Power distribution problems

[Mike Cohen]

Look for a coffee maker – the old bun-o-matic variety, and unplug it. Those things use a lot of amps.

If there is a computer turned on in a room you are in, ask to turn it off.

Find a bathroom or kitchen area, those are good for an extra circuit usually (unless you are in my condo, in which the bathroom, bedroom and garage are all on the same gfi circuit.)

Bring lots of extension cords, and adequate gaffer tape to make these cables safe.

Make sure you are insured in case something gets damaged as a result of tripping a breaker. This happened to us just recently – a computer in another part of the building was damaged. Again, things are not wired according to current codes in older buildings.
Whenever possible ask for someone ahead of time who knows the electrical system – custodians may know these things.

[Todd Terry]

Yeah, as, I’ve said, I know how to do it… it’s just that in practicality it doesn’t easily work well that way.

Usually in commercials buildings that don’t have traditional kitchens, or bathrooms with GFCI hairdryer plugs… no one ever knows what is on what circuit or where the breakers go… etc etc etc… and can’t in practicality can’t start just flipping the (invariably unlabeled) breakers to see what goes where.

Not a problem with an easy solution….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

We’ve found that whenever possible, we arrange to have the building electricians set up a drop-line (tie-in) with distribution boxes. That circumvents all overload problems — unless we overload the drop boxes, which we don’t. Sometimes, our Best Boy does the tie-in himself, but most often the building won’t allow us to do that. Frankly, we much, much prefer it that the house guy do this job.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Steve Wargo]

[Todd Terry] ” I wasn’t aware of a device like that”

If I’m not mistaken, Home Depot is where I got it. We use it to keep from turning off the wrong circuits. I also carry a sheet of red labels with different things printed on them and some blank ones so we can write them on site.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Simon Brown]

I’ve been reading the post and I have a solution for you. You can get clean power from either the oven or the clothes dryer (depending on location). These appliances require two separate circuits for them to operate and, depending on the appliance, are up to 40 Amps per side. These are usually tied to break together if it’s tripped. The wiring of these receptacles are two hot leads (usually one black and one red), one neutral (white), and one ground (green or bare copper lead). If you are handy, the plug, wires, connectors, plug sockets for your lights, are all found at your local hardware store. One hot lead will go to one side of your 4-way box, the hot lead will go to the other side. If you want to be able to get some length from out of the appliance socket, just use some cable that’s the same size as the appliance between the plug and the hand-made 4-way box. I think you could even get a plug-adapter that changes the plug from stove to standard house socket (I think it’s for gas stoves that require power for the electronics.) Both options require pulling out the stove and unplugging the appliance.
For the DIY adverse, you could go to the nearest film grip/electric rental house and rent one for a nominal fee.

[Todd Terry]

Good idea for residential locations, thanks.

For shooting in houses we typically use tungstens or Kinos and power usually isn’t a problem. Unfortunately virtually all the locations where we have need to break out the HMIs are commercial locations that rarely have stove connections and never have dryer outlets. It’s especially troublesome in older buildings that have been victims of bad retrofit or remodeling jobs sometimes several times over… it’s a total crapshoot what breakers feed what circuits and what’s already on them. Without fail no one ever knows. Sometimes they don’t even know where their breaker box is…. sheesh. Ha.

Still searching for that elusive device that apparently doesn’t exist.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com