# E. Power Transfer Cabinet lag.



## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 17, 2009)

Well, it was a few months ago, I was running the lights for a dance acedmy who rented our theatre to put on a show, at the time, we were running the dimmer 24/7 because if we shut them down we would lose the system. 
(The maintenance dept. had re-wired the signal transfer switch to go from houselights to the DMX control as an ON-OFF switch, thus, blowing our system, so in order for the dimmers to be used we had to do some funky breaker stuff to get it running, so we couldn't turn off our borrowed Expression 3 or shut down the dimmers for about 4 months. 24/7/7/30, Was amazing that nothing burned out.)

So anyways, we are going through the show good, then we get to the end, people are standing, I myself am standing behind the board, and the director is giving a speech, keep in mind at the time she was pregnent. So as she walks out and people are yellinga nd what not, I turn up the spots a little and bring houselights to 50% as soon as she starts talking. 
*Noise of mechanical things turning off*
The lights go out, I look down at the board and all I see on the screens are "Goodbye" and the board turning off. Im like 0_0', So the light system runs through my mind, so I sprint out of the auditorium yelling everyone please sit down, sprint down the hall wall to the rear stage entrance, by now the E. Power Transfer Cabinet had over riden the lights and prvided light for people to see, and for the poor director to see the fire curtain almsot hit here int he head, she runs behind stage, I enter as the fire curtain is on the ground, and I am confused on why the fire alarms havnt gone off, I guess the defualt action for the firecurtain in a powershort is to lower the fire curtain and turn of stage equipment, not activate the fire alarm. So I tell someone to go get a janitor, I go over to the dimmers and shutdown the rack and the amps. (If I hadnt, we would of lost the system when normal power was restored.)
So janitor comes and raises the curtain, and locks the curtain from falling, because it was happening a lot recently for no reason and we didnt want people getitng hurt, so dont worry, after the recital it was unlocked. So curtain is closed, and people are told to sit down and wait for power to be restored, I go explain to the people suing the theatre that we are on abckup power and I will announce when we are ready to restart, so I sit in the back till the lights turn off, indicating power is back, switch on the dimmer rack and go back to the light board and we restart the ending.




So anyways, we almost had a baby born on our stage because our power transfer cabinet took its sweet time restoring some lights : P

Heh, not to interesting, but was pretty hecktic at the time.​


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## DaveySimps (Aug 17, 2009)

Some of this will be a repeat from my post to you in the Facility Forum. However, our local AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) mandates that the power be out for 30 seconds before the transfer switch kicks in. Then our gas powered geni has to take no less than 30 seconds to power on. I think your real problem is that your default in your system is to cause the fire curtain to fall. This makes no sense on a power outage, and it is VERY dangerous. This is what should be fixed in your scenario in my opinion. The first instinct in a power outage should be to calm down and stay in place, not to evacuate. This is why I went to Home Depot and bought a flash light to keep at the stage managers station on each side of the stage, in the control room, in the follow spot booth, in my office, and at the FOH mix position. These never leave these locations and are checked regularly for working batteries. This enables me or anyone else working to investigate things safely and get in a position to safely calm the house. All 4 LED metal flashlights with batteries were only $12 at Home Depot. We also provide all ushers with the same lights, so there is never an issue should the need arise.

Your fire curtain should only ever be brought in manually when someone is there to make certain no one is in the way. Also, a secondary device called a fusible link should be in the system. This small piece of metal will melt at a specific temperature, thus breaking the continuous cable holding the curtain up, causing it to lower itself. This is so the curtain will still serve its purpose should a fire occur when no one is around.

Also, your fire alarm does not necessarily go off when the fire curtain comes in. This all has to do with your local regulations, and system design.

~Dave


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## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 17, 2009)

Yeah, We are going to test the fire curtain defect by manualy cutting the rooms power. I think I know why this is happening, but it may of been fixed when the new system was installed.

Our fire curtain is pretty old school, uses a rope and a release lever. To retract the curtain is is done manually with a crank attached to the release box. So I am guessing, when the room looses power, so does the fire curtain box, thus releasing the rope holding the curtain in place.
It kind of makes since to drop the curtain when power is out though, because when its out, there's no way of knowing if there's a fire, or if a fire will start because of an electrical problem, so it may drop it just to be safe.

But I think that problem was fixed with the new system installed, but we are going to test it.

Our curtain is connected with the schools fire system though, because every time there is a fire drill/somethign to trigger the alarms, the curtain goes down, even if not in that zone.

Our stage manager has a flashlight with them during productions, and so do the light and sound op, or one for the both of them.


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## ship (Aug 17, 2009)

DaveySimps said:


> Some of this will be a repeat from my post to you in the Facility Forum. However, our local AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) mandates that the power be out for 30 seconds before the transfer switch kicks in. Then our gas powered geni has to take no less than 30 seconds to power on. I think your real problem is that your default in your system is to cause the fire curtain to fall. This makes no sense on a power outage, and it is VERY dangerous. This is what should be fixed in your scenario in my opinion. The first instinct in a power outage should be to calm down and stay in place, not to evacuate. This is why I went to Home Depot and bought a flash light to keep at the stage managers station on each side of the stage, in the control room, in the follow spot booth, in my office, and at the FOH mix position. These never leave these locations and are checked regularly for working batteries. This enables me or anyone else working to investigate things safely and get in a position to safely calm the house. All 4 LED metal flashlights with batteries were only $12 at Home Depot. We also provide all ushers with the same lights, so there is never an issue should the need arise.
> 
> Your fire curtain should only ever be brought in manually when someone is there to make certain no one is in the way. Also, a secondary device called a fusible link should be in the system. This small piece of metal will melt at a specific temperature, thus breaking the continuous cable holding the curtain up, causing it to lower itself. This is so the curtain will still serve its purpose should a fire occur when no one is around.
> 
> ...




Agreed on the fusable link mechanical as opposed to electrically based fire curtain. That’s screwy in that if persay the fire curtain is attached to the smoke alarm system in coming in if it looses power - logical, and if such a system does activate in part if power is lost than in addition to the fire curtain perhaps having both fusable links (gotta replace them every three years) mechanically, that fire alarm system should have battery backup with less of a wait time to turn on so as not to activate such systems in the first place as the fire curtain. Battery backup also on the light board so even if you don’t have power, you don’t have to wait even longer to restart the thing, perhaps also such battery backup running the ClearCom if not even stage manager’s podium as a concept in being a gathering spot.
Flashlights good thing as with the stage manager taking the stage upon power loss as rehearsed concept. Sit down and wait a moment please... 

Most places have house lights at least on a separate power service and or battery backup for at least some fixtures that you can bring up as house lights from the control booth or that would go on by themselves given a power loss when the exit lights don’t provide such lighting, this if not also house lights on a separate service from the stage lighting. All stuff to look into. Why in going dark didn’t the exit lights with their spotlights supposed to cover the audience in calming light light up? When was the last time such battery backups for them have been checked and or changed?

Can see why the want to go automatic closing of the fire curtain if a loss of power but such a control if fire alarm based needs battery backup and an automatic alarm sent out to the maintenance and fire dpt. probably in the fire curtain waiting until power is restored and a real fire problem given. Getting upstage or downstage of such a fire curtain closing in the dark is very dangerous if it automatically comes down given a power outage.

No doubt lots of stuff to work on that’s of good note for all. This in addition to why did you loose power? A place of assembly should be on some sort of priority 1 list for the power company in it not loosing power I think. Who ever provides your theater’s power should get a call about this problem.


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## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 18, 2009)

Hello~

Well, like I said, I think the problem was fixed when the new system was installed because the faulty re-wiring blew out some other things as well.

I will check the battery, if any in the fire curtains control box. 
Our light board turns on and is active within 1.5 seconds xD

I know for a fact the curtain is tied into the fire alarm system, every time fire alarm goes off curtain drops.
But like I said we are going to be doing a couple tests to see what the fire curtain is set to do in situations.

Well, above our stage there are lights that are not controlled by our theatre system, so before production I go back there and turn them off with those special two prong keys, used in school so kids don't turn light on or off, so those are off, and then then the houslights are on two kinds of power, they have emergency power connections and the dimmer connections. So when power is cut for any reason from the room, our Emergency Power Transfer Cabinet over rides the on off switch for the room lights above the stage and turns them on, it also over rides and shuts off connection with the dimmer to the houselights, and supply's the houselights with power.


And for the power, we get power from the schools power lines, well, we get our own line, but since its inside the school, we feed from the schools power, but like, we have our own high voltage line going to the theatre. 
But it wasn't the electric company's fault we were having power surges, was ours, ever since the janitors blew out our light system the school was having power blips all the time, but when the new system was installed all the power surge problems were fixed.



the janitors don't touch anything now


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## Dionysus (Aug 18, 2009)

In most countries fire-alarm systems have very strict regulations. One of the most important regulations is mandatory battery backup.
Also this limits what can share electrical power, common junction boxes & conduits, along with any sort of electrical interconnection.

I could go rather in-depth in Canadian Electrical Code and Fire Code with respect to fire alarm systems. But I really don't feel like it lol.

Indeed there are several sections of the CEC that apply directly to this, with a section specifically for fire alarm systems.


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## Sony (Aug 18, 2009)

Just to reitterate what Davey said, it takes a while for the backup generator to kick in. At MVPAC it took at least 30 seconds before the generator started up and was ready to produce power. This is normal, your job in these 30 seconds is critical and you did the right thing. First priority is to keep everyone in their seats and calm, make an announcement that the venue has lost power and backup power will be online shortly. Second priority in your case was shutting down systems to prevent catastrophic show loss. 

The fire curtain was an unexpected flaw in your systems design unforuntately but I can see WHY it did that and I wouldn't be supprised if it still did that with the new system, I'll explain why. All fire safety systems are required to "Fail Safe" which means any failure of the fire systems would be a failure into a "safe mode." The electrical release of the fire curtain is one of those systems and is held in it's locked position constantly by an electromagnet. When you lose power, you lose the electromagnet that holds it locked and therefore it releases causing the curtain to close into what is considered a "safe mode" (curtain down is much safer than curtain up.) The same applies to the fuseable links on your fire curtain and also smoke hatches, when they fail the curtain drops or the hatches open, thus failing into a "safe mode." This is standard practice with pretty much all fire safety systems, and yes it is inconvenient but it is good practice. As for people standing on stage, everyone who is ever on stage should hopefully be informed about standing under the fire curtain in case of a fire or failure, especially staff members.

As for the people threatening to sue because of a power failure, they are f***ing morons, you can't predict a power failure, these things happen. People like that need to get their heads out of their glass stomachs and grow up. The good news is you executed your job properly and did everything in your power to keep the audience calm and the show still went on when power was restored! A+ for you, I know many who would have choked in your position and paniced, and the last thing you want is a paniced staff member throwing the audience into a paniced stampeed, that is where people get injured or killed.


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## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 18, 2009)

Dion, or schools fire system never is turned off, but our theatre is kind of like an entire different building inside the school, its own fire system, hvac, electrical lines etc.


Sony,
Well, the theatres backup power is the schools backup, and the schools generator takes like, less then a second to produce power, its pretty amazing, we don't even notice power outs while in class. Just if we are in the back we can hear the generator roaring, being diesal.

Yeah, I was thinking it would drop if the contorl unit loses power, and I think the only reason why the control unit lost power, was because the theatre was having power surge and connection problems during that time, and when power went out it wouldnt draw any power from the generator.

And as for saftey, I always make sure there is not objects in the way of the fire curtain's track, and I meen, it lowers slow enough, being a rope system, that if someone is under it that long while power is out, you'll feel it hit your head and move out of the way, and by the time it is at head hight useally the transfer box has taken action and overiden the houselights.

And like, we never lost power during any of these things, we had power surges.

Did I say someone was trying to sue? I most likely ment "use" heh, I always do that, me with my fast typing.
lol, Im sure that wouldnt get far : P

And thanks : )





Anyways, so the fire curtain's contorl box, well, there is not contorl box, its just a box up high that has the release to let go of the rope, thus letting go of the curtain, and a status OK light and warning light.
In normal conditions, the fire curtain's contorl box would not of lost power, but in the case of our power surges', when the theatre didnt draw power from the generator, the box died and whatever holds the rope let go.



It was really weird though, I was just standing up behind the board waiting for my last que to turn the houslights back up all the way and turn off the spotlights, and as soon as she starts claping the dimmers seemed like they turned off one by one, like power going from the top to the bottom of the rack died, like 96 lost power, then right after, so did 95 and so on to 1 and it made this weird effect of the stage like disapearing into darkness : P


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## Dionysus (Aug 18, 2009)

> Did I say someone was trying to sue? I most likely ment "use" heh, I always do that, me with my fast typing.
> lol, Im sure that wouldnt get far : P



That's why I love the spell check integrated into Firefox. I know if I made a typo!

Anyways I was not implying that you turn it off. But a seeming question seemed to be raised about battery backup of fire alarm systems. Which is mandatory, and must be instant. 
Fire curtains are commonly not interconnected to the fire alarm system, but relying on the interlinks only. Personally I like the idea of them being interconnected at least to the point of activating "alarm" or "trouble" when the fire curtain is tripped.
I should look up the regulations in my code books, but I really don't feel like it again today, lol.


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## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 19, 2009)

Yeah, I use the fire fox spell check, really handy with my bad typing, not that its bad, but I type faster then I can, like, I commonly do things like this, miss a space, hellotom, or sometimes hit one key before another, most common is sue supposed to be use, and just supposed to be just. But something with this site makes my spellcheck not work 



Well, I dont know if it even has or is made for a battery backup, or if it is just deisghned to have a fail safe kind of thing when power is out. I will see though.

I think it is inter connected, because say the fire curtain goes down, the fire alarns dont go off or it doesnt contact the fire department, but if the smoke detectors go off anywere in the biuilding, or the fire system is manually activated the curtain will drop. But like I said, we were getting really weird power surges in that time when it did this, useally if for any reason that the power is cut from the school and theatre, then the schools backup generator kicks in, which there is absolutely no knowing it has taken over, its instant, so useally when the power goes out, the fire curtain does not fall. It only did these times because the generator wasnt feeding the theatre.


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## Sony (Aug 20, 2009)

It seems to me your school is quite odd, first of all, the generators kicking in instantly is pretty much impossible, unless your school is running them 24/7/365 at full power ready to kick over to fully loaded at any second, then it's pretty much impossible. I highly doubt they are doing that as it would be a waste of fuel and money. Engines take time to start and build up oil pressure before they are capable of taking a load. This process usually takes at least 10 or 15 seconds, so I highly doubt the kick-over to generators is instantanious. Unless your school has a Battery Back-up system or a Rotary Back-up system then something is very weird. 

Are you sure the times you heard the generator running that it wasn't just it's normal weekly exercise cycle? They usually run automatically at least once a week to keep the seals and bearings lubricated as well as to keep the engine primed and to slowly burn off old stale fuel. Also, when they run they don't normally power everything in the building, only critical components like hallway lighting and maybe one or two lights inside each classroom. It just isn't feasable or necessary to keep and maintain a generator large enough to power the entire building for the short periods when power is lost. Unless of course you are in a life safety situation like in a Hospital where everything is critical and therefore everything requires power in the event of a failure. 

Sorry, I'm just skeptical of your school having an "instant" power switch-over, especially on just back-up diesel generators. Which are some of the slowest forms of back-up power when it comes to reaction time.


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## Derrick (Aug 20, 2009)

MillburyAuditorium said:


> the dimmers seemed like they turned off one by one, like power going from the top to the bottom of the rack died, like 96 lost power, then right after, so did 95 and so on to 1 and it made this weird effect of the stage like disapearing into darkness : P



Are you sure someone wasn't in the dimmer closet pulling a prank? Cascading off one after another? Wish our power losses were like this. We'd just tell folks that's part of the show, cool effect!


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## Dionysus (Aug 20, 2009)

Pretty much any automatic backup generator system indeed runs once a week, some more or less often. Yes I've installed them.

Often they don't kick-in until the power has been off for 30-seconds (even in hospitals) sometimes longer. Once the Generator kicks in, it usually runs for an additional 30-seconds before the automatic transfer switch(es) engage and transfer the load onto the generator.

Likewise they usually don't transfer back unless the power has been on again for at least 30 seconds (usually longer), and then the transfer switch goes back to "line". The generator continues to run for usually at least a minute or 30 seconds before cutting out.

Addendum:

Any instant backup power comes from a battery bank. This is common in hospitals, for any "critical care systems" to hold the circuit energized until the generators can take over.
Batteries are also used for emergency lighting in case of power outages. They are meant to give lighting for anywhere from 30seconds to 30minutes to allow people to exit safely and such.


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## fredthe (Aug 21, 2009)

We don't have a fire curtain (I'm told they built the fly tower just short enough to not require one,) but we do have an 18' high roll-up door from the stage to the shop. It's got a fusable link on it to drop it in the case of fire, and it _was_ connected to the fire alarm system, so it would drop whenever the alarm was activated. 

So, during the monthly alarm tests, it dropped. The only problem is that it required a visit from the door company to reset the mechanism so we could open it (two guys on 24' ladders.) After the 3rd alarm, they removed the alarm system connection.

-Fred


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## renegadeblack (Aug 23, 2009)

In regards to an instant power restore. If you walk around your school a little bit and happen to find yourself in a basement or other maintenance room, you may find that you have "life safety" systems. These are basically filled with batteries that are kicked over to to power maybe two lights in every room or a few rows of house lights. That's what we have, however, they never get used because my school produces its own power >.>. We never get power outages v.v


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## Chris15 (Aug 25, 2009)

With regards to reticulated UPS systems as have been mentioned for hospitals, there are a number of other times they get used. Some scientific experiments and facilities need it, but closer to our pursuits, look at your average TV or radio station or an OB truck. I know one of the OB providers down here has just built new HD trucks, they have 44kVA of UPS onboard... I believe that is everything but aircon and possibly some lighting. Everything is considered critical and the UPS will do 2 things - a get around dirty site power and b] carry the load while the generator comes online - there are dual supply connections for both Technical and Utility power, presumably for an easy changeover...


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## MillburyAuditorium (Sep 13, 2009)

Sony said:


> It seems to me your school is quite odd, first of all, the generators kicking in instantly is pretty much impossible, unless your school is running them 24/7/365 at full power ready to kick over to fully loaded at any second, then it's pretty much impossible. I highly doubt they are doing that as it would be a waste of fuel and money. Engines take time to start and build up oil pressure before they are capable of taking a load. This process usually takes at least 10 or 15 seconds, so I highly doubt the kick-over to generators is instantanious. Unless your school has a Battery Back-up system or a Rotary Back-up system then something is very weird.
> 
> Are you sure the times you heard the generator running that it wasn't just it's normal weekly exercise cycle? They usually run automatically at least once a week to keep the seals and bearings lubricated as well as to keep the engine primed and to slowly burn off old stale fuel. Also, when they run they don't normally power everything in the building, only critical components like hallway lighting and maybe one or two lights inside each classroom. It just isn't feasable or necessary to keep and maintain a generator large enough to power the entire building for the short periods when power is lost. Unless of course you are in a life safety situation like in a Hospital where everything is critical and therefore everything requires power in the event of a failure.
> 
> Sorry, I'm just skeptical of your school having an "instant" power switch-over, especially on just back-up diesel generators. Which are some of the slowest forms of back-up power when it comes to reaction time.




I'm 100% sure it is instant, but I am assuming there is a like, charged battery that takes over for the short time it takes the generator to get to full power.
I'm talking like, one BIG generator, its outside int he rear parking lot.

And the noise wasn't a test, I think, I was right next to it.

And I guess the generator is powerful enough to keep all the lights on, but most if not all of the power outlets are turned off.


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## MillburyAuditorium (Sep 13, 2009)

Derrick said:


> Are you sure someone wasn't in the dimmer closet pulling a prank? Cascading off one after another? Wish our power losses were like this. We'd just tell folks that's part of the show, cool effect!



Haha no, It was a power surge, we had been having problems around that time with them. Had to do with our system being blown.


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## MillburyAuditorium (Sep 13, 2009)

fredthe said:


> We don't have a fire curtain (I'm told they built the fly tower just short enough to not require one,) but we do have an 18' high roll-up door from the stage to the shop. It's got a fusable link on it to drop it in the case of fire, and it _was_ connected to the fire alarm system, so it would drop whenever the alarm was activated.
> 
> So, during the monthly alarm tests, it dropped. The only problem is that it required a visit from the door company to reset the mechanism so we could open it (two guys on 24' ladders.) After the 3rd alarm, they removed the alarm system connection.
> 
> -Fred



I could imagen that getting annoying xD

So you have one of those like, metal garage door things that blocks off your stage? Cool


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## MillburyAuditorium (Sep 13, 2009)

renegadeblack said:


> In regards to an instant power restore. If you walk around your school a little bit and happen to find yourself in a basement or other maintenance room, you may find that you have "life safety" systems. These are basically filled with batteries that are kicked over to to power maybe two lights in every room or a few rows of house lights. That's what we have, however, they never get used because my school produces its own power >.>. We never get power outages v.v



Own power? Cool 

lol, The only basement level in our school is the basement like a bazillion feet underground xD And this small "basement" is the prop and costume storage that drama clubs scourer before they buy stuff 

Also reminded me of this,
Right outside the left main theatre entrance, theres a little empty room we store chairs in, and the nameplate next tot he door says "Emergency Power"


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## fredthe (Sep 14, 2009)

MillburyAuditorium said:


> So you have one of those like, metal garage door things that blocks off your stage? Cool


No, it doesn't block off the stage... it's just the door between the stage and the shop.

-Fred


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