Decotruss 3 Point Truss Silver 47cm

Thomann asked me to rate this product as I have quite a few lengths of this range of trussing.

I've no idea why the manufacturer produces two different short lengths - 45 and 47cm, but don't do a 50cm length - but for my purposes, this is ideal.

There are a couple of important points to note - the cross bracing extends to almost the end plates to keep the angles correct - which does mean that getting a spanner in is slightly more tricky, and if you are using M10 wing nuts, as I sometimes do, getting them to rotate means they need to be touching the end plate - you cannot put a bolt through and spin them down, the bracing gets in the way.

This range is NOT aluminium. This isn't that clear in the text, but the truss is steel, coated with decent amounts of paint. Some of the welds are a little rough, and in a couple of mine, the actual gap is quite wide, with the weld used as a filler. Keeping in mind the fact that this truss is carefully described as decorative, there are no issues with strength. Being steel, all the lengths, including the 2m length are extremely stiff and do not flex. The weak link, that makes them unsuitable for supporting heavy loads, is the coupling system. The 3 chords are welded to triangular steel; end plates, with a large centre hole, and 3 holes for M10 bolts. If you join two lengths of truss and apply force, these end plates will flex, and if you push this, they bend. I am using them vertically, attached to 600mm2 base plates and supporting light weight LED fixtures. There is not issue with rigidity on the 47cm, 1m and 1.5m lengths. The 2m length fixed vertically does flex the bottom plate very slightly. The shorter sections show no issues at all with a load of 9Kg. Thomann and the manufacturer make it very clear that this truss is not designed to support loads, but my calculations show that my usage is within the capabilities of the truss design, as the manufacturer makes a number of additional components to support more interesting truss shapes. I am happy using the truss vertically, and using 2m top horizontal spans supported by 4 legs produces a strong structure with the ability to support (as mentioned in the manufacturers details) lightweight lighting - using purpose made G clamps to fit the tube. These short sections can easily add useful height to these structures, or as in my most common usage, a nice way to get an LED fixture off the ground.

The actual colour should really be described as grey, not silver, as it's a certainly not the silver aluminium type colour, but is slightly darker. I will certainly buy more of this product.

The manual give no loading figures whatsoever, but looking at the weights of the corners, bends and other coupling pieces, it is easy to see the truss is strong enough to support such a load.

I normally use it with 8 pieces mounted vertically on base plates, with an LED uplighter at the bottom of each one, and a moving head on the top.