National Portrait Gallery during the refurbishment works

I have been working over the last couple of months on the Lighting Control systems for the National Portrait Galleries in Edinburgh.

The refurbishment of this classic red sandstone  building originally designed by Robert Rowand has been going on for some months and with the recent opening of the National Museum of Scotland Edinburgh really is spoiled with fantastic galleries to visit for free!

The gallery re-opens to the public this coming November.

Tech Blurb:

This large project is a mix of Evolution and the new Mode Edin units used to provide a wireless interface allowing users to setup galleries locally.

The spectacular roof of the new visitor centre moving into place!

Over the last couple of months I have been working on a project at Rosslyn Chapel just outside Edinburgh.

Rossyln a 15th-century medieval Midlothian chapel was featured in Dan Brown’s 2003 novel “The Da Vinci Code” and ever since the annual visitor numbers have rocketed!

The current refurbishment includes creation of a purpose built visitor centre and an upgrade to the lighting within the Chapel.

On this project I have been working for Mode Lighting the Lighting Controls manufacturer and alongside Arthur Mckay the electrical contractors and Gavin Fraser of FotoMA who has completed the lighting design.

Tech Blurb:

The evolution lighting controls system in Rosslyn Chapel controls a number of different types of lighting including LED, Fluorescent and Metal Halide Lighting.  The Control system has redundancy built in with system shutdown in the chapel or visitor center not affecting the other. In addition a Mode Lighting Relay Pack controls the small mains power for all audio visual systems along with a communication to the AV control systems giving the staff a single point of control for all systems.  The system has a number of control plates including the evolution LCD plate which gives text feedback to users and simple key switch control for non-technical users.

The National Museum of Scotland re-opened last weekend after months of refurbishment.

It was a great pleasure to have a small part in this huge project which is so important to Edinburgh and Scotland.

This photo was taken on one of my early site visits and shows the grand main hall with a huge central scaffold during the refurbishment works.

If you follow the link below you will see what it looked like at the opening this weekend.

I was able to assist the guys at Balfour Kirkpatrick with the theatrical lighting in the 200 seater Lecture Theatre which was also fully refurbished as part of the project.  Working with Thomas Silk who is now working with Haden Young.

BBC – National Museum of Scotland to reopen after £47m refit

Lighting Controls systems installed at St Andrew’s Cathedral Glasgow and St Columba’s in Oban held very different challenges in commissioning but both very rewarding projects to be involved with.

The system in Oban involved DALI ballasts for all the high level lighting allowing changes to the addressing to be made without the need for expensive access equipment.

The Glasgow site as you can see from the photos below has a huge mix of types of lighting to spectacular effect and included four controllers spread over the cathedral building to balance loading correctly.

Tech Blurb:

Oban: The control system is an Edin NPU controlling evolution control packs and an Edin Universal ballast controller with a number of plates controlling lighting scenes and contactors to the huge St columba’s bells shown above.

The system includes time control, presence control and 0-10v Fluorescent dimming.

This week I have been working on Prodigy Controls Programming in Darvel (North Aryshire).

Prodigy is the newest addition to the Crestron range and is simply a stripped down processor and limited controller options.

This project involved a single zone system with lighting, AV and Digital audio.

Today I was working on behalf of  GlobalIS

4 rooms with standalone I/O DSI modules were commissioned plus a larger system consisting of 45 ballasts, a mixture of zumtobell and philips,

Commissioning was carried out using the browser interface to the Edin NPU which allows full configuration and provides DALI commissioning tools.

“All were all identified very quickly with no problems, the Dali commissioning interface works very well”. D Aberdeen – Lighting Control

I have recently been providing consultancy work advinsing the Napier estates team on the upgrading of LEAX lighting Control panels. The Main lecuture theatres at the Craiglockhart campus have bespoke LEAX lighting control panels providing DSI control of lighting along with integration of centralised emergency lighting from an invertor supply. The panel has inputs from fire alarm systems one way integration of the crestron control systems via RS232 and a LEAX control panel.

LEAX Controls went into administration some time ago and hence support and spares are in limited supply.

The original design of the system used a number of DSI fittings for emergency use from the inverter which caused a number of fault conditions were the DSI ballasts will not provide the correct level of emergency illumination.

The estates department picked this up in testing and called us in to help!

The designed solution is using  some of the new mode Lighting EDIN din rail range of products.

Leax Panel

The integration is a true integration with the manufacturer written control 4 drivers allowing full two way control of the mode lighting system including dimmers, relays and control plates.

I was working on this project for Mode Lighting along with Garry Mcdermott of Home Innovation