# New Light Smell?



## asb002 (May 2, 2005)

Renovations on my school's auditorium have (finally) been completed. Now we have a decent light setup, with S4 JR's and S4 Parnels, and some strip lights. However, whenever the lights are on for an period of time (>10 mins) there is a peculiar odor that permiates the aud, mostly on stage, where the bulk of the lights are. I was wondering if this is a usual "new light" smell, that goes away after some time on, or if this is something more serious? I have never used brand new lights before, so I am not sure what the cause is.


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## zac850 (May 2, 2005)

I've never worked with new lights either (my school got everything used), however I have heard that a 'burnt toast' type of smell is normal. The heat from the lamp is burning the dust off of the inside of the fixture, and it should go away. However, I'd love to get someone else to tell me that I'm right, since, as I said, I have never gotten to work with new lights before either.


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## koncept (May 2, 2005)

I have gotten to use new lights before, I do not know if that is normal but our new instruments gave off a smell as well. I was told it was normal and goes away after a little while.


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## lightfreak (May 2, 2005)

I am still using new instuments.. and everytime i turn them on they smell... 

At my old school with old instruments... i they hadent been turned on in a while they smelt like burning rubber, i was informed that it was the dust burning off. 

So i think that smell is ok.


L


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## lights11964 (May 2, 2005)

I think that this smell is okay, we recently purchased 6 cyc lights and when we first started using them there was a smell of burning rubber. But after a few days of using them the smell went away


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## asb002 (May 2, 2005)

Thanks for all the responses! I also thought it was dust burning, but we have been using these lights for a week or two now, so I wasn't sure if that was still the case. It seems like this is normal, so I won't worry about it.


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## lightfreak (May 2, 2005)

You have just finished renos so the dust could still be setteling from that. mine still smell and its been almost 6 months.

L


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## ship (May 2, 2005)

I think it's possibly the paint itself amongst other materials such as say talc on wire and not just dust burning up. 

Interesting that there is different smells and no reports of lights smoking. That's also a normal siting. 

Somewhat rare on a ETC fixture beyond a certain smell, but you should have seen the smoke coming off a new Mole 5Kw beam projector I prepped a few weeks ago. Had to clean the front lens after burning it in as it were in reality. 

Re-Cleaning your lenses even if they don't seem to smoke might be a good idea after an innitial few hours of use, this before it coats and gets much harder to remove later. Where there is smoke there is fire, where there is smell, there is fumes coming from it.

Let them burn in a while and all should be fine.


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## cutlunch (May 3, 2005)

In the new school theatre, I work part-time in, all the lights were new. So they had to be run for a couple of days to get rid of the new light smell. 

You wouldn't have wanted an audience in there until this was done because the smell was quite strong and unpleasant.


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## Radman (May 3, 2005)

I love the new light smell! It's pretty normal, just dust and paint burnin up for the first time, and does go away.


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## RiffRaff54 (Jun 3, 2005)

I started working in my high school theatre about 10 years after it was built, so i dont know about the new light smell. But every time we put a new lamp into a fixture it smells, so that might be what smells also.

and someone said something about smoke, i always love putting gobos into fixture because they start smoking before the gobo holder is all the way in. its kind of scary sometimes.


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## lightfreak (Jun 5, 2005)

We just hung our Cyc lights and they smoked quite a bit. It was kinda funny, we were scared they were going to set off the smoke detectors and fire alarms at school... That would have been really funny. Something else to blame the theatre students for. 

 L


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