skitchin.net - Something else that I Built

On Saturday, April 22nd, my quartet gave an amazing concert. The main piece on the program was Shostakovich's Quartet #8, which was his reaction to the bombing of Dresden in WWII. It's extremely dark, angry, emotional and intense, and to make it even more powerful, we played it in near darkness while projecting pictures and poems along with the music. On top of that, we put a layer of dry ice fog over the stage. Click Here for that part of the story.

We decided that we wanted to walk out in near total darkness, then sit down and have our stand lights (that will be blue, by the way) come on once we're settled, then immediately start to play. Back in high school we used a special extension cord for our stand lights. It had boxes with four outlets every few feet that we could plug into, and on the one end there was a box with a dimmer switch, so between numbers the conductor could turn the knob and lower all the lights. When we came up with the idea of having our lights turn on after we sat down, that cord immediately jumped to my mind. I called my mom to ask her to ask the high school theater guy if I could borrow the cord, or where I could buy one. He said I could have used it, but it was too late to get it, because the school was closed for Easter Break, and by the way, we made that thing ourselves.

Enter the dimmer cord project. If you want to make one yourself, I tried to document the process as best I could (although there's a gap when I'm wiring the plugs because my camera got weird). If you try and get electrocuted, it's not my fault.

First I went to the hardware store and bought supplies. Not really knowing exactly what I needed, it took a while, and I had to make some educated guesses.

and some outlets, so I bought them. I also grabbed a pair of wire strippers, because I knew they'd come in handy.

While I was shopping, I found a circuit tester, like one I used on a mission trip to Mississippi last January. You stick it in an outlet, and it tells you if it's wired properly or not, depending on the lights that light up. It was fairly cheap, and really useful, so I got one, too. If you're doing this, or any electrical work, I recommend you get one too.

After I bought some extra wire and wire nuts, I knew that all I had left was something to mount the dimmer and plugs in...and that's what I wasn't sure about.

I ended up buying a 2 gang (the technical term for a thing) 3 hole outlet box and a 3 hole switch box. Both are made by Red Dot, and are rated for wet locations. I ended up going with the wet location route because I figured that meant they were sealed. Most junction boxes, light brackets or outlet/switch boxes are made to be mounted in a wall or ceiling. This means they usually have holes in them that won't matter when they're in a wall, but would matter if you're throwing them around. I didn't want to accidently stick my finger in a live box, so I got these, figuring they'd be the safest.

This was my biggest lucky find. In a big bin next to all this stuff were bags of these. Those boxes are technically conduit boxes, meaning they're access points for wire running through metal pipe (electrical conduit). They have threaded holes (hence the 3-hole designation) that can accept pipe ends or connectors of some sort. I need some way to attach the extension cord to the box so that it wouldn't pull out or stress the wire connections. Then I found these little clamps. They're threaded and screw into the conduit holes in the box, then you run the wire through it and tighten the screws to hold it in place. Brilliant!

The Dimmer Cord