24 channels for $772
96 channels for $1600
pricey yes, but it is very much a turnkey solution.
I have a 24
channel unit for my 5
house light channels, just had to
wire the output cable to the
terminal strip in the control panel
I agree with Derek, I have an 8
channel Northlight
DMX to Analog converter driving my houselights and it has been doing it for 6 plus years without a glitch. If 8 channels isn't enough, Northlight has a 24
channel DMX to analog converter for something around $160. I used one of those to
build a
dimmer system for a
black box theatre at one of the local colleges. Again, never had any problem. I also recently purchased a Lightronics 24
channel converter for $24 on Ebay.
For many items in the
DMX world, it is important to have the "Rolls Royce" quality of
Doug Fleenor products. But for many other applications, something less will do the job very nicely. From the sound of the OP, they wouldn't appear to have a large budget. Both Northlight and Lightronics are American made products. I know that there are some on this forum that bad mouth Lightronics, I think primarily because it seems to be associated with the DJ market. The only real concerns that I have ever heard about Lightronics, deals with individual
dimmer channel failures. They use the same approach of Triacs for the final
stage of dimming that the other small
dimmer manufactures use, and Triacs seem to be more sensitive to failures created by shorted outputs than Solid State Relays, SSRs used by the manufactures of larger
dimmer packages. I have heard of very few problems with Lightronics control circuitry.
If this was the Lightnetwork forum, where it's primary posters work from huge budgets, I could understand the brand label snobbery. This is Control Booth, where many of our posters are with organizations that barely scrape by on their budgets. When giving advice to such people and organizations, the advice should include the most expensive and the least expensive solution to the problem, with as much experience and knowlege on the subject as possible.
OK, I have steped down off of my soapbox, about what irritates about many postings on CB. I am ready to receive the flaming posts of my error.
Tom Johnson
Florida's Most Honored Community Theatre