UK - Edinburgh-based lighting specialists Tower Productions were called in to light a section of Castlehill in Edinburgh's historic Old Town during the Christmas period. The brief stipulated strictly no pea-lights and no flashing santas!The area presented a number of challenges, not least the height of the buildings, the pitch of the roofs, fixing consent from different parties and mains and control to all areas. Coupled with the road having to remain open, this meant some diligent cherry-picker work.

The final scheme involved 131 Par cans (dichroic filters fitted to those in inaccessible places), 22 Source Four profiles, 34 exterior birdies, 11 400W HQI floods, a pair of Studio Due City Colors and over 220m of rope light. The existing street lighting was gelled to reduce brightness, and the whole supplied by one 300A 3-phase mains supply with dimmers dotted around the rooftops!

Control was provided by a PC running Artistic's Grandmaster Flash software. An 802.11b wireless connection to existing broadband infrastructure was used for remote access and maintenance, with a wireless link to a laptop for programming and focusing. Finally, a web cam link was used for remote monitoring of lamps.


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