HOW TO MAKE A POWERTAP POWER TAP

I'll start by saying I AM NOT an electrician. Everything below is based on experience, and is just my opinion. Verify all your needs with a licensed electrician before doing any electrical work like this. Take it with a grain of salt and read at your own risk.

You can find the total amperage you'll require by dividing the total wattage of all fixtures by 120 volts (assuming that is the supplied voltage).

I like at least 40 amps for my shows, but 60 or 80 makes me very happy. If no range plug is available for a main power supply, I have the show divided into 2 20-amp legs. SO, if I trip one breaker, my whole show doesn't go out and the stage isn't blacked out.

I'm not sure about the cable gauge, but I know it is VERY important!

Multiple 20-amp breakers seems to be the norm for PDs. Although if the initial power supply to the PD is high, you could make them 30's or a single 40 or 60. It's about convenience at that point. Single breakers will knock out the whole like show if it trips, multiple breakers will save part of the light show until you can get the breaker flipped back on.

Just make sure everything adds up so that in the even of high power draw, you will trip the main breaker on YOUR power tap, and not the main breaker on a house panel. That's a bad thing.

Usually though, your power tap will be based on a separate house circuit (range) or multiple circuits (edisons).

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Again, I'm not an electrician...so I cannot say this is all necessarily right, true, or safe.

Best,
-Tech

For shows I do, I consider myself lucky if I get a 15-amp circuit. I put a power-strip on that with a breaker on it, and away I go. Of course, they all want lots of lights and a fog machine(half the circuit right there, folks). My main problem is restaurant owners wanting to do the club thing/show thing, but don't want to spend the money thing, so the scenario is never ideal. As the previous poster said, pop YOUR breakers and not the house. Better all around. But I also have to run sound too, and sound is always priority since I'm an audio engineer and not a DJ.

As far as finding draw, it's in your manuals. Add it up, and there you go. In my situation, I can never run full lights, so I do what I can when I can. I'm starting to move away from Par Cans and going to color changers at least in theory. I haven't bougt any color changers yet.

Really, I'd say go and have an electrician make this for you or buy a pre-built one. Seriously, don't screw with this, it can be a matter of life and death. Really, in my scenario, I want to take 100-amp single phase from the house mains to a power distro, then run PA and audio off that. Typically, 2 15 or 20 amp circuits all for me is way overkill as far as what I'm use to for lights, but I can get that from house outlets. I'm working with an electrician and three audio dealers on an on and off basis addressing this issue. Right now I'm in an "off" mode since funds are non-existant. I just spend around $100K on new PA and console and outboard, so I gotta start earning some of that back for a bit.

I agree on getting a comptent electrician to make this for you.... You have to worry about liability if something is to go wrong with your wireing... Also depending on where you are it may be required to UL or ETL Listed

I wish I had a 100-amp distro on my show on Saturday. 20-amp breaker, 15-amp outlet, blew it a few times. I had access to the panel. Mess, what a mess. Breaker was worn and needed replacing. If I had skills, I could have tapped those rails and taken when electrical I needed.

Audio was fine. Lights, well, what I used was nice, but that fog machine(ADJ), too much wattage. I need to get a hazer. That's the problem with lights: too much draw, but simply have to have it. There is simply no way around that problem.

Right on Chris.

I had a show about 3 weeks ago where I put up a rather thick, but definitely scaled-back light show, only to find that management misled us on the power available to us.

Listen to this: two 20 amp circuits for the entire show. Lights and PA (it was deviously split among 4 quad edison wall plates). Needless to say it only took 30 seconds into the first song to trip the breaker. We need 120 amps to run our show, but we can barely suffice with 80, let alone 40.

Since lights always play second to sound (as we all know ), I had to leave a ton of stuff unused that night. Of course I was not in a good mood for the rest of the evening, since I spent about 2 hours setting up stuff I didn't use.

Thank goodness I had my Mighty Scans. They really saved the day being low-draw.

Well, I'm sound, so I bought lights as a concession. I must say, I've been pleased with what I've got. I just had to buy some non-ADJ lights since I couldn't find a dealer who carried the PL-1000 Par36 Pin Spots. Burned out a bulb on one, and the other, well, the face got stuck trying to put it back on and well, now it's not usable at the moment.

If I could get 120-amps, single phase, for sound, I'd be pleased.

20 amps X4 for my mains, although I can halve that due to overheads. Then another 2 15's for my other active subs, but again can halve. I prefer a 20 for stage power and monitors since I'm not running heavy monitors. But that's 130 amps right there. I haven't even run my FOH yet, which depending on the configuration, can be a full 20 amps. What, considering the large console, possible ProTools, a rack of recording decks, a rack of playback decks, wireless rack, my nearfield amp, and my main outboard rack, I can suck down the AC hard and fast at FOH.

Lights: If I can get 15 amps, I'm satisfied. 20 makes me a tad happier, but 30-40 amps would really brighten my day. I can't imagine my small rig demanding more than that since I never run flat out. I do need a more adaptable lighting console though.

At my last show, I dragged it ALL out, then told my lighting guy "go create" and left him to it. He did a good job, as always. Too bad we couldn't really use it. He went light(no pun intended) for this show.

So what I do is take the comments of folks like you with recommendations and investigate and make my own decisions. Intels sure can save on lighting and space on a truss. The cost is, well, justifiable for the most part. I'm doing fine without them for now, but I am constantly moving forward. I'm going to swap out cans for color changers at some point, get some more "intelligent effects" and some true movers. But that's not in the near future yet.

yeah power is ALWAYS an issue with lighting... I require at minimum 80 amps to run my show.. more is always better as you all know...

I have quite a bit of knowledge in the electrical field so i'm able to do tie in's to breaker panels and run my own distro's however... some venues it isn't always available to do it that way...

I find that sometimes the best way is to generate my own power and run a feeder cable to a distro inside to run to the different trussing... it's important to understand power if your doing this and to condition it properly otherwise you could do some damage to your gear if your not running them at the right voltage.

Right now that's what I'm researching. I figure if I can run a 100-amp main generator for my audio and another 30-60 amps for lights, then just finding the appropriate rectifying product to take care of that inconsistent voltage. Oh, that and some UPSes to front-end that as well to just smooth things out. I'm not worried about battery back-up, just clean AC in.

YO GUYS I am a master electrician. I built a few of these and it aint cheap $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I also work for a production company and run shows for local and national acts. The club I work at is ( www.clubtinks.com ) The Rig we installed there has 50 par 64 500 watt cans, 3 575 watt Ellipsoidal spots, 8 active scans, I also add some lighting, msd 250 watt moving heads or scanners.
This is a in house system and we have a 100 amp 3 phase PD panel for lighting and a 60 amp 3 phase PD panel for sound. 120/208 volts
Most bigger clubs I work in have stage side 100 or 200 amp disconect. (saftey switch) I usally just tie in our single phase power cords that leads to a 100 amp panel box with TEN / 20 amp breakers and ten 120 volt 20 amp outlets.

I am not telling anyone how to do this i am just explaining some facts.

The person that should tie in PD centers MUST HAVE THE ELECTRICAL EXPERIENCE BELOW

1. You must understand and practice the term
electrical saftey. This would be a class by
itself. I would suggest a class in basic
electricity

2. You must know how to use a ac volt meter.
Different clubs might have different
voltages. Some 3 phase disconects will have
a high leg. This means if you meter this
phase and the netural bar(white wire)YOU
WILL GET 208 to 212 volts ac. I got called
out a few times to hook up a light show
that some one already blew up.

3. You must understand electrical power
distrbution systems.

single phase 120 / 240 volt
delta system 3 phase 120 / 240 volt (high leg)
wye system 3 phase 120 / 208 volt

Color coding for the above voltages should be black, red, blue, white, and green. Some times the high leg is marked orange. And some times there not marked at all.

Also if you see brown orange yellow and gray or white. Close the disconect this would be 480 volts. You dont want that.

If your still with me and you are even more confused. Talk to some local production companys and ask them install one for you.
I hope this helps a little.
Flash C/ya