[SML] Dimming Cooling

[e-mail frank.wood95]

LEDs seem to be a fad, at the moment. They are beloved by theatre
management for their luminous efficiency, and low power costs. Are
they beloved by designers?

Over the last umpteen years, designers have been using luminaires with
more or less precise beam control, to achieve their effects. When I
started, I had three battens of open lamps, in three colours to play
with. To achieve any degree of precision in beam control, I believe
that you need to begin with a high intensity point source, or as near
as you can get to it, and an optical system .

It seems to me that the principle of lighting design, as I have learnt
them, are making a retrograde step. The direction and quality of the
light is, or was, all-important. Does it cast hard or soft shadows?
LEDs are very versatile as colour sources, but I have no real evidence
that I can achieve any sort of precision in where the light goes.

Certainly, to achieve given illumination on stage, the power costs
will be lower. But is that all we are trying to do? And LEDs  DO
require dimmers. These are often built into the luminaires, as LEDs
are current-controlled devices. This means very extensive DMX, or
whatever, control cabling, connectors. Not to mention a high degree of
understanding among the installers and users

On 3 September 2015 at 15:14, Dorian Kelly via Stagecraft
<stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> It might save a certain amount of copper if abandoning dimmer rooms, but it isms de up for by the huge amount of power distro needed: and we would need all the mcbs to be accessible individually so we finish up with a distro room instead..
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone from illuminati. Please excuse brevity and autocorrect errors if any.
>
>> On 3 Sep 2015, at 14:50, Richard John Archer via Stagecraft <stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> . Dimmer racks may well be a lame-duck technology, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that they'll be with us for a few more decades at least.
>>>
>>> Steve L.
>>
>>
>> Steve is right.  Dimmers will be around for a long time.   Just a couple of years ago here at Cornell, the auditorium  in the hotel school still had some thyratron tube dimmers
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-- 
Frank Wood