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NEON- re: dimming stage neon

 >>  Aren't those wireless mikes FM?  I thought they were supposed to be fairly
noise insensitive.<<

 Yup. Really depends on who makes the mics and how broadband the interference
is. Most of the mics we use now are really pretty good about noise rejection
and even with all of the digital stuff out there which is now getting into the
wireless range we use of 200mhz to 700mhz. The problem is that they are not
very high power and if the amplitude of the broadband is strong enough it will
blanket anything out there. The good news is that most neon interference
attenuates rapidly with distance. You can get away with a lot more on a large
stage where the performers aren't right up against the props or goods.

 >>For Eric: how about designing those solid state transformers to optionally
take a standard, isolated, 0 to 10vdc brightness control signal?  This could
be easily supplied by any of a number of dimming controllers.<<

 I was going to ask the same thing. I have a friend at ETC who designs the
dimmers for one of the major theatrical lighting controller manufacturers and
we discussed the use of some of his dimmers for testing purposes. At the time
he was having some problems with a large neon job installed in Vegas which was
on his dimmers and he was having all kinds of problems with it. There are a
number of theatrical control standards which could be utilised for control of
neon dimming circuitry which I think could be easily utilised with the solid
state units.... No?

 One thing not mentioned about dimming. That is that I find merc units will dim
much easier than the neon ones. Especially in the low end of the range the
turn off is smoother and there is less flicker probably due to the argon's
lower striking resistance. I find that most modern stage dimmers seem to
handle neon without problem if given enough "headroom". The use of a "dummy
load" such as Telford mentioned was common in the earlier days (most used
1000W. par cans) but the compensation circuits in modern dimmers seem to
handle the phase shifts much better.



  E-mail from: Tom Biebel, 07-Oct-1996