Difference between revisions of "Comms"

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==Comms System==
 
==Comms System==
  
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Bedlam is hardwired (to an extent) with a double comms ring. There are boxes for the belt packs to connect to at the café door, toilet corridor door, folo spot emplacements, sound desk, lighting desk, stage cupboard and both doors of the dressing room. There are two amplifiers behind the sound rack, which fork at the wall; one half deals with downstairs and anything stage right of the sound rack, and one half deals with the stage left folo and everything backstage. At some point in Bedlam's history, someone decided that the best way to wire the cans was with a mixture of CAT-5 and fairly crap two-core shielded audio cable. This makes it fairly temperamental and interesting to fix; it's recent maintenance history includes:
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The old comms system was replaced in January 2009 by Ewan Connor (Technical Manager) with help from Mal, Jamie McQuilkin and various others. The new system is one ring with two lines:
  
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*November 2007 - Cans located and problems found. Map made on wall of tech box. SL folo opened up and cursed for several hours. SL folo closed.
 
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*December 2007 - SL Folo fixed after nimble soldering. Stage cupboard made to work very briefly.
 
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*February 2008 - Stage cupboard emplacement found hanging off of the wall. SL folo found to be broken.
 
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*April 2008 - SL folo made to work
 
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*October 2008 - SL folo repaired again. Stage cupboard repaired. SL folo re-opened, and wired to include shield on audio cable. Stage  cupboard works again. Dressing rooms still broken.
 
  
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==Things to Note==
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'''Line 1'''
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There is a nagging suspicion that the audio cable broken and coiled beside the SL folo may be the remains of the backstage end of one of the rings. One of the amplifiers has an undiagnosed fault and eats fuses. Also, we have a problem with people stealing beltpacks, which are <i>extremely</i> expensive. One disappeared in 2007 some time, and one during Fringe '08. It should be noted that it is possible to bypass the hardwired comms ring entirely, and daisy chain beltpacks together with the amplifier. This may often be the easiest option.
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Base
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SL Followspot 
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'''Line 2'''
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Base
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Sound Position
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LX Point
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Indoor Hall
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SR Followspot
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Dressing Room
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Stage Cupboard
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(If anyones interested the reason why we didn't go the other way, ie SL Followspot, Indoor hall, Stage Cupboard, is that there was no suitable point to drop cable down to indoor hall and we didn't really want to drill any more holes lest the building collapse.)
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== Wiring ==
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The whole thing is now cabled with three-core xlr:
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Red: Hot/Send
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White: Cold/Return
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Shield: Power
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Within the boxes, there is a choc block connecting the incoming and outgoing xlr components with three small wires. These wires then connect to the corresponding xlr pins.

Latest revision as of 14:13, 12 March 2009

Comms System

The old comms system was replaced in January 2009 by Ewan Connor (Technical Manager) with help from Mal, Jamie McQuilkin and various others. The new system is one ring with two lines:


Line 1

Base

SL Followspot


Line 2

Base

Sound Position

LX Point

Indoor Hall

SR Followspot

Dressing Room

Stage Cupboard


(If anyones interested the reason why we didn't go the other way, ie SL Followspot, Indoor hall, Stage Cupboard, is that there was no suitable point to drop cable down to indoor hall and we didn't really want to drill any more holes lest the building collapse.)


Wiring

The whole thing is now cabled with three-core xlr:


Red: Hot/Send

White: Cold/Return

Shield: Power


Within the boxes, there is a choc block connecting the incoming and outgoing xlr components with three small wires. These wires then connect to the corresponding xlr pins.

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