# Ahh..students (lighting disaster saved by batman)



## tdbatman (Jan 16, 2007)

So, I was running late to a midrun show (I think one of my children were sick...hard to do theater with little kids at home) but my students were pretty good at setting up for the show. We have a cafetorium (love those multi-use rooms) so we have to set EVERYTHING up every night...risers, audience, tech table (nope...no booth) sound board, light board. Pretty much a pain in the butt! Anyway..my lighting assistant was setting up the board to do a pre-show light check when smoke started pouring out of the back of the light board (old two bank split fade board).
So I show up an hour before the show and start scrambling to fix the problem. Open the board and yep...little crispie black things all over the circuit board. Why did the board fry? You may wonder...well...when you have a board that takes a 12v power source and you plug in a 15v power source..the board throws a tantrum....looove students.
Had to fix the problem...hmm..We had an old board but it was an analog board and it would not talk to the DMX dimmers. We called everyone we knew for a backup board but no go. Finally we started the show a half-hour late and I ran the show from the circuit breakers on the back of the dimmer pack. Some of the audience members didn't even notice!
Either that means I'm really good or the lights were so crappy the other nights you couldn't tell the difference.
Nah...I'm just that good.


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## avkid (Jan 16, 2007)

You might want to consider permanently attaching the power supplies in the future.


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## tenor_singer (Jan 16, 2007)

tdbatman said:


> So, I was running late to a midrun show (I think one of my children were sick...hard to do theater with little kids at home) but my students were pretty good at setting up for the show. We have a cafetorium (love those multi-use rooms) so we have to set EVERYTHING up every night...risers, audience, tech table (nope...no booth) sound board, light board. Pretty much a pain in the butt! Anyway..my lighting assistant was setting up the board to do a pre-show light check when smoke started pouring out of the back of the light board (old two bank split fade board).
> So I show up an hour before the show and start scrambling to fix the problem. Open the board and yep...little crispie black things all over the circuit board. Why did the board fry? You may wonder...well...when you have a board that takes a 12v power source and you plug in a 15v power source..the board throws a tantrum....looove students.
> Had to fix the problem...hmm..We had an old board but it was an analog board and it would not talk to the DMX dimmers. We called everyone we knew for a backup board but no go. Finally we started the show a half-hour late and I ran the show from the circuit breakers on the back of the dimmer pack. Some of the audience members didn't even notice!
> Either that means I'm really good or the lights were so crappy the other nights you couldn't tell the difference.
> Nah...I'm just that good.



That is a lesson that I started teaching my tech kiddies. I sit them all down and say... just because you have a wall wart that fits in the power outlet for a device doesn't mean that it is the proper one to use (I learned this the hard way after watching my daughter... who now serves as my tech director at the high school... fry a cable modem because she used her CD player's power adaptor rather than take an extra 10 seconds to find the proper one right beside it). I've even gone so far as to color code all ports with spike tape to help the more tech unsavvy people (like our choir teacher) to plug things in.

Put the green taped cord in the green tape labeled port. Plug the red taped cord into the red tape labeled port. Plug the fork looking thingy (you have to use technical terms with her) into the wall outlet (I've considered taping those, too, but haven't found any 220-V outlets that she could accidentally plug something in to).


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## Van (Jan 16, 2007)

once I powered up my 12 volt powered scanner with my 32volt printer wall wart. Needless to say I had to get a new scanner and I colored coded everything behind my desk so next time I move everything, it'll go in the right place.

They should develop a standard, 2 mm plugs only fit in 12 volt devices 4mm devices only fit 24v devices etc. Nah it'd never work.


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## gafftaper (Jan 17, 2007)

tdbatman said:


> Either that means I'm really good or the lights were so crappy the other nights you couldn't tell the difference.
> Nah...I'm just that good.



No it means you ARE Batman!!


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