# QotD for 02/07/11: Pancan



## derekleffew (Feb 7, 2011)

What is this thing and what is it for?


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## ScottT (Feb 7, 2011)

Bug zapper for the stage?

On a more serious note, it looks (in the first photo) as if there is gel inside the "cage"


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## techieman33 (Feb 7, 2011)

that's an easy one


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## chausman (Feb 7, 2011)

Orange Colored Lantern!


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## gafftapegreenia (Feb 7, 2011)

Is it something like this?

[video]http://www.precosafety.com/files/Videos/LED-Amber-Compact.wmv[/video]

Preco Safety Products - Safety Lighting - Rotator Models


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## thesigma (Feb 8, 2011)

MIDI controlled Police light? I dunno, it has blue and red gels, some sort of mirror, and a pair of 5 pin DIN's, I guess those could be used for anything though....


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## techno89 (Feb 13, 2011)

Initially I was gonna go with bug zapper.


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## LXPlot (Feb 13, 2011)

That really does look a lot like a ghost light. But considering the fact that SLD doesn't seem to sell Ghost lights, and that control booth had a post about ghost lights this morning, I'm gonna go with it being an old DJ light because the DIN suggests MIDI, the color and shape suggest wash light, and the build suggests consumer project. Oh, and SLD sells a lot of DJ stuff.


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## Les (Feb 13, 2011)

Take in to consideration that DIN was a common smaller format analog connector too. If this unit uses an 5-pin DIN, it has up to 5 control parameters, possibly driven by a proprietary controller.


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## n1ist (Feb 14, 2011)

A 5-pin DIN for analog would control up to 4 channels (plus a common).
/mike


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## derekleffew (Feb 14, 2011)

Since it's been a week, question is now open to all. techieman33, other old timers, what is it?


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## derekleffew (Feb 17, 2011)

The device pictured is called the Pancan and is an ancestor of Rosco's I-Cue.

From Welcome | Peter Wynne-Willson :

> 1980 Designed the Pancan remote-controlled mirror system, founded the eponimous company to manufacture and market the product. Selling by the thousand world-wide, it spawned an entire industry of moving mirror automated lighting.




Some may know Mr. Wynne-Wilson better as the inventor of Catalyst and VersaTube, among other lighting innovations. While not an original idea (George Izenour at Yale had experimented with moving mirrors in the 1930s), Pancan was the first mass-market moving light product.

In the mid-1980's the product was imported from the UK to the US by Stage Lighting Distributors.
Advertisement from _Lighting Dimensions_ magazine:


The device used three 0-10VDC analog channels for pan, tilt, and color respectively. Implementation of color-change was _interesting_ to say the least, in that one made a cylinder out of four colors that attached to the inner cage with wires and springs. When moving the pan channel, one also had to move the color channel, or the light would change colors as the beam moved! Rotating the inner cage at the same time solved this, sort of, except for the fact that they moved at slightly different speeds.

I bought eight of these and used them extensively on corporate shows, not as specials but as effects lights. I usually put them on 1K-PAR64-VNSPs for maximum impact. Ran them off a Prestige 1000, which had an AMX192 card installed, into a "magic box" DAC, and then ran eight 5-pin DIN cables to each unit. Pshaw to those who say "you can't run moving lights on an Express."

More cutsheets here, Vintage and Unique NightClub Lighting:


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