# Term: "luminaire hickey"



## derekleffew (Mar 10, 2015)

Read this unfamiliar term in the latest _EC&M_: "luminaire hickey". What does it mean?

As always, students only for one week. And no googling (which may return unwanted results without a family filter engaged). Books and periodicals are encouraged.


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## JonCarter (Mar 10, 2015)

Too easy! Anybody who has done elec. work outside of a theatre would know this!


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## gafftapegreenia (Mar 10, 2015)

Haven't hung that many practicals, eh?


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## theatricalmatt (Mar 11, 2015)

I can think of three separate meanings for the term, so I'm interested in learning which you consider the "correct" one.

EDIT: Or, rather, which definition EC&M (which I don't receive) decided to use.


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## rochem (Mar 11, 2015)

I believe I've heard the term in it's proper context, but to be honest, the first thing that popped into my mind was what happens when you accidentally brush your forearm on an Altman 360 at Full.


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## Les (Mar 12, 2015)

rochem said:


> I believe I've heard the term in it's proper context, but to be honest, the first thing that popped into my mind was what happens when you accidentally brush your forearm on an Altman 360 at Full.



SAME. Back in high school, I used to always get "par 64 hickeys".


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## rbalewski (Mar 12, 2015)

rochem said:


> I believe I've heard the term in it's proper context, but to be honest, the first thing that popped into my mind was what happens when you accidentally brush your forearm on an Altman 360 at Full.



I've never heard the term before, but that's pretty much where my mind went as well. Had plenty of those over the years and figured there must be some creative name for them.


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## TheaterEd (Mar 12, 2015)

My first thought was that the term referred to what happens when the candlestick and the broom from beauty and the beast sneak off behind the curtains, but then I remembered that his name is Lumiere so that can't be right.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 12, 2015)

Kind of funny that the "hickey" in the picture has an odd resemblance to a "luminaire hickey".


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## Terrence MacArthur (Mar 14, 2015)

Les said:


> SAME. Back in high school, I used to always get "par 64 hickeys".



Oh boy. W hen I was in High School there weren't even any Pars. LeeKos (some Kliegs), Fresnels, Sun Spots and carbon arc spots. No Pars. Or Scrollers, Rotating Gobos, or much of anything else. And my HS had rheostat dimmers. Come to think of it, Silicon Controlled Rectifier dimmers were really a fairly new thing then, for people with lots of money. 

I MUST be getting old.


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## JonCarter (Mar 17, 2015)

This has been up more than a week and none of the youngsters have come up with an answer, so I guess it's legal for one of us ol' farts to chime in. A fixture hickey (or "luminaire hickey") is the fitting that goes between the fixture stud in the outlet box and the fixture nipple or stem which allows the fixture wires to feed into the nipple or stem and thus get down to the fixture.


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## JonCarter (Mar 17, 2015)

But I kinda like Bill Connor's response. Did you engineer that just for the photo, Bill?


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 17, 2015)

A photo but what was really neat is when I googled luminaire hickey, jon carter's picture was there!


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## TheaterEd (Mar 18, 2015)

An early picture of my last Luminaire Hickey. Source 4s get hot Yo!


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## theatricalmatt (Mar 18, 2015)

The "third" definintion I alluded to is the imprint made on gel when it's burnt through -- especially when color media and diffusion are close together, and some of the color tranfers to the otherwise opaque frost.

Sometimes also called "the kiss of death." The image of the lamp looks rather like a pair of lips -- not unlike the image @BillConnorASTC provided.


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## pbansen (Feb 28, 2018)

Terrence MacArthur said:


> When I was in High School there weren't even any Pars. LeeKos (some Kliegs), Fresnels, Sun Spots and carbon arc spots.
> 
> I MUST be getting old.



Ditto. Lekos, fresnels, scoops, a beam projector or two and some PAR predecessors we referred to as "birdies". Autotransformers were the state-of-the-art dimmer - SCR's a new and exciting technology that only other people could afford.

I'm not _getting_ old, I am old.


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## Amiers (Feb 28, 2018)

If were taking selfies.


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## JohnD (Mar 14, 2018)

There is also another luminaire hickey, although more related to practicals.


Then there is also a somewhat related term related to luminaires, concerning tainted sockets, using a social disease term.


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