Pointless image is...

[Docsamson]

Oh god, PAR-bars. /shudder. I -hated- having to tech those things in the shop. Most of the SOCA connectors I dealt with were cranky, either from being weatherbeaten or just plain old; I didn't think the webbing between my thumb and forefinger would ever recover from the beating it received trying to connect those stupid #*&$*# knuckles.

Side note: why'd ya pick twist-lock?

None of those are twist-lock, those are all edison.  All of our standard fixtures run on edison, and our movers run on L6-20.  Edison is basically for everything keyed in for 120v circuits, with the L6-20 for 240v.  Also, if you get decent soco connectors, they take a real beating and keep going.  Ours always drop in smooth and easy, no messing about with them.  The only problem is with some of the cable itself.  My boss messed up like a year ago and bulk-ordered a bunch of 100' and 50' soco cable, but messed up the product code and got plenum instead.  That stuff is a pain, it's got no flex in it and weighs about 50% more than flex multicable.

edit:  Also, L6-20 twist is not watertight, at all.  If you need to operate in heavy rain/adverse conditions, you need to go up from standard L6-20 to Wetguard stuff, where the female connector has a gasket that goes over the male handle (think like camlock feeder cable) to seal out water.  Now, this is only generally an issue if your power connections happen to be on a wharf or something, but we've got a few wetguard connectors lying around that we swap to if it's really bad out.

another edit:  Just to scare all the homeowners out there.  Look at your outlets.  If they look like this [attachimg=1] and you have 20A circuit breakers on those lines, you're doing it wrong and risking a severe fire hazard.  Those connectors are designed and rated for use on 15A circuits only.  A 20A circuit looks like this: [attachimg=2]

[Avelandra]

So, I saw this today, and...just watch it, its Techies gone batshit.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2SKhRPq6gk[/youtube]

[Raif]

another edit:  Just to scare all the homeowners out there.  Look at your outlets.  If they look like this [attachimg=1] and you have 20A circuit breakers on those lines, you're doing it wrong and risking a severe fire hazard.  Those connectors are designed and rated for use on 15A circuits only.  A 20A circuit looks like this: [attachimg=2]

Yay electrical stuff

Going through my apprenticeship now Looks like you have some 5-15r and some 5-20t  t-slot

For the wall behind your kitchen counter

[fiere redfern]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SabPRsWZSPg[/youtube]

Stagehands with access to heavy machinery + boredom + a spare three minutes in-between shows = AWESOME.

[Docsamson]

another edit:  Just to scare all the homeowners out there.  Look at your outlets.  If they look like this [attachimg=1] and you have 20A circuit breakers on those lines, you're doing it wrong and risking a severe fire hazard.  Those connectors are designed and rated for use on 15A circuits only.  A 20A circuit looks like this: [attachimg=2]

Yay electrical stuff

Going through my apprenticeship now Looks like you have some 5-15r and some 5-20t  t-slot

For the wall behind your kitchen counter

Technically, by NEMA code, 5-15 is *always* two vertical slots for your hot/neutral, and 5-20 is *always* one vertical and one T for your hot/cold, so you can plug a 5-20 male connector (vertical + horizontal hot/cold) or a 5-15 male in.  Lots of places ignore this, and you can even sometimes find 5-15 style household plugs that are rated for 20 amps - but they're not NEMA connectors.  For most people, this isn't something to really worry about, but the difference between 5-15 and 5-20 for me is whether or not I can 2-fer or 3-fer an outlet without risking a blowout.  A 15A 120v connector gives me 1800 watts, with a 3-fer giving a load of 1725w with 575w units.  This is enough to put you in the "danger zone" for blowing a circuit, as basically anything else on the same circuit will overload it.  Since I work in hotels a lot where they basically use the cheapest stuff that goes to code, I run into a lot of 5-15 plugs that are on actual 15 amp circuits, especially in the older buildings here.  I've even seen 5-20 connectors on 15A circuit breakers, which led me to blow a breaker at one of the places here (put 3 units on it, and there was apparently a candelabra that was tied into the same breaker.  If it had been a 20A breaker to match the outlet, it would have been fine.)

Basically, if you're doing home renovations or something, be nice to the people who come by later and match your outlets to the breakers and cabling by NEMA code.  If you're feeling really awesome, put labels on the wallplugs with numbers that match the breakers, so people know which ones are connected.  Labeling and proper use of NEMA makes life so much easier for everyone who comes by afterwards.

[Docsamson]

[attachimg=1]

THIS IS MY MEATRACK.

[Haderach]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaSvYQdGYs[/youtube]


absolutely classic.

[Raif]

[youtube=425,350]ltM5jHIJFw4[/youtube]


Epic

[Oilslick]

[attachimg=1]

THIS IS MY MEATRACK.

My oh my...

how pars have gotten smaller over the years...

There once was a time...back in my day...when that meatrack would've been four times heavier...still have some of the old pars around here somewhere

[Docsamson]

[attachimg=1]

THIS IS MY MEATRACK.

My oh my...

how pars have gotten smaller over the years...

There once was a time...back in my day...when that meatrack would've been four times heavier...still have some of the old pars around here somewhere

With the lenses currently in those, they're equivalent to a PAR64.  A meatrack of that height could only hold 4 lamp bars of them, and would be double the weight of those 6 lamp bars.  The show went well though, the sound guy from the band tour side said it was one of the best light shows they've had in the last few years, so I'm content.  Would've liked to have had another 6 lamp bars of PARs to work with, but meh, they weren't paying enough for what we brought as it is. 

[Air]

Good cover 

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hos8Buwd4WE[/youtube]

[Shadowwolf]

So stupid its funny. Amazing who they let on TV these days.

http://www.brandsonsale.com/superhero-halloween-costumes.html

[youtube=425,350]civOdWxd4Kc[/youtube]

[Air]

Smart cat
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPlX3qF_7Xo[/youtube]

[capnpop]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nds1T7U9FqY[/youtube]

dance FORTRESS!

[Docsamson]

[attachthumb=1]

I feel sorry for whoever has to coil up that mess of feeder cable in the 4th image down on the left, that stuff's heavy.