CANBERRA — The Australian War Memorial (AWM), which underwent a retrofit last year to expand its focus on military engagements in the post-WW II era, required 30 new AV displays of varying size and complexity in 1,200 square feet of existing exhibit and office space driven by 40 computers. Bruce Brown from Mental Media and LSC Lighting Systems were involved in the project. The new exhibit area, “Conflicts 1945 to Today,” focuses on deployments to Korea, Vietnam, Rwanda, Iraq and Afghanistan. Artifacts include a helicopter from the war in Vietnam, an armored personnel carrier and the bridge from the guided missile destroyer HMAS Brisbane, pictured here.
The new AV displays increases the AWM's overall audiovisual content by around 40 percent. The design criteria were developed with the involvement of the in-house AV department to ensure the new exhibits could be easily operated with AV systems that were able to be flexible, reconfigurable and easy to maintain.
The AV department specified a theatrical style lighting patch system with all lighting outlets returning to a pair of centralized patch panels providing “any outlet to any dimmer.” This proved useful during the Stage 3 commissioning where a level of flexibility was available without the need for the electricians.
Two 72-way LSC “iPatch” patch panels were wall mounted for the patching and test functionality. The LSC iPRO dimmers were suspended on hook clamp mounts, like truss dimmers, but sitting against the wall, hanging from short pieces of horizontally mounted 48mm OD pipe.
With this horizontal, alternating arrangement of dimmer — patch panel — dimmer — patch panel — dimmer, the patch tails hang clear of the dimmers, and only patch tails in use create any obstruction to front panel 13 Amp circuit breakers. The aim of this configuration was to make the front panels easily accessible while in service and to speed dimmer swap-overs.
The LSC iPro dimmers, supplied by Total Concept Projects, were selected for their 13 Amp load capacity and pulsed transformer fired dimming, providing smooth and reliable dimming, whether the load is fluorescent, motors, transformers or extremely low wattage. With the close proximity to the 30 AV systems operational in these galleries the high quality of iPro’s inductors and filtering was essential to keep all systems clean and quiet.
The ability to program basic scenes into the dimmers as back ups was another consideration. That would allow the exhibits to remain open to the public if the main AV control system should ever fail.
For more information, please visit www.lsclighting.com.
