On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:00:34 -0400, "Oppie"
wrote:

Anybody remember the name of the ancient dimmer that used a variable
inductor in series with the lighting circuit?

The chorus that I sing with is performing in a turn of the last century
theatre. I was marvelling at the ancient stage technology. They still have
the old style sandbag counterweights and belaying pins to anchor the lines
though the lines themselves have been changed from the original hemp lines
(guess they were all smoked by now...) to new black cotton lines that
conform to newer codes. The original lighting panel has long since been
replaced by a new digital board but I was talking with the theatre manager
and trying to remember some of the old names.

Rheostats, the original dimmer technology were replaced by the variable
inductor types to some extent. All of these were eventually replaced by
Variac types for many years until the newer electronic dimmers took hold.
I have fond memories of high school stage crew, running the Variac dimmer
board. On scene changes, the dimmers could be mechanically ganged into a
master group and master groups could be ganged to the grand master.
Sometimes it took two people to pull the grand master - and it had a 4 foot
handle. Oh, to have had a DMX back then.

Oppie
www.chordsmen.org


Most of the theatres that I have been in used Variacs to control
lighting. A variac is an autotransformer, allowing variable voltage
output with the turn of a dial.