[SML] Automated linesets

[Dave Vick]

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 9:41 AM, Personal via Stagecraft
<stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:

> The safety factor is the other thing, you can't "feel" the lineset on auto. If it picks up something, it'll take that wherever you told it to go.


Ummm... That's a function of the programming. You can set up a
mechanical lineset to stop if it picks up too much weight too fast, or
if it encounters a set amount of resistance quickly, provided your
system is set up with load-sensing capability (as I believe most are).
The tricky part is this: How do you determine what is a "normal"
increase in a dynamic payload, say the pipe getting heaver as a heavy
drop is flown out, for instance, and what is a sudden increase in load
indicative of a fouled batten?

Speaking as one trained in ETC's Prodigy system and JRC's
PowerLift/SureTarget systems, and having also operated the Vortek
system installed in one of the theatres in my Local's jurisdiction,
let me say I'm really not a fan. Yes, you can get *some* of the
systems to execute complex cueing and compound movements with precise
repeatability, but not every system is as adept as others at this, and
some software is, to put it bluntly, pretty work-stupid... Like the
drivers can barely manage to move more than one pipe at once. (I'm
looking at 1st-generation Vortek as an example...)

Now, of course I can read the writing on the wall. Manual
counterweight systems are more than likely going to go the way of the
sandbag hemphouse, and probably sooner than later. However I am still
after all these winch-driven years a believer that if you really want
to move something in the air onstage, you put it on a rope and have a
human do it. I remember one tour I did in the Good Old Days that
visited quite a few venues with automated systems, and without fail,
something in the system would go tango-uniform; either losing a power
supply to a third of the winches in the grid, or cueing batten A to
move and having batten B take off at top speed...(ripped a 19-pin
socapex X-over cable apart, that move did... While the circuits were
hot. That was kiind of exciting...)

I've made a tidy income off of winches, but I really don't like them
very much, truth be told.

-- 
Dave Vick
Automation Carpenter/Rigger,
"Dirty Dancing" North American Tour '14-'15
517-749-3859