Archive - MacAllen's Theater GUide

Building a Light for Fifty Bucks

So let’s face it, we all don’t have a million dollar budget to spend on lighting. In fact, in my experience, most directors think of lights last when budgeting for a show. This habit can be particularly annoying when suddenly during the final week of rehearsal the director unveils his vision for lighting, and even more annoying when the twenty year old Fresnel unexpectedly blows a bulb (not so unexpectedly perhaps for the lighting designer who has repeatedly told the director the bulb is about to blow out and he shouldn’t leave it in the cold dank basement).

What will be described here is not a replacement for a good set of Leko’s or even for good set of Fresnels. However, the equipment described here will at the very least brighten your stage, the faces of the actors, and perhaps allow for a more dynamic lighting design than you ordinarily could produce on a typically small budget.

The design and description should be robust enough for any creative person to modify to their own liking. These lights were originally used as foot lamps along the base of the stage and helped create effects at the director’ s request. At 150 watts, they were not extremely powerful, and were unable to offer significant focusing control. But used in conjunction with the remaining, and more powerful Leko and two fresnels, they provided effective coverage for an otherwise dark stage.

First begin by collecting the supplies. The tools you will need are:
Powerdrill
Philips Head screw driver
Wire cutters
Electrical tape
Hammer

The supplies you will need are:
2x4
Rotating 150 Watt flood lamp
Cable
Female socket
Air vent tubing
Nails
Hooks with screw bottoms

First begin by purchasing your 2x4 (a 2x2 would probably also work, though may be a little less stable). These run about $2.00 at Home Depot. When you do this, most lumber yards are willing to make some rough cuts for you. Have them cut the lumber into three roughly equal pieces.

Take one piece of your lumber and stand it vertical. Place the wider side against a second piece perpendicular and running along the ground. Leave two or three inches of the perpendicular board to hang over the vertical piece. Essentially you are forming an “L” with a little extra along the base. Attach this with nails. Lay the third piece parallel to the second, and attach it to the vertical piece. The vertical piece not constitutes the “front” or the stage side, and the end of the parallel pieces constitute the “back”.

You now have your basic lighting stand. Note that at a little more than three feet tall, this design is ideal for foot lamps or side lamps. More about modifying this design will be discussed later. For now, continue on with installing the lamp.

Pick a spot along the vertical pole to place the lamp. Do not place it all the way at the top. Inside your package of flood lamps there should be three wires; a black, white and green. If you have a fairly decent flood lamp, the head will rotate around, and will also move vertically changing the angle. If this is the case, you can essentially install the lamp and rotate the head to point at the stage. If not, be sure to install it so that when you change the angle of the lamp it faces the stage or front side of the stand. Now drill a hole on the vertical piece where you would like to install the lamp. Place this hole off center, toward the rear of the stand. The hole should be big enough for the wires to poke through.

Stick the wires from the base of the lamp through the hole. There should be screw holes in the base of the lamp to attach the lamp to the stand.

Now you have a stand with a lamp fixture with a mess of wires. If you already know how to attach cable to a lamp, skip to the next paragraph. If not, read on, dear reader. Strip away the insulation of the cable revealing again, three wires. Pull back the black insulation for about an inch, just enough to work with.

From these wires strip away the insulation—about as much as your thumbnail to reveal copper wiring. For each of these, place one at a time between your thumb and pointer finger to twist together. Do this for each wire, and also on each wire coming out of the lamp. There should be matching colors of black, white, and green. Unlike a great many things in this world, wiring tends to make sense. The white goes to white, the black to black, the green to green. However, if you are short one wire coming from the lamp (meaning you only have two), it is the grounding wire, and not really important. Simply cap off the green wire with electrical tap.

Now that you have connections made, wrap them up with electrical tape. It also might make sense to wrap an extra piece around the vertical piece of wood to hold the cable from slipping, so as to prevent your connections from coming undone.

Now take the screw hooks and place them along the vertical part of the stand, hooking the wire into them. You can also use high powered stables, or even better, duct tape. You simply don’t want the whole stress of the cable tugging on the connections made to the lamp.

Now take your piece of air venting. In the event that you are very poor, an extra large coffee can without a bottom and top can also be substituted. This is the only way you are going to focus your lamp, so do this step properly. Attach this cylinder with a screw and a washer to the vertical piece of lighting stand. Ideally the tubing or the coffee can will be just large enough to fit around the bulb and also touch the vertical pole.

Your cable now needs a female outlet piece to attach to a standard wall socket. First take apart your female outlet piece. Do this by unscrewing the top and separating the pieces. Stick the end of your cable through the base (the side without plugs). Inside you should find three sets of screws corresponding to the metal bars sticking out of the front. One of these screws should be green. Hold it with the green screw at the top.

At the end of your cable strip away the insulation again, and twist the ends of each wire. Unscrew the screws inside. Notice there is a small metal plate that comes loose. You will be sticking the wires from your cable here and tightening the screws so that they match up. The white wire goes to the right, the green to the green screw, and the black to the left screw. Bring the base back to the plug and screw together.

Plug your lamp in. If there are no sparks and the power does not suddenly go out, you’ve wired everything correctly.

Finishing touches:

Spray paint the wood black to hide it while on stage. Avoid painting the can however, because the heat may cause your spray paint to react in an unforeseen way. You can also attach gels to these lamps. Duct tape seems to withstand the heat (keep in mind these are only 150 watt lamps), however, in no way is this site endorsing the use of duct tape on hot metal.

Modifications:

The most important modification is to take a scrap piece of 2x4 and attack it to the top of the vertical bar. This can later be used to hold the cable coming off the back of the lamp for storage.

Making the lamp taller is really up to the discretion of the builder. These plans are not certified by an engineer, and so this should be considered when scaling taller. There is also no reason you cannot have multiple lamps on a single pole, though if you run it through the same cable, be sure the cable can handle the power supply.

Flood lamps can also be mounted on smaller piece of wood—perhaps six inches long. Combed with a heavy duty C-Clamp, it can be hung or suspended from a greater height.

Please remember that this guide is meant as a suggestion only. Qualified electricians should perform all electrical tasks. Children should never use tools or harware alone. This guide is meant solely as a practical example of how off the shelf hardware has been used to build a light used on stage. In no way is the Theater Guide responsible for injuries or damages resulting from poorly assembled electrical hardware or from using power tools.