For housing, all you need to do is replacing bulbs with LED counterpart as old bulbs fail. For stage lighting, you'll need to replace most of the equipment, not just bulbs.
A serious question from someone who has seen the lighting gear but doesn't really work in the industry - why would you need to do that?
Not regulation, but around 2010 Greenpeace forced Apple to get rid of PVC in their products (world's third-most widely produced synthetic plastic polymer). As a result, Apple cables are going to landfill after 3-6 months of use unlike any other cheapest crap which lasts much longer. Well done, environment saved, my ass.
Which is just so convenient excuse for their crappy and very expensive cables. And complete BS as well too - the cables are simply poorly made, with insufficient strain relief, so they regularly fray and break at the connectors.
No other major manufacturer has these issues, even the "low end" ones like Dell or Nokia, despite also reducing/eliminating their PVC use. Apple's "disposable" cables are completely in line with their other design decisions towards unrepairable, straight-into-landfill hardware that breaks at the slightest disturbance.
Optics. Stage lighting lamps have precisely shaped and placed filaments that are critical to the optics in a fixture. No LED source can properly match this, you need a whole new fixture designed for the LED source.
It's just stupid anyway, stage lighting is an absolutely insignificant blip on the total energy consumption of any community. There are FAR bigger issues to look at. Given the shoestring budgets of a lot of theaters it's not a stretch to say that many of them will simply collapse and go away if this becomes law.
Strain relief is not the issue and BTW Apple cables do have sort of strain relief. Also I have a lot of USB cables without strain relief and none of them breaks. So it's an issue with material used in outer layer of the cable as it's what always breaks first. As of eliminating PVC in electronics, it's stupid. PVC piping alone has so much PVC that cables would not come even close.
Strain relief is not the issue and BTW Apple cables do have sort of strain relief. Also I have a lot of USB cables without strain relief and none of them breaks. So it's an issue with material used in outer layer of the cable as it's what always breaks first. As of eliminating PVC in electronics, it's stupid. PVC piping alone has so much PVC that cables would not come even close.
The key is "sort of". If a cheap Chinese factory somewhere is able to make a cable that doesn't break, Apple's competitors that have to follow the same laws and rules are able to make cables that don't break, it is surely not because of PVC (or lack of it) in the cable sleeve/insulation that they break, is it?
That's a total red herring, sorry.
As I said, my micro USB and USB-C cables don't have strain relief at all and nothing breaks. Competitors use PVC insulation, that's the difference. There is no rule against using PVC in cables.
And seriously, this is again yet another "sky is falling" cry, with a petition to maintain the status quo - the same thing as when the original wolfram/tungsten bulbs were to be outlawed (or vacuum cleaners and what not). We are several years past that and - surprise - everyone survived and we are not back to candles.
I am not a fan of stupid regulation but I simply don't believe that it would be impossible to find suitable replacements for wolfram bulbs, relegating the current equipment to scrap or requiring expensive refits. Right now nobody makes them simply because there is no demand. Once there will be, I am sure halogen bulbs or dimmable LEDs outfitted with the right sockets will appear in no time, given the size of the market.For housing, all you need to do is replacing bulbs with LED counterpart as old bulbs fail. For stage lighting, you'll need to replace most of the equipment, not just bulbs.
You say yourself that there is no rule against using PVC in cables (and you can make decent cable with other insulation than PVC too - certainly for the price Apple is selling them for) - so why are you trying to blame this on Greenpeace?
PVC generates three times fewer greenhouse gases than the materials which could be used to replace it.
In 2014 alone, the programme recycled over 514,000 tonnes of PVC in total.
However, it soon became evident that the new cables were often not performing as well as those made of PVC. They broke more easily and lasted a shorter time, to the increasing annoyance of many consumers who, in November 2011, assembled and won a class-action lawsuit in the US against one of the market leaders.
Greenpiece is a stupid organisation, all about hype and not actual research and environment.
That's not true at all. 90% of the energy being used is because of the lights.
Well, it depends a little what type of venue you're talking about of course.
For exactly this reason you can't even sell the electronics (audio en light controllers) for being "efficient", since the light bulbs themselves just consume that much.
Like I said, with all the respect, but anno 2018 it's more than ridiculous to use old fashioned light bulbs anymore.
LED are just fine and looking fine, people who still think they are harsh and ugly have been living underneath a rock for the last few years.
On a personal level I also don't get it, when I was using old light bulbs it was about 40% of my energy bill.
With LED it went down to just about 15%, which is pretty significant per month.
Also a lot of older houses/hotels/hostels are very happy with it, since they have limited fuses available, so they don't blow up as many fuses in the winter.
" It still doesn't answer my question about the wiring and the lighting console, though. "
A large theater that is currently using tungsten bulbs etc, will generally have their massive rack of dimmers located in room somewhere and then Mains power wiring running to every fixture or outlet for a fixture.
So to replace that with LED fixtures you now have to replace your entire rack of dimmers with a breaker panel or modify the dimmer to be just non dim outputs. Then you have to run all new data cabling to the location of every fixture.
If the LED fixtures only have one control Channel then you probably wouldn't have to replace the mixing console. But if they have multiple control channels then you may very well have to. Again if you're using DMX,
if not you may very well have an insanely expensive proprietary control system that wouldn't work with anything other than itself.
Also you'll probably need to invest in DMX Splitters and amplifiers to be able to reach all of the fixtures spread out across the theater where is before you only had to make it to the one dimmer room/ rack.
(If using dmx)
Then there is also the issue of smaller theaters that are still running analog controllers with ancient dimmers. At least in the US there's a lot more of that than you would think.
I used to work at a theatrical lighting manufacturer, we would routinely get our products in for repair that have been running for 10-20plus years old analog stuff as well as newer DMX stuff, replace a few parts send it back out and it would go again.
We would also still get orders for some custom adapters to make other companies old dimmers from the 70s and 80s 90s compatible with new controllers. And this was all just in the last 10 years.
Not to mention the fact that as far as I know anyway LEDs still haven't been able to mimic the Fade to Black that standard light fixture can do. For a theater that is a huge deal.
Of course personally I absolutely hate incandescent bulbs and the like and am LED all the way. 5000k daylight.
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Because there is nothing wrong with PVC to begin with. Replacements are not only less durable but are not inherently flame retardant and cause more harm to the environment as cannot be recycled unlike PVC. There is no good replacement for PVC. Even apple uses PVC power cords in Korea and India because replacements do not comply to legislation.
Greenpiece is a stupid organisation, all about hype and not actual research and environment.
A large theater that is currently using tungsten bulbs etc, will generally have their massive rack of dimmers located in room somewhere and then Mains power wiring running to every fixture or outlet for a fixture.
Ah OK, thanks for explaining that. I have been under the assumption that it is more common to run the DMX lines near the lighting ramps and then have the dimmers nearby the lights to reduce the amount of cabling required, not in some remote room.
If the setup is as you describe, then yes, quite a bit of a wiring job could be required.
However, if someone invests into a totally proprietary system that works only with itself - then they pretty much have only themselves to blame.
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.
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.
LED theatre lighting are still not good enough to be a worthy replacement for the traditional lights.
QuoteLED 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!!