Re: How to build a Tardis?

[Owain]

"Chris Holmes" wrote | I have purchased a "Kojak light" (orange unfortunately) from CPC ... | Now for the question, this thing contains a low wattage motor and a | 21W inditator bulb, so I presume it's drawing about 2A at 12V. It | could do with being controlled from the opposite end of the church (by | the guy who is also doing the sound effects). | If I made up a suitable cable to feed the 12V down one or the other of | these; | a. Would it work? | b. Would the cable go bang? | c. Would it b*gger up the sound system?

a. There would be a lot of voltage drop in the cable, so it might not work. b. Probably not c. Could well cause clicks when you switch on and off

You could either:

1. Use a relay with 2A contacts near the power supply and Kojak light, reducing volts drop, and have a low-current feed through the sound multicore to work the relay coil off a battery.

1. Plug the mains PSU into a remote control switch and use a radio keyfob to work that, twenty quid from Maplin, switch 10A mains so would do a lot of lighting/sound/smoke effects.

If you wanted a blue light you can get them from Gadget Shop or Maplin, but they use a mains pygmy bulb so don't reflect as much.

Owain

PS are you sure it's 21W bulb, my Kojak light is a 55W

Owain

[Chris Holmes]

It's got a black box with a 12 mic lines going "one way" and 4 returns going t'other. I doubt if any of the mics or returns would be in use on the day.

You recon the volts should get there ok Dave? (we're talking approx

40 feet in old money)

[gandalf]

-------------- Assuming the coax is currently unused, then I would use that.

------ Yes

------ No

---------- No. Because the coax has nothing to do with the sound system.

If the XLR is used then I would leave well alone. If it's unused then you could use half the cores for pos and the other half for neg.

Coax is pretty beefy so your voltage loss will be tolerable. And as you are powering it from a battery charger you are probably launching at nearer 14v than

12v. So your end voltage should be about right.

The idea is to shove the current through as much copper as possible to reduce the resistance. If both coax and XLR are unused you could fashion something even better by using them both.

[gandalf]

Easily achievable with the ASDA own-brand portable cold-fusion device. Screwfix have something similar.

[Simon]

You'll be lucky to be hitting 2V by the time you get there and lucky if it gives off a faint buzz

[<nightjar>]

...

Memory suggests that the original just went on and off, fairly slowly - probably a props man working a sliding rheostat up and down, in time to the music.

Colin Bignell

[Dave Plowman]

So in other works unless you plug into them, they are simply lengths of wire? Just checking they're not plugged to an amp with two or more mic sockets in parallel to allow different mic positions.

It's likely they're wired in ordinary mic cable which is usually at least

0.5mm. And this is ok for a couple of amps. If by any chance they were wired in telephone gauge wiring you might be in problems, but this is most unlikely.

[Joe Lee]

I ordered one from Screwfix last Thursday. It arrived in March.

[Gnube]

If you get that thing running right, can we go out for a spin in it? (just to test it like) I'd just like to briefly revisit a certain boomakers shop.

Take Care, Gnube

[Dave Plowman]

Playschool was the first programme actually seen on BBC 2 (the next day) due to the power cut on the official opening night.

Sparks, strangely enough.

[Chris Holmes]

No, tell us the story Dave!

[Dave Plowman]

On 'The Bill' when you have one of those chasing down the street shots, everyone who hasn't a job to do during the actual 'take' will help out with cabling, although it's officially the rigger's job. But you'd need several, and there's only one. Same with many things - people just help out, if they can. I sometimes need a second boom - it's rarely something that can be predicted so I could book a second operator, and again one of the others can always be made to volunteer.;-)

On my last shoot, the gaffer, or chargehand sparks, helped out with grip work and a second boom on many occasions. So much so I almost bought him a drink.

The most common question is 'why are all these people standing around?' The answer is their job happens before and after a 'take' but not during it.

[Mike Ring]

Ruggish - I was there, we ran the network from Alexandra Palace, can't remember prezactly what went out, news, come dancing; at times it came to pulling out bits of macaroni and seeing what picture went off the telly.

But it *did* start on the night, it's just that the stalinist BBC airbrushed it out of history.

Mike R

[Mike Ring]

Dave Plowman wrote in news: [e-mail]:

A bit reminiscent of an interview I did (well, pointed the camera) with Sir Peter Parker, then chairman of british rail, who looked around and said "...and I suppose you want to ask _me_ about overmanning"

Mike R

[Terry]

Err!

Please advise an ignorant North American; what in the blazes is a TARDIS?

Or to use a childhood expression from my Liverpool origins; "You wot. Never eard of it!".

Regards. Terry.

[Andy Hall]

"Time And Relative Dimension In Space".

You mean you didn't know that?

It comes from a 60's (and later) children's (of all ages) TV series called Dr Who and is his transport - being able to travel in both time and space.

original Tardis was, on the outside a Metropolitan Police telephone box - angular and blue. Inside it was very much larger with the appearance of the inside of a space ship. Theoretically Tardises were meant to be able to blend with their surroundings from the exterior point of view - changing according to where the TARDIS arrived.

The "problem" was that the so-called "chameleon" mechanism broke on arrival in London in 1963 and was never fixed. The navigation was distinctly dodgy as well, so it was never possible to accurately predict where the erratic machine would go next.

Of course, these two failures fitted a low budget series of the time very well.

One of the major features of the TARDIS was the control column. This was hexagonal and had a transparent plastic column in the centre with flashing lights. Whenever the TARDIS departed, the column would go up and down, accompanied by a sound effect rather like an electronic grinding noise.

email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Andrew McKay]

And a rather successful low budget series as well! There were 4 or 5 different Dr Who's (the Timelord) running over several years.

The series was well in line with the other galactic adventure series, Blakes 7. Though the latter did not have such a long run.

Both used props and situations which didn't cost very much. And there's still something rather sinister about the cybermen even to this day :)

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

[Dave Plowman]

If you look carefully at these scenes, you'll notice that this never happened over dialogue. The column was actually operated by compressed air, and very noisy.

[Dave Plowman]

I'm amazed. The one person in the world who's not seen Dr Who.

[Gnube]

Of course, you realise this was foretold in books long since lost to time itself, this is the one person who can truly rid the dementia of time and space from the curse of the daleks forever. We must get a message to the doctor with all haste!

It is vital we adjourn to Gallifrey and find him, I wonder, would the local minicab firm agree to transport us there? I'll use the digital audio transcription, data relocation, and remote reconstruction device to contact them and find out. Now where did I leave that Yellow Pages? ;O)

Take Care, Gnube