Moronic EU propose to bring stage lighting under energy saving lighting rules

[dmills]

There are still places running analog (0 to 10V, polarity depending on manufacturer, 1 signal wire per channel) controls systems, it was a perfectly good standard back in the day and was used in systems having well over 100 channels of dimmer, sometimes the controls were digital, sometimes analogue (Banks of faders, diodes and switches).
You cannot call yourself an operator until you have run a busy show on a Strand AMC or Threeset, and I know folk who say the same thing but for the Grandmaster (Direct power rheostats in series with the lamps, lots of mechanical linkages and gears, very steampunk, bits of wood, elbows, knees and feet were required to run a complex crossfade).

There is at least one grand master still in (somewhat limited) service!

Dimmers inside the auditorium volume are not popular due to the combination of fan and buzz from the suppression chokes, also of you have them all in one place there are more opportunities to leverage load diversity, I can have 200kW of lamps on a 100kVA feed because not everything is on in any one scene. Also, dimmers were not always exactly what you would call compact.   

At the small venue end I remember one place that had a big ammeter on the front wall of the control room, scaled in amps up to 60, and minutes/seconds above that (Hand written scale), as long as you did not exceed the 60 amp rating of the incoming supply fuse for more then the number of seconds indicated on the meter everything was fine....

Seriously, no squint is down on LED, we use them, they are a great tool for the right job, but they are NOT even close to being a sub for TH in this application.

regards, Dan.

[dmills]

the class-d amplifiers we have idle with a draw of about 700 Watts each (times 50...) + aircon to remove the resulting heat. 

I would suggest that obtaining some class D that does not suck may be indicated!

Sure supply efficiency goes to pot at low output, but that should not really matter because you are by definition producing nearly now power down there.

I clocked my Camco V6s at idle at less then 100W, at which point I stopped worrying about it.

Actually the real win for audio is better speakers, the good stuff can be 10dB or so better then the rubbish and that lets you make the same noise with 1/10th the amplifier size.

Regards, Dan.

[b_force]

Audiophools with tube amplifiers and stage lighting are actually a good comparison, both are tiny tiny drops in the bucket. It would not surprise me if the overall global energy consumption from audiophool gear is significantly higher than that of theatrical lighting. There just are not very many theaters, and if you look at the energy consumption on lighting per audience member it's going to be even more insignificant.

Like I said, that really depends what type of venue or show we are talking about.
At home you don't need more than 100W, maybe for active powered subs, but audiophools don't like these anyway.
So even with a Class-A amp, you piss away around around the same amount for a pair of KT88 (give or take).

Just two or three plain old light bulbs do that easily.
A decent concert of theater show has a few more than just three.
On top of that they always need to run all the AC units to the max to get rid of the heat again  DOH! 

Btw, there are Class-D power design that control the voltage rail in idle mode.
The point is that with a Class-AB amp you're using even more.

[apis]

What's next? Greenhouses?

Lights in sports arenas and stadiums.

Greenhouses, sports arenas, stadiums and many road lights use HID lamps which are as efficient as LEDs (if not more efficient), or sometimes fluorescent lamps or LEDs. LEDs are still best for low power applications like domestic lighting.

[Zero999]

I think they should focus on other things: what about all those inefficient, wasteful, antiquated audio amplifiers? Especially the class A value/tube ones! They should all be banned and replaced with class D amplifiers, with efficient swithed mode power supplies of course! The only place for glassware and even semiconductors on massive heatshinks is the museum.

I can see that being very unpopular, especially with the audiophool crowd, but it would probably safe more energy, than banning incandescent stage lighting.

Well....
Class-D amplifiers can be efficient near full power output and that is their main advantage, however typical use in a theatre is below 1% power output.
The used smps aren't build for efficiency around that power level, the class-d amplifiers we have idle with a draw of about 700 Watts each (times 50...) + aircon to remove the resulting heat. 

Really want to replace those (for various other reasons) with linear power supply class-H. 

That's one of the main advantages of class D vs class AB: they maintain greater efficiency, at lower output levels. The theoretical maximum efficiency of a class AB amplifier, with a 10V supply at 1VRMS output is just 10%, whilst a class D amplifier it's 100%. Of course real life amplifiers don't achieve anywhere near these figures.

LED theatre lighting are still not good enough to be a worthy replacement for the traditional lights.

Are we engineers or not?
Seems like a nice challenge to me!!

If target is wasting money without a good reason, then sure. Particularly for me, outcome is more important than running the hoops. I prefer applying minimum effort for maximum result, not the way around.

You messed up the quoting: I didn't say that!

[dmills]

On top of that they always need to run all the AC units to the max to get rid of the heat again  DOH! 

The aircon is actually often the elephant in the room, and the electrical input has comparatively little to do with the need for it.

On average a person at rest generates about 100W, of which 30% or so is latent heat gain (Water vapour) at typical auditorium temperatures.

Put a thousand people in the auditorium and you will have to run the aircon plant to reject that 100kW of waste heat, and to maintain the humidity at a comfortable level, and that load is constant of the two hours or so of the show.

The last build I did we tried very hard to get a gas fired CHP plant using the waste heat to drive a lithium bromide cycle chiller, turned out the local gov would give us grants for solar but not for something that actually made sense!

Regards, Dan.

[NiHaoMike]

The aircon is actually often the elephant in the room, and the electrical input has comparatively little to do with the need for it.

On average a person at rest generates about 100W, of which 30% or so is latent heat gain (Water vapour) at typical auditorium temperatures.

Put a thousand people in the auditorium and you will have to run the aircon plant to reject that 100kW of waste heat, and to maintain the humidity at a comfortable level, and that load is constant of the two hours or so of the show.

That depends on the weather. If the outdoor temperature is below 70F or so, you just need some fans.

[apis]

To me it seems like someone is trying to make a hen out of a feather:

• Is there really such a proposal? All I see is a petition (which is something any fool can make). It's like the fake news before the brexit referendum that EU was planing on banning high power electric kettles, which turned out to be completely bogus.
• If they where to remove the exemption for stage lights it would only apply to newly purchased lights. It's not like they would force a theatre to replace their existing working tungsten lighting solution. New stage lights would have to be more efficient though (i.e. use LED or HID lamps). There is also no reason to believe they would not allow theatres to continue purchasing replacement tungsten bulbs for their existing installations.
• For newly produced light modules I can think of only advantages of using LEDs or HID lights. I don't understand the love for tungsten lights? Sure there are some very niche applications, like light spectroscopy instruments, where tungsten is the best option, but for the most part it's antiquated 19th century technology.

[james_s]

It's already been covered here, nothing else matches the smooth continuous spectrum of tungsten lamps, allowing filter gels to color the light to any hue imaginable as well as the smooth dimming all the way down to zero with no snap at the end.

[apis]

It's already been covered here, nothing else matches the smooth continuous spectrum of tungsten lamps, allowing filter gels to color the light to any hue imaginable as well as the smooth dimming all the way down to zero with no snap at the end.

Is there a technical reason why you can't smoothly dim LEDs all the way to zero?
Why do you need a perfectly smooth continuous spectrum? There are LEDs that have almost perfect CRI now.
With RGB LED spotlights you get a super simple way of making almost any color light you might want. If the spectrum of such a lamp isn't good enough you could use filtered white LEDs (or if you need high power: xenon arc lamps).

[Zero999]

It's already been covered here, nothing else matches the smooth continuous spectrum of tungsten lamps, allowing filter gels to color the light to any hue imaginable as well as the smooth dimming all the way down to zero with no snap at the end.

Is there a technical reason why you can't smoothly dim LEDs all the way to zero?
Why do you need a perfectly smooth continuous spectrum? There are LEDs that have almost perfect CRI now.
With RGB LED spotlights you get a super simple way of making almost any color light you might want. If the spectrum of such a lamp isn't good enough you could use filtered white LEDs (or if you need high power: xenon arc lamps).

1) Yes, LED should be able to be dimmed to zero.

2) CRI means nothing, especially when it's going to be filmed.

3a) Filtering white LEDs won't produce wavelengths which aren't there in the first place.

3b) xenon arc lamps can't be dimmed to zero.

To me it seems like someone is trying to make a hen out of a feather:

• Is there really such a proposal? All I see is a petition (which is something any fool can make). It's like the fake news before the brexit referendum that EU was planing on banning high power electric kettles, which turned out to be completely bogus.
• If they where to remove the exemption for stage lights it would only apply to newly purchased lights. It's not like they would force a theatre to replace their existing working tungsten lighting solution. New stage lights would have to be more efficient though (i.e. use LED or HID lamps). There is also no reason to believe they would not allow theatres to continue purchasing replacement tungsten bulbs for their existing installations.
• For newly produced light modules I can think of only advantages of using LEDs or HID lights. I don't understand the love for tungsten lights? Sure there are some very niche applications, like light spectroscopy instruments, where tungsten is the best option, but for the most part it's antiquated 19th century technology.

I agree. I've not seen any independent evidence for the allegedly proposed legislation, that it would forbid lamp replacement and yes LED and HID lights are generally superior to tungsten lamps. I think it's possible there are still a handful of applications in studios where tungsten would be preferred, over modern alternatives.

I also still don't believe they've banned incandescent lamps, even in the domestic setting. The legislation just sets minimum efficiency standards for lighting, which can't be met withtraditiona incandescent lamps. Some halogen lamps meet the requirements, but I believe they will be tightened in future and even then, some future development in incandescent lighting may make it meet the standards again: such as the discovery of  new material, which is very transparent to visible radiation and a near perfect reflector of infrared: apply it to the inside of an incandescent lamp and it becomes as efficient as an LED!

My comment about forbidding all other power audio amplifiers, than class D was initially tongue in cheek (on reflection, I should have added the appropriate smilie) but come to think of it, I don't think it would be a bad idea. It would certainly be more worthwhile than removing the tungsten exemption for stage lighting. Like the vacuum cleaner legislation, it should include minimum performance specifications. I'd like to put an end to lots of the marketing BS, such as only specifying peak power, to all channels, when the output is so distorted it's a squarewave. Manufactures should be forced to specify power output at under 1% THD. Of course there  should be no specific ban on everything but class D, just that the efficiency specification would be impossible to meet using any other topology, than class D.

[apis]

2) CRI means nothing, especially when it's going to be filmed.
3a) Filtering white LEDs won't produce wavelengths which aren't there in the first place.
3b) xenon arc lamps can't be dimmed to zero.

2) Filming might cause problem, that is a good point. I know for a fact that many TV-studios use white LED lights though (also big ones like the BBC.)
3a) True, but you should be able to maintain a mix that still produce an acceptable CRI. You might have to use filters tailored specially for LEDs if you are really picky. The potential problem with cameras remains though.
3b) Even if you can't dim the light itself couldn't you use shutters and/or filters for dimming. One could object that defeats the purpose of saving energy, but since LED and xenon uses less than a fifth of the power of Tungsten you would probably still save a lot of power.

I agree. I've not seen any independent evidence for the allegedly proposed legislation, that it would forbid lamp replacement and yes LED and HID lights are generally superior to tungsten lamps. I think it's possible there are still a handful of applications in studios where tungsten would be preferred, over modern alternatives.

You might be right, I don't pretend to know enough about stage lighting, just seems a bit odd to me that incandescent lights would be so important.

I also still don't believe they've banned incandescent lamps, even in the domestic setting. The legislation just sets minimum efficiency standards for lighting, which can't be met withtraditiona incandescent lamps. Some halogen lamps meet the requirements, but I believe they will be tightened in future and even then, some future development in incandescent lighting may make it meet the standards again: such as the discovery of  new material, which is very transparent to visible radiation and a near perfect reflector of infrared: apply it to the inside of an incandescent lamp and it becomes as efficient as an LED!

Yes, I also believe they require a certain minimum level of efficiency. At the moment you can even get halogen lamps mounted inside a traditional light bulb enclosure for example.

My comment about forbidding all other power audio amplifiers, than class D was initially tongue in cheek (on reflection, I should have added the appropriate smilie) but come to think of it, I don't think it would be a bad idea. It would certainly be more worthwhile than removing the tungsten exemption for stage lighting. Like the vacuum cleaner legislation, it should include minimum performance specifications. I'd like to put an end to lots of the marketing BS, such as only specifying peak power, to all channels, when the output is so distorted it's a squarewave. Manufactures should be forced to specify power output at under 1% THD. Of course there  should be no specific ban on everything but class D, just that the efficiency specification would be impossible to meet using any other topology, than class D.

The audiophools going berserk would just be an added bonus.

[mikeselectricstuff]

The audiophool thing would be an easy fix - simply call it a room heater with additional audio functionality

[james_s]

I would bet that using discharge lamps with shutters would result in considerably higher energy consumption than using tungsten lamps. Consider you might have 100 fixtures, of which maybe 8-20 of them would be on at any given time. You'd have to be way more than 5 times as efficient to come out ahead having all 100 of them burning at once with shutters closed on the lights you don't need. On top of that, HID theatrical lighting is very expensive, and the specialized lamps themselves are also very expensive and have limited life.

There are very good reasons that tungsten lamps have remained popular in this niche application. If you want to save energy there is still a lot of low hanging fruit elsewhere.

[Cyberdragon]

Audiophools aren't the only tube guys you know. A lot of us just like tube because reasons. You also blatantly ignore guitar amplifiers, a lot of which are still tube.

Also, lets ban gas powered vehicles too! And portable gas generators and make people use expensive and crappy fuel cell ones!

[BrianHG]

You want the true full spectrum, efficiency and over 80% brightness at over 50k hours use, you should go with LUXIM's light emitting plasma fixtures, all 40k lumens coming out of a tiny spot the size of a flattened pea:
http://luxim.resilient.lighting/
Models exist designed for dimming at the expense of a little efficiency.

[Zero999]

Audiophools aren't the only tube guys you know. A lot of us just like tube because reasons. You also blatantly ignore guitar amplifiers, a lot of which are still tube.

No problem. Nowadays DSP can emulate glassware quite effectively. Another possibility is a very low powered glassware input stage for the nice distortion, followed by a class D output stage to drive the load. As long as the input stage distorts the signal, long before the output stage does, there won't be any nasty clipping.

[james_s]

Audiophools aren't the only tube guys you know. A lot of us just like tube because reasons. You also blatantly ignore guitar amplifiers, a lot of which are still tube.

No problem. Nowadays DSP can emulate glassware quite effectively. Another possibility is a very low powered glassware input stage for the nice distortion, followed by a class D output stage to drive the load. As long as the input stage distorts the signal, long before the output stage does, there won't be any nasty clipping.

I'm not going to argue that there's anything particularly unique about the tube sound, but tubes certainly are neat.

[Zero999]

Audiophools aren't the only tube guys you know. A lot of us just like tube because reasons. You also blatantly ignore guitar amplifiers, a lot of which are still tube.

No problem. Nowadays DSP can emulate glassware quite effectively. Another possibility is a very low powered glassware input stage for the nice distortion, followed by a class D output stage to drive the load. As long as the input stage distorts the signal, long before the output stage does, there won't be any nasty clipping.

I'm not going to argue that there's anything particularly unique about the tube sound, but tubes certainly are neat.

So are steam trains, along with many other things which belong in the past.

[dmills]

But they are still building NEW steam locomotives!

A1 Steam with the Tornado build proved that a new mainline steam locomotive could be built and certified, and I believe there are now a few more on the blocks.

Horribly inefficient of course, but I cannot help but feel that the world is a better place for the existence of people who do these insane things.

I would like to see someone try a new one using MODERN engineering and materials, but ironically that would as I understand it be more difficult to certify then what is basically a copy of a 1950s engine.

Regards, Dan.

[John B]

The audiophool thing would be an easy fix - simply call it a room heater with additional audio functionality

That's true though! Who says heat generated is always wasted energy?

[james_s]

Steam trains are still around, it's too bad more of them were not preserved. Still it's not like everyone is using them, like tube audio it's a nostalgic and/or enthusiast thing, not really a problem in the grand scheme of things. Nobody is arguing that mass production consumer gear should switch back to tubes.

[Astrodev]

Has anyone considered that all this is based on a false premise, because if you take into account that the so called efficient lighting has a much higher peak current draw in cycle due to the way the power supply works.

This means that using current methods to measure and charge for electricity usage they are "more efficient" but I can see that using a more advanced integrating method of measuring power usage will come as the technology already exists now to do this.

And all of a sudden a large proportion of the saving goes out of the window, it is not as though something like this has happened before! Oh wait we were encouraged to use Diesel because it was more efficient and now all those that took the advice and went down that road are being penalised.

If you really want to consider a bad move on energy usage, we have this thing called the internet which has over the past years resulted in the increase in size of data centres that serve all this low cost cloud infrastructure, why has no one stopped to consider how much energy these are consuming, which in a lot of cases is similar to a small town and makes street lighting seem fairly insignificant.

[james_s]

What are you talking about? Equipment to measure true power consumption has been around for decades and your utility meters already measure true power. Cheaper CFL and LED lamps are often low power factor but they generally won't have an unusually high crest factor. No matter how you measure it, a fluorescent or LED lamp will use far less energy than an incandescent lamp, there's no debate there. Do I really need to hook up some lamps and capture some current waveforms on a scope for you?

[Cyberdragon]

The whole energy saving movement is a bandaid solution. The more technologically advanced the world becomes, the more techology you have, plus the whole gas to electric stuff, the more electricity the world will use. You can't stop progress, so we need to stop with this "eww, old inefficient tech!" because it hardly matters what's using the electricity when tons of things that use electricity are created every day.

So keep in mind that for every "old, inefficient incandescent bulb" you change for an LED...five kids just got iPhones that need charging constantly becuase they're addicted to Candy Crush.

Yes, effiecient tech helps stem the growth a bit, but it should be a choice whether to use it or not, since energy use will keep increasing anyway. Let people use whatever the hell technology they want, when it's not going to matter. We need to focus on alternative energy first.



I mean, if we ever get fusion power, it probably won't matter how effiecent things are when you have that amount of power.