Projector flown on a stand - not from ceiling....

[filtered]

Hi there,

I'm needing to buy some kind of projector cradle that will take one of our smaller projectors (sony VPL-CS6 ) and fly it on a lighting stand. The venue hasnt got any truce and its not feesable to put it in to fly the projector from above, but it needs to go about 8 - 10 ft up. The satnds that ive found are either ceiling mounted ones or ones which only go up by three foot and you ballence the proj on it (no fixings) I need it to be secure (obviously) and high! Does any one know anywhere that does this in the UK? or anyone have any ideas as to what i can do?!

Cheers,

Tim
{Filtered}

[LEVLHED]

I use a 10 foot tripod stand kinda thing thats for a light truss system I have. You could use one of those or a regular speaker stand.
I made a platform out of wood and bungee cords to seat the beamer in, the wood has a add-on speaker mount cup thing on the bottom to go on top of the stand.

[atomicone]

check with local A/V companies, you should be able to find a stand. I've used manfrotto tripods that go well over 10ft, and have either a flat deck or T-bar at the top. You can either put your beamer on the deck (just make sure to strap it down, so it doesn't move out of allignment or fall on someones head) or hang it from the T-bar. Most have a crank on them so you just put them up to whatever height you neeed.
I'm not from the uk, so I don't know where you would find one, but any larger sound and lighting company should have a bunch.
hope that helps

[InsideUsAll]

... one thing to watch for is people walking into the stand - i've seen a few stands get knocked over, and it aint pretty when your beloved projector makes contact with the floor. seriously - make sure its rock solid - it might seem stable, but i've had someone run into one of my stands :o and knock it over. luckily the projector somehow survived, even though the internal frame was bent by about 1" and a couple of components/sockets got knocked off the pcb, once i bent it back and re-soldered the components all was good! :) but thats not a process you wanna go through!

[LEVLHED]

sand bags on the bottom of the stand, ideally inside the tri hanging on the bendy parts keep it pretty darn stable...as well as lashing to a collumn (sp?).....stand placement is a bit of a science.

[alangeering]

See attached image for the cradle I built last week. Took 2 hours, scrap (but very nice) wood, and ?16 of screws/bolts/washers/brackets.

If you look closely you will see that I've actually drilled holes for the mounting points of the projector. This doesn't make much time to get right (see the manual for locations), and is very reassuring.

I was able to hold the cradle in an orientation and shake it roughly without the projector moving (how good the shaking was for the projector I don't know, but I had to satisfy the safety officer).

The 1st message: It takes a maximum of 2 hours to build a safe cradle.

The 2nd message: You can make things very safe by using the proper mounting threads and screw points in your design.


PS: It's just as safe to mount the projector upside down on the underside of my cradle, in reality most of the structure is unnecessary, it was designed to convince over cautious safety officers.

[syzygy]

We've got two 3.5m lighting stands that we use to get our projectors high.

We only use them in positions where they are not going to get walked into, and never anywhere that is accessible to the audience.

We just hang our projectors in their cradles from scaf bars that are clamped at on the top of the stands.

The stands have proven to be useful for lots of other things than flying projectors - e.g. we used them to provide solid foundation for a big puppet theatre surface a couple of months ago.

You can hire lighting stands for pretty cheap but we bought some as they are hard as nails and don't cost that many times the hire price.

Dan.

[sleepytom]

nice cradle alan - perhapse you could mass produce them and sell though ikea :)

[alangeering]

Originally posted by sleepytom
nice cradle alan - perhapse you could mass produce them and sell though ikea :)

Yes, it does look like Ikea - but I assure you the quality of manufacture is higher!

True story: Went to Ikea show room and looked at their designs. Managed to make a wardrobe fall apart with one tap of my index finger. Some designer had gone for an industrial feel gluing metal sheets and wood together... and forgot it also had to be structural.

Comment on cradle: If I'd had the time then I would ahve built a proper metal plate and attachment. It's not too hard. I'm in a pretty cool situation, here at home we have a workshop (and somewhere in the shed is a welder).