One More Maintenance Issue

After church, I wanted to check whether certain lights were working properly. I used to remember what lighting controls did what. After half a dozen years of having no responsibility for lighting, however, my memory was a bit fuzzy. What struck me, however, was that many—perhaps all—indicator lamps were burned out.

There are four banks of controls for the lights in the church. Three of these consist of six buttons for selecting Preset 1, Preset 2, Preset 3, Preset 4, Work Lights, and Off. These are located on the back wall of the nave, at the pulpit, and on the wall near one of the side doors in the chancel. Located in the niche in the chancel—the niche was intended as the location of the organ console, but I don’t think any organist wanted to play from there—is the master control panel. In addition to the functionality available at the satellite panels, one can design the presets and engage or disengage fades from that panel. In addition to numerous slider controls, the panel sports seven buttons.

In total, there are 25 buttons in the church that are supposed to be illuminated when corresponding functions are activated, but few if any of the lamps behind the button caps are working. Apparently, no one has noticed or cares. The lamps themselves are odd and cumbersome to change. Perhaps one can find them locally, but I don’t know if that’s the case. They can be ordered from the manufacturer of the lighting controls and cost, the last time I ordered them, about a dollar apiece. Without the lamps functioning, one never knows what lighting setting is active.

The picture below shows the master control panel. I have pointed out one of the seven buttons.

Unlike the maintenance items I noted in my last post, fixing the button lamps in the church is relatively easy and cheap.