Control/Dimming Lifespan of a Lighting Console

The LP612 will never die. Just say’n.

Apmccandless said:

A ma2 lite outputs 65,536 addresses of control or about 46 cents per address of control, this console outputs 512 addresses of control or $4.88 per channel.

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Your math is incorrect. Base output of a MA2 lite is 4,096 parameters - you need to add NPUs (you would need 15) to get to 65,536.

Apmccandless said:

... however, there is nothing else in this space that costs $10 a week and $2500 is a lot for a small school....

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I would put money down that, HVAC and Electrical all take quite a bit more than $10 a week. Expecting a piece of gear to last longer than 90% of the computer systems in a school, not to mention how often HVAC and other such "utilities" get swapped repaired or otherwise replaced seems kind of backwards. We expect these devices to always work but when someone askes about replacing them when they hit their end of life its now "too expensive".

For context, please consider that I just completed a middle school with 4K 65” digital signage grade TV’s in every classroom, and rooms like the science labs are all virtual classrooms with 7 displays. The district, an average county-wide district, has this as their standard for all new schools.

Those displays are about $1500/each, and also have probably a 5-year partial replacement cycle and maybe 7-year total replacement cycle. Total replacement at about $125k parts, probably $15k labor if all you do is directly swap the displays 1:1.

That’s not uncommon for school districts in new construction projects. $2500 is becoming much less extravagant as a 5-year replacement cycle for technology devices. That’s equivalent to only 12 Chromebooks for students.

Performing arts Vs Sports program. How old is the sporting equipment and uniforms? Where I come from performing arts budget is tiny compares to sports. It all depends on priorities of the purse holders.

Amiers said:

I’m still waiting to hear what console flopped.

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I can make a good guess with the information provided. I believe part of the remote problem is that the app was only good for a few versions of iOS. Even assuming you had old hardware and the right version of iOS, it is too old for the app store. So much for basing a remote on a phone app.

I don't know why they aren't repairing these consoles anymore. I can assume part of the issue is that this console was purchased on the cusp of an upgrade and maybe parts are unavailable. I know someone locally who begrudges a purchase of an ETC Ion before they were upgraded.

Given that most modern consoles are really off the shell PCs under the hood, 3-5 years hardware support is probably best you can hope for. My day job is IT for a research university. It is a challenge finding both drivers for new parts that work on old versions of Windows or old components electrically compatible with what I have. IDE drives are really hard to source. 2.5" IDE drives are near impossible to find. IDE optical drives just don't exist anymore. Motherboards with PCI slots are getting rarer. Since 2009, Intel's gone through at least 7 major CPU socket revisions, memory has gone through 2 major revisions. About the only thing in the PC industry that hasn't changed is the power supply spec. Windows XP has gone completely EOL, Windows 7 goes EOL 1/14/20.

For contrasting situation, since someone mentioned it, the embedded microcontroller that is is the brains of a purchased circa 2000 LP-612 was first marketed in 1984, is still produced today, and can be had for $20.

It seems to me that the fundamental question in the OP is this:

"If my vendor does a major rev of my console model, is it unreasonable of them not to provide the final firmware release, and to still provide a remote app which talks to that final firmware release?"

And the answer to that, of course, is yes. They may or may not support the old gear, but releasing a new app which only talks to the newer console hardware, and *no longer providing* the app that talks to the old version is, in my professional opinion, more than somewhat of a dick move.

It stems, in my experience, largely from not properly understanding the mobile-app environment: if you're going to flag day your app, you don't release it as a version upgrade; you release it as a new app... for precisely this reason.

Jay Ashworth said:

It seems to me that the fundamental question in the OP is this:

"If my vendor does a major rev of my console model, is it unreasonable of them not to provide the final firmware release, and to still provide a remote app which talks to that final firmware release?"

And the answer to that, of course, is yes. They may or may not support the old gear, but releasing a new app which only talks to the newer console hardware, and *no longer providing* the app that talks to the old version is, in my professional opinion, more than somewhat of a dick move.

It stems, in my experience, largely from not properly understanding the mobile-app environment: if you're going to flag day your app, you don't release it as a version upgrade; you release it as a new app... for precisely this reason.

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I would generally agree with this sentiment. I think the circumstances in this case are a little more complicated. The manufacturer released a statement in 2017 saying that to continue to use the old app you must not upgrade from iOS 10. If they had given him the file he would have to jailbreak an old device to side load the app.

The new remote runs on various mobile platforms and is not so vulnerable to OS updates.

So if it only runs on iOS 10 and before, could an iPad 2 be purchased from eBay and would the app still download from the App Store? In this case, the vendor didn't technically drop anything except customer support.

Darin said:

There are hundreds of theatres still running Express 24/48 consoles from the mid-90's

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I'd bet more like thousands.

macsound said:

So if it only runs on iOS 10 and before, could an iPad 2 be purchased from eBay and would the app still download from the App Store? In this case, the vendor didn't technically drop anything except customer support.

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Well, that depends on whether they did in fact release it as a new AppStore app -- so the old one is still in the store.

This whole "no 32 bit apps" thing from Apple is no less of a dick move... but is a separate question.

Which is why I'm loathe to ever buy an Apple product.

Jay Ashworth said:

Well, that depends on whether they did in fact release it as a new AppStore app -- so the old one is still in the store.

This whole "no 32 bit apps" thing from Apple is no less of a dick move... but is a separate question.

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Even if they only released it as an update, the App Store keeps the previous versions for devices that don't support the new versions unless the developer decides to manually delete them.

Since we're complaining about app interfacing with physical consoles, the Allen & Heath SQ was very annoying on this front too (but partially Apple).
When A&H released Firmware 1.4 for the SQ (maybe the wrong number) they also released an update to the iPad app. I always keep auto update off on everything for this very reason.
If you updated the iPad software, it wouldn't connect to an SQ with firmware prior to 1.4. Of course I'm going to wait at least a few weeks to update an audio console software so someone else can discover the bugs.

I truly wish there was a way to tell the iPad it isn't being used by a consumer.

macsound said:

Even if they only released it as an update, the App Store keeps the previous versions for devices that don't support the new versions unless the developer decides to manually delete them.

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Wow; one thing Apple does better.

The Android appstore decidedly does *not* work like that, and it annoys me.