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tlc

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  1. tlc

    Chilli Dimmers 2410

    we are having exactly the same issue with our betapack 3. We have several Betapack 3 At the end of 20m of socapex they are loaded with 2 x 1kw parcans. On fast chases the breakers trip out. Breakers are "c" type so should take the surges from cold. 20m of soca does put in a reasonable bit of resistance to help hold down cold start surges (even on 2.5mm which is what we are using.) Local distro is on 30 metres of 16mm SWA from main incomer, so again a reasonable cable length to help hold down the surges. (at the risk of answering my own question) I suspect we suffer from having a large local transformer adljacent to the building giving a very low source impedence to our supply. (3 x 2000 amp incomer to plant room) Now we could turn up the preheat to glow the pars but I dont really want to do this to the extent filiments are visibly glowing. Short of swapping to "d" type breakers (need to check if line is low enough loop impedance to do this within regs) anyone got any suggestions. We have dropped to 2 x 1/2 Kw lamps on some of the worst channels for this problem. Swapping betapacks for fuse protected dimmers we have no problems so reasonably sure its the mcb surge sensistivity that is the problem. While using preheat does cut down on the tripping we have found that we get a fairly high filament noise on our preheat , once 100 pars are all on 5% preheat there is a very obvious noise from the grid due to this. While acceptable for rock n roll where the PA is running high it is not ok for other types of show. Also 5% preheat on a very large number of channels does draw a reasonable amount of power from the supply. Our dimmers are on 24hrs a day with no easy central isolation for them. (distributed dimming in our building). Trying to be "energy efficient" this is not an ideal solution. Copy of post on The Blue Room: http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=32659
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