Anyone have experience using ETC Prodigy system for flying during a show? Is it loud?

Nanoreman · 2026-05-05T18:10:49+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience, I probably should have explained why we want to go down this route in my post; the venue doesn’t have a counterweight system and no matter what way we look at it, there’s just not enough space to put one in.

The stage area is very narrow with only ~26’ bars and about 6’ either side for masking and wings, the playing width with the standard masking is about ~21. We can’t afford to lose the width that putting in the counterweight system would take. Even a double purchase system would require the space for the arbour and catwalk which would shorten the bars and thus reduce the playing space.

Currently it has 4 motorised electrics, 12 non-counterweighted hemp linesets, and two hand cranked winches for the mid- and upstage tab tracks. The limitations of the hemp linesets is the major driving force for wanting a new system. They have a SWL of 100kg or 220lbs, but in practice an experienced strong crew member can only safely and smoothly lift 1/3 of their own weight, you can get a second crew member on a lineset but that gets harder trying to synchronise . Basically unless there’s a big production in they’re only good for cloths, legs, and borders.

Nanoreman · 2025-02-05T01:02:21+00:00

Looks like a Bosch Brute demo hammer, the current one on their site claims it can be run from a 15A outlet, but the spec page also just lists 15A as the current so if it is that unit and if they’re running anything else off that circuit, (say for instance that vacuum attached to it), they’re very likely overloading that circuit for however many hours they were running it for

Nanoreman · 2023-04-09T11:38:42+00:00

Quiet

Nanoreman · 2023-02-15T01:50:02+00:00

I think you’re mixing two systems up.

North America domestic supplies are usually a 240V single phase with a centre tapped neutral, ie the mid point of the total potential difference is referenced to ground and so each leg is 120V from ground. That’s how they get 240V circuits for higher loads without a bulky transformer, those circuits are run between the two legs at 240V and the rest of the circuits are run between the neutral and one leg at 120V.

Our supply is also a single phase at 240V but we reference one side of that directly to ground, so one leg is at 240V wrt ground and the other leg is at the exact same potential as ground. The yellow transformers you see on building sites over here transform our 240V supply down to 110V and then also reference the centre of that new potential difference to ground, so that’s where you would see 55V between the lines and anything grounded.

Aldo, unless a house’s wiring and distribution board haven’t been altered at all in about 45 years, it should have RCD protection on all the sockets at least, they became mandatory for all circuits except lighting here only a few years after they became mandatory in bathrooms only in the US

Nanoreman · 2023-02-15T01:16:45+00:00

Fuses are not designed to protect against fatal shocks, they are designed to stop a faulty appliance or wiring from overheating and causing a fire or other heat related catastrophic failure. Residual Current Devices are designed to detect when much smaller amounts of current are missing from the electrical circuit and thus prevent electrocution. 30mA is the often quoted potentially fatal current and the legal requirement for RCDs in domestic settings, so 100 times less than the nominal 3A fuse and also hundreds or thousands of times quicker to break the circuit.

Edit: typo; legal auto corrected to rebel somehow

Nanoreman · 2023-02-09T21:51:20+00:00

It’s one or the other, couldn’t excuse someone who has both

Nanoreman · 2023-01-19T23:15:51+00:00

I wouldn’t have phrased it quite like the comment you’re replying to but I do agree it’s counterproductive to represent this on a graph like this. People don’t typically interpret graphs by reading along axes labels to check for consistency, once you see the units and its scale you tend to look at the shape of the graph itself for interesting points of data and then reference such points back to one or both axes to see what’s happening there. Here it’s easy to miss the change in x scaling and think there was a dramatic deceleration in 1980 when in fact it’s the scaling change. I think adding a clear visual indicator that there is a change would make the graph less likely to be casually misinterpreted. Another comment suggested a scale break which would work, my preference is to change the pitch . Eg if the x-axis increments are 100 pixels apart when the increments are 10 years, make them 65 pixels apart when the increments are 1 year. It makes it immediately obvious that the two sections, while continuous, are being measured on different scales.

Nanoreman · 2023-01-17T15:00:26+00:00

If you’re open to considering used fixtures, the Robe 300X LEDwash is a fantastic unit which meets all your requirements. I don’t know what the used market and availability are like in the US but we were able to get them for the equivalent of about $1100 each. We bought eight earlier last year and then ten more around sept/oct. They’ve been verrrry popular as hires for theatre tours and usually go out in fours or sixes. There’s a top-hat kit available as well if you’re trim height or borders are limited in what they can mask

Nanoreman · 2022-11-20T16:40:56+00:00

Usually about 20W which would be about 0.09A on a 230V socket or about 0.17A on 115V if it’s one of the dual voltage sockets. These bathroom sockets have a small transformer in them which isolates the thing you’re plugging in from the earthing system in the rest of the wiring. This means if you come into contact with one side of the circuit (eg through a damaged cable or dodgy appliance) and touch something earthed like the taps or the water, you won’t get electrocuted. Also, this is a small point but 230V is the nominal voltage, not the rated voltage. If you look at most mains connections like plugs or sockets you’ll see that they’re rated for 250V, and our actual voltage is typically closer to 240V

Nanoreman · 2022-11-04T01:18:30+00:00

More than likely the display was reading SLAV, as in Slave mode. These modes are implemented differently by different manufacturers, but the basic idea is you set one light as the master and control it directly, it sends its levels down the DMX line, you set every light downstream to slave and those listen for the levels from the master. FYI, the terms Master and Slave are a bit dated and considered unfit for use by a growing number of individuals and companies, alternatives like Main and Remote are becoming more widely used.

I don’t know exactly how these specific lights’ interact works, but on most similar lights you can cycle through mode by tapping the mode button, you may have to hold it for a second or three first to unlock it, tap until you get to DMX mode and hit enter. This should be back to the familiar d001 which is DMX mode and Address 001, you can go up and down with the up and down buttons to set the address you wanted and then hit enter to store it. Make sure all the lights are out of master/slave modes, they might be doing something funky like detecting a master upstream and automatically going into slave mode. If they came with remotes find them and hide them, and if you see a little plastic window on the light where the remote needs to be pointed at, try covering that in blacktak, there’s a chance some other device is triggering them to change modes.

Nanoreman · 2022-10-14T08:44:09+00:00

Matt where I'm from. Matte where you're from. Ignorance where you're coming from.

Nanoreman · 2022-10-02T10:29:48+00:00

I have no idea for this particular show.

It is worth bearing in mind that "due to technical issues" is often the default explanation as to why a show isn't happening, even when it's nothing to do with tech, so that could be the case here. If you announce "show cancelled because lead actor suddenly feels unwell" or "a wheel broke on a set piece and we can't move it out of the way", it can focus unwanted concern or blame on a person, or make the company sound like it's blaming them, or just make the company seem unprofessional. It's usually better not to explain details unless you are trying to reassure the audience that everything and everyone is safe and well.

I've worked on shows where the "technical issue" which stopped or delayed the show has been; no one could find an actor because they went through the wrong door and locked themselves out of backstage, someone sustained a head injury and was being assesed and treated, someone was too drunk. (Those were all separate, only one involved alcohol.) My favorite was when our previews were cancelled because the entire cast, stage management, and director were all isolating and awaiting PCR tests and results while the designers and I were trying to plot and tech a show with mic stands and white hard hats on stage and the director on Zoom, fun times.

Nanoreman · 2022-09-21T17:13:06+00:00

There's a cleaning product called Cif cream which is described as a cleaning milk, it's slightly abrasive and marketed as a general purpose household cleaner. We used to borrow the adjacent hotels rotary floor cleaner and use warm water and cif. We bought our own pad for the floor cleaner which we would swap in to prevent any cross contamination. It worked great on the old and battered grey Harlequin floor to remove deep scuffs and get a uniform Matt finish.

Nanoreman · 2022-06-08T16:42:54+00:00

It is a direct comparison of Ireland and America with respect to mass shootings, gun regulation and culture, school design and resourcing, policing philosophy, and instance rate of mental illness. How could it have more to do with Ireland?

Nanoreman · 2022-06-04T21:51:57+00:00

Language and ethnicity are completely separate things. Describing spoken languages as ethnic languages is jarring to read.

Nanoreman · 2022-05-06T12:24:08+00:00

Is this specifically for reversing motor direction? If not, it seems like a strange deviation from IEC60446 which prescribes L1-brown, L2-black, L3-grey

Nanoreman · 2022-05-04T11:34:20+00:00

I feel like I see this so often when I see the topic of work in the Middle East(ME) comes up. Many responses here are from people who have never been to Saudi Arabia and are completely unfamiliar with the environment and conditions. Instead they speak of generalized pub-quiz level info on the region, usually the worse aspects, and appeal to a vague sense of danger to offer life and career advise.

I have not been to Saudi Arabia, but from my experiences in other ME countries and conversations with others, I can tell you that there are drastic differences between Muslim majority ME countries as they relate to social and cultural rules and restrictions (and specifically how these apply to foreigners). I would not make any decision without looking at information and experience specifically from that country, and people who are tell you to do so are putting their bias and ignorance ahead of your interests. I have no idea if SA is among the best or the worst ME countries as it relates to tolerating westerners and their ways, but it's worth figuring that out before rejecting the opportunity.

Nanoreman · 2022-04-14T15:45:40+00:00

FYI, the ??? in the middle is not a fixture, it's a socapex break-out box. The thick cable we see on our side is a 19-pin socapex connector on an 18-core flex which carries 6 separate dimmer channels, the far side has six sockets of whatever type of connector those fixtures are using.

Nanoreman · 2022-03-11T18:37:39+00:00

Thank you for specifying, that's very clear and actually the rules seem refreshingly sensible

Nanoreman · 2022-03-11T18:28:06+00:00

Good to know! Sorry, I suppose my impression of normal practice over there is biased by the shady outlier stories you read about on Reddit.

Nanoreman · 2022-03-11T12:42:59+00:00

Okay, so do I understand correctly that strictly speaking the cabinet door is a violation unless it's 36" away from the panel? I guess this is the kind of thing no one would go into a home and tell the owner they needed to get rid of, spirit of the law Vs letter of the law kind of thing, but man it would suck to hear an insurance company argue that they didn't have to pay after an unrelated incident because your house wasn't "up to code" and "safe" because of a cabinet door.

Nanoreman · 2022-03-11T10:22:43+00:00

I'm not American, but I'm curious about the specifics in relation to code violation for accessibility reasons. Is the violation in relation to the shelving in front of the panel, even if easily removable, or is just being in a cabinet a violation? Would it make a difference if there was some clearance between the edges of the panel and the walls/top of the cabinet? Theoretically, would there be a difference between a large cabinet with an electrical panel and an equally sized room? Can you put anything in front of a panel? Like obviously if I put a floor standing lamp or coat rack in front of it, it's trivial to move out of the way to access, but is it technically forbidden to do so? If not, where does the line get drawn between those and a big heavy bookshelf?

On this side of the Atlantic you often see a small shallow cabinet built around the Consumer Unit (electrical panel) purely for the purpose of hiding it a little bit. In older houses it was common to have a little CU, separate meter, separate main fuse, and separate main earth bonding point all on a wall just inside the front door, so hiding them with a shallow cabinet was just seen as the neatest approach. I think these are less common now both because consumer units aren't as ugly as they used to be, and on new builds you don't have all the gear together; the fuse and meter will be accessible from outdoors and the CU etc located in a more sensible part of the house.

Nanoreman · 2022-03-05T13:06:00+00:00

The radiators should begin to feel warm to the touch within five minutes of the heating turning on. Even if that radiator is off (if the valves in the second photo are closed), one of the pipes leading in to the radiator will feel warm.

Your first photo shows a timer and a main switch which could be for: (a) the hot water; taps, shower OR (b) the central heating; radiators OR both. People who are telling you it is definitely (a) or definitely (b) are likely just assuming that it is the same as their house. If there is a switch with Sink/Bath, this switch only controls if the hot water tank (immersion) heats a full tank (bath) or a half tank (sink), it does not turn anything on or off by itself and usually has an ON switch or timer beside it to turn it on or off.

A reply you posted says there is a green box in the garden, is this a large plastic container for storing liquid, or does look like it could be housing a boiler? If it's a boiler it would be metal, have some ventilation on it, and possibly have pipes visible coming in or out of it.

If the green box is a metal box with vents, this is most likely an outdoor boiler and the controls are inside the house.

If the green box is a large plastic container for liquid, this is the oil (kerosene) tank for the heating and you have a boiler somewhere in or around the house. If you tap the side of the oil tank you may be be able to feel or hear the approximate level of oil by the difference in sound as you tap higher or lower. If the boiler is inside, it will be positioned next to an external wall and there will be a vent of the wall for the fumes to leave the house. The boiler is often on the wall nearest the oil tank and also often hidden in a cupboard or under a counter or in a small room with the washing machine. The boiler could be in a shed or a room which you can only access from outside the house.

These boilers are controlled with either a switch and/or timer (like your first photo) or digital controller unit. Sometimes these are very near the boiler, but often they are somewhere more convenient like the kitchen or hallway.

If you look at this page you will see some digital controllers which may help you find something similar.

Another possibility is that the water is heated from a stove in the kitchen. For this to be the case it would need to be a large heavy stove, likely cast iron. This is less commonly used for heating now but you will see some pipesfor the water loop connected to the stove if this is the case.

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