There’s a saying; ‘it’s the small pieces that make the big picture.’
We certainly saw just how true this quote was when we were contacted recently by a major performing arts venue in London. Although they only required a small component, it’s amazing to see how these smaller details help to make a big impact, especially when it comes to creating memorable performances.
Our customer, the Royal Opera House, holds an immaculate reputation for delivering some of the world’s most magnificent and emotive opera’s, ballets and theatre shows; working hard to ensure every cue and each technical aspect of the production is carried out with military precision.
Of course, lighting control is an important part of each performance, although often underappreciated, good lighting in theatre is relied upon not only for visibility, but to convey the proper atmosphere and bring life to each production.
At the time of contacting us, the Royal Opera House needed to resurrect the use of a traditional lighting accessory for use in future performances; a Pani Grey Scale Shutter unit.
Setting the Scene with Precision Control
Within stage lighting operations, the Pani Grey Scale Shutter is used to control the intensity of HMI lighting which is not dimmable by any other means. Through the use of grey scale glass wedges in the projection path of the light source, these lighting units can be expertly dimmed in high resolution, with one fluid movement. The positioning of the grey scale glass over the stage projector is accomplished using a controlled small DC geared motor.
However, to ensure that the movement of the wedges and transition from bright to dim is free from vibrations, flickering or any sudden jolts, a precision small DC geared motor is required. This motor will precisely position the shutters using a dynamic microstepping software to achieve the smoothest transition and best proportional resolution; perfect for the high level of professionalism expected from the lighting capabilities of the Royal Opera House.
The key to the effortless movement of this Pani grey scale shutter unit is the high precision small DC geared motor, this provides the best resolution for each driving velocity. So, when a precision small DC geared motor was required by the ROH, we were more than happy to supply them a high efficiency Engel DC Brush motor.
The Show Must Go on with Engel Small DC Geared Motor
As the UK and Eire distributor for Engel, we knew that the Engel small DC geared motor be the best choice for their lighting application needs.
The Engel small DC geared motor that we supply within the GNM series have already proven their worth as a reliable technology, holding a permanent magnetic field for the highest efficiency. Its bar-wound armature design for dynamic movement, lends itself nicely for use with microstepping software. The versatile configurations for mounting options such as parking brake, incremental encoder, worm, planetary and spur gears provided additional options should the ROH want to make further use of this little, but valuable small DC geared motor.
With the Engel small DC geared motor installed and providing seamless dimming control, this small motor really did play its part in contributing to the overall success of bigger performances.
Although small DC geared motor are often associated with less inspiring industrial engineering applications, it’s always interesting when these little reliable motors get their chance to shine… or dim, as the case may be.
Could your automation application benefit from the use of a reliable Engel DC small DC geared motor.
As the UK and Eire Distributor for Engel, we are happy to help with friendly advice and fast delivery.
Contact All Drives and Controls here, or call 01827 52189.