me £120 its a really good deal. i also read that the 3m sections are rated to 150kg so it could take double the weight of my setup so it is much better stuff.
i have had a similar goal post stand that was rated to 90kg and it was pathetic, i put about half that on and it failed and i was stranded holding the whole lot up till my mate could take the fixtures off.
this truss is different its surprisingly heavy duty and im very impressed,

i do know what u mean though that u can overload it, i did once as i tried to put 8 scanners and 2 mover and 2 lasers on it, the thing wasnt happy so i took some off and it was fine.

proper truss is a hell of alot better but its a hell of alot more expensive, i could buy 3 of these and make a really large stage out setup looking really good at different heights or buy 2 uprights and 2 3m sections of global truss at the moment id prefer the 3 of those but i totally understand what your saying mate.

it isnt as good quality and u have to keep an eye on the amount of weight but this particular design is surprisingly strong

cheers ollie

[norty303]

The problem is you've just highlighted the problems with those setups.

Whilst the span itself may be rated for 150kg, I seriously doubt the lifts are. They would need to be 75kg rated or better (each) and if you look at the various stands available inc Manfrottos etc you'll find not very many are rated in excess of 50kg each. Those that are generally cost far in excess of £120 each

The best value 50kg lift i ever found was the Thomann TL2700 (or 2700 something) for about £70 each. I think that you can now get a fairly serious 100kg winch lift for £150 from somewhere too.

This is a good package (I bought 2 when they were under £280 each ) but even then 'only' a 100kg rated set, even though the truss span itself can take 210kg evenly distributed (or 100kg centre point)
http://www.thomann.de/gb/stairville_...ter_bundle.htm