My high school has been making a number of improvements to our little 300-seat theater lately (many of them absolutely necessary, as it was actually a high school commons only six years ago), so it seems like a real possibility that we'll get the cash to replace our old striplights behind the cyc with the LED fixtures within the next couple of years--most likely after I've graduated, though.
Some LED strips would really be great, but we have enough trouble just powering our old fixtures, especially since we have to use two channels for each color; if I want to use more than two colors in a show, I have to use vast amounts of power cable and plug the things in to power strips in front of the cyc in places where I don't happen to have a fresnel hanging. Needless to say, LED's would eliminate that problem, but they do present another complication: DMX. As far as I can tell, our ColorTran dimmer rack lacks DMX out, so even though I'm only using 48 channels in that universe to control my conventional fixtures, I can't just run 50 feet of 5-pin XLR from the pack to our strips. My trainees and I would also rather not try to run the 150+ feet of cable required by our theater layout that would be required to run it in another universe, especially since we're already running another 100 feet or so just to permanently hook up our two RoboScans.
Now, I know that an actual purchase of such equipment is probably a year or two away if not more, but I'd like to get talks going anyway before the powers that be start getting ideas for stuff that really won't be all that useful for us. So, what brands (or specific models) of wireless DMX systems would you guys recommend for best bang for the buck at a relatively modest price?
Some LED strips would really be great, but we have enough trouble just powering our old fixtures, especially since we have to use two channels for each color; if I want to use more than two colors in a show, I have to use vast amounts of power cable and plug the things in to power strips in front of the cyc in places where I don't happen to have a fresnel hanging. Needless to say, LED's would eliminate that problem, but they do present another complication: DMX. As far as I can tell, our ColorTran dimmer rack lacks DMX out, so even though I'm only using 48 channels in that universe to control my conventional fixtures, I can't just run 50 feet of 5-pin XLR from the pack to our strips. My trainees and I would also rather not try to run the 150+ feet of cable required by our theater layout that would be required to run it in another universe, especially since we're already running another 100 feet or so just to permanently hook up our two RoboScans.
Now, I know that an actual purchase of such equipment is probably a year or two away if not more, but I'd like to get talks going anyway before the powers that be start getting ideas for stuff that really won't be all that useful for us. So, what brands (or specific models) of wireless DMX systems would you guys recommend for best bang for the buck at a relatively modest price?