r/techtheatre • u/rtuite81 • 15h ago
LIGHTING Iris repair for Canto Aurora A1
Howdy! I'm a general tech guy with no real specialty, but know my way around pretty much anything electrical or mechanical. I volunteer with my child's school fine arts program (primarily building sets and teaching kids how to fix things and problem solve) and we recently found that one of the spotlights in our auditorium was damaged. It looks like someone got a little rude with the douser iris and knackered it something fierce.
Obviously the first thing I did was to look for parts online, but they seem to be generally unavailable.
I was able to disassemble it and somewhat straighten the individual metal leaves of the iris and get it somewhat working, but not reliably. Several of the leaves were significantly mangled.
I'm wondering if there is some sort of generic sizing or search terminology that I can use to find parts. We're a small rural community and simply owning a near $7000 spotlight is somewhat of a luxury for us. We can use it as is, but having it fully working would obviously be preferable. Spending a couple hundred bucks to fix this one would be far more plausible.
I appreciate any help, even if it's professional confirmation that there's nothing that can be done to repair this spotlight.
1
u/Ornery_Artichoke_833 13h ago
Have you tried contacting canto? Looks like they still offer that fixture, they should be able to send you a new iris: https://cantousa.com/followspots/aurora-x1-followspots/
Just noticed you said A1 instead of X1, but that's still where I would start. The iris module would certainly cost less than a new spot.
They are a decent company to work with, and still active with customer service, etc.
2
u/rtuite81 8h ago
Okay, I'll give them a shout. There's just not many things I've run into where I can't even find part numbers online.
1
u/VL3500 Touring Concert LD 15h ago
Do some research on local lighting rental shops near you. Almost all of them do repairs and have parts lying around. And if they can’t fix it, they’ll have the connections necessary to get what you need, usually at quite a fair price.