Olympic Games at the Arena
In an industry dominated by multinationals, Arena TV is a proudly British company specializing in the filming of international events. The company holds contracts with the nation’s major broadcasters to provide coverage of music festivals, large studio shows and sport.
Arena own a fleet of 11 large OB, (outside broadcast), trucks that offer on-site sound and production editing facilities as well as a fully equipped video suite. The company has covered high profile events including the FA Cup, Glastonbury festival, Trooping the Colour, Six Nations Rugby, Children in Need and Ant and Decs ‘Push the Button’.
The company also has a dedicated aviation division comprising of 10 aircraft including fixed and rotary and is based in hangers 4, 5 and 7 at Redhill Aerodrome. Aviation work can include film, music promo, commercials and or corporate production.
“The Powervamp technical team got involved to find a solution for powering up the four large cooling compressors…”
Powervamp were contacted last year by Arena Television regarding a purchase of a PV45 static frequency converter for its operation in Surrey – so when another frequency converter requirement came to light, they turned again to Powervamp to help them out.
Arena were contracted to film the UK coverage of the 2016 Olympic, and Paralympic, games, being held in Brazil in August and September respectively.
Three of their largest OB trucks are due to be driven to Brazil where they will be based for the duration of the games. However, although the trucks accepts 230V at 60Hz for running the majority of the on-board equipment, the essential air-conditioning only runs on 50Hz.
“The caster-mounted EF20 SFC was tested in-house by simulating the 50Hz load that the air-conditioning would demand…”
The Powervamp technical team got involved to find a solution for powering up the four large cooling compressors per truck without tripping circuit-breakers due to the massive in-rush current.
The answer was to supply an EF20 static frequency converter, rated at 10kVA 230V 60Hz input and 50Hz output, but with a bespoke ‘soft-start’ feature to allow all four coolers to power up slowly avoiding any huge voltage spikes.
The caster-mounted EF20 SFC units were tested in-house by simulating the 50Hz load that the air-conditioning would demand when all four compressors kicked in at the same time. The soft-start circuitry operated faultlessly, allowing the compressors to ramp up slowly eliminating any voltage spikes. The equipment is due to be collected by Arena TV, just before they embark on the long drive to Brazil in the coming weeks.
Arena have also ordered 2 x 24V ‘Go-Cart’ jump-starters for their OB trucks to cope with any flat batteries that may occur with vehicles that have been left parked for some time in-between jobs. Small parasitic loads, such as clocks, alarms, immobilisers, vehicle tracking etc can all play their part in discharging the battery over time to the point where the engine won’t turnover.
Powervamp jump-starters are designed for multi-starting vehicles with completely flat batteries and are available for any 12V or 24V vehicles. The Go-Cart 24V jump-starter will ensure that the Arena fleet are always ready to rollout to their next assignment – wherever that may be!
Powervamp thank the Arena TV team for their custom and wishes them the best of luck filming the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.
