U Know what's insane? ;)

[lighttechie5948]

In one theater i work in it has 16+ American DJ Mighty Scans, past LD's loved them. The current Lighting crew tried them in one show and will never use them again. 1. the clamps were so bad they could fall on someone very easily, and 2. their DMX messed up the enire system. We're not allowed to sell them because they were "donated" (very genoris i know) so all they do now is take up vauble room in the electric room. I'd like to sell them all on ebay and buy some more real ML's.

God News: The theatre just let us install 2 Elation Power Spot 250's, only thing is that they don't have any focusing or irises, but its ok.

[soundlight]

Hmmm...I sure know how the "donated so you can't sell it" deal goes.

I'd get Elation Focus Spot 250R's to replace those (3 or four focus spots if you find them on special and get a good buyer for the mighty scans)...motorized focus, rotating gobos, colors, single arm MH, 250w source.

Good luck with that. Do you have all proper DMX cable (NOT mic cable) linking them? Did you use a terminator on the end? Have you tried optically isolating the input to the scanners? I think that if all of this were in place (using proper DMX cable, using a terminator, and optical isolation) would make these nice for some things. And you can get new clamps pretty cheap.

However, speaking of clamps, I found something on Ebay that will amuse you folks...may I present the "heavy duty clamp":
http://cgi.ebay.com/HEAVY-DUTY-Light...QQcmdZViewItem

"Holds Everything"...hmm...I'd like to see a Syncrolite hanging off of it...

The only things that I use those kinds of clamps for is holding cheap pars on to sidelight booms (aka where the lights can't fall on anyone, and the opening is not facing up) in my HS where there is negative budget.

[lighttechie5948]

It should have a Disclaimer on the bottom reading:
DISCLAIMER:
The Heavy Duty Clamp that holds everything can not hold anything.

[avkid]

That same eBay store has a Chauvet followspot that is partially DMX controllable. The disclaimer:
The color changes, fades, and blackout on the TFX-FS360 FOLLOWSPOT 400G can be remotely operated by simply using a DMX-512 lighting control board... Up to 512 units can be added... Great for stationary spots. You only need a Church Member stationed at the followspots to physically move the followspot to follow you and your guests...
Cue hysterical laughter!!!!!

[avkid]

Chuavet says quite plainly that it is a two channel fixture.
http://www.chauvetlighting.com/fixtu...spot_fix.shtml

It also begs the question, "why would anyone need 512 followspots?"
You would be in the hole $25,000 easy for Union operators(I know that's silly, these being junk and all)

[len]

I've run into data issues with ADJ and Chauvet stuff in the past. The only way I've found to overcome them is to follow the exact standards in the rest of the rig: use a splitter, highest quality twisted pair cable, terminate, etc. If I am spec-ing the rig, I never use their stuff. The only exception so far is the Elation opto-branch. It seems to be ok, especially for the $$.

[len]

Originally Posted by avkid

That same eBay store has a Chauvet followspot that is partially DMX controllable. The disclaimer:
The color changes, fades, and blackout on the TFX-FS360 FOLLOWSPOT 400G can be remotely operated by simply using a DMX-512 lighting control board... Up to 512 units can be added... Great for stationary spots. You only need a Church Member stationed at the followspots to physically move the followspot to follow you and your guests...
Cue hysterical laughter!!!!!

Never mind that one should only run 32 fixtures per branch, max. Technically, the site is correct, but let's be realistic.