Love em. I did a short 3 minute video presentation on electric lights, a while ago, that includes a bit on arc lamps. Folks light enjoy that as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZgbrmc071Q&t=0
Not quite the same as an arc lamp, but in high school I did theater tech stuff for the middle school. One year the only thing the lighting rental company had for a follow spot was an HID-based unit.
It was significantly larger, heavier, and beefier than the tin-can Strong Trooperettes we had. Designed for large theaters.
It came with a huge transformer pack because it needed 220/240 power, and we were plebs with single-phase 120V.
It had an hour-meter for lamp time.
It had a start button.
Not only did it have a start button, it had startup procedures. First the fan, then power, then start. It had cool-down procedures, too.
The fan was not some cheesy shaded-poll bullshit out of an overhead transparency projector like on our Trooperettes. No, sir. A squirrel-cage blower, the kind with serious ball bearings and lots of momentum that took several seconds to spool up, with a noise that sounded like you were turning on something in a nuclear power plant.
It made a "whooMMMMM" noise when you pushed the start button from an inrush of angry pixies.
It was the coolest goddamn thing a bunch of young theater nerds had ever seen.
If you want to really have some fun, open up a big theater arc lamp. I work as a EE these days, with a guy who's in the theater/event/awesome lighting industry. He's just about fearless.
Except that he's afraid of the arc lamp drivers in his products. Coke can-sized kilovolt capacitors are nothing to mess around with, even if you are nearly fearless....
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 10.9 ms ] threadIt was significantly larger, heavier, and beefier than the tin-can Strong Trooperettes we had. Designed for large theaters.
It came with a huge transformer pack because it needed 220/240 power, and we were plebs with single-phase 120V.
It had an hour-meter for lamp time.
It had a start button.
Not only did it have a start button, it had startup procedures. First the fan, then power, then start. It had cool-down procedures, too.
The fan was not some cheesy shaded-poll bullshit out of an overhead transparency projector like on our Trooperettes. No, sir. A squirrel-cage blower, the kind with serious ball bearings and lots of momentum that took several seconds to spool up, with a noise that sounded like you were turning on something in a nuclear power plant.
It made a "whooMMMMM" noise when you pushed the start button from an inrush of angry pixies.
It was the coolest goddamn thing a bunch of young theater nerds had ever seen.
Except that he's afraid of the arc lamp drivers in his products. Coke can-sized kilovolt capacitors are nothing to mess around with, even if you are nearly fearless....