I am currently a tech at Earl and have been rather interested in the old dimming
system, so I am glad I found this.
The GSX is still the main board and it still works fine, except for 3
ghosting submasters, but with 21 working submasters that doesn't bother us at all. Just last year we received an
ETC Express from a local
theatre because the GSX wasn't booting up anymore. After reinstalling the operating software (with a floppy disk!) it started booting fine and we still use it since it is the board the other lighting techs and I are most familiar with. The
Express is basically our backup board if the GSX dies or starts having issues again.
The part of the lighting
system that is in the worst condition is the CD-80, which completely failed and died in January and took them until March to fix. Apparently the
dimmer hadn't been serviced or properly maintained since it was installed, so the
processor board that controls the whole
dimmer rack died. We ended up having to a coffee
house by unplugging and plugging in lekos into wall sockets and with a borrowed 4-channel
dimmer pack. Unfortunately, the programming for the
dimmer rack was stored on the
processor board, so when it failed all the programming was lost, meaning the
house light panels in the booth, each lecture
theatre, and the accordion closet all don't work. Various teachers have been complaining about this so we took it to the chief custodian who said she would have someone in to fix it. Now that the
processor is fixed and working fine (except for the programming), various
dimmer modules are starting to fail, one of which is for a section of
house lights. We will randomly lose a section of houselights every so often, as well as all the other
house light dimmers are starting to flicker and randomly
fade down and up by 10 or 15%. We have started reporting this to the chief custodian who has started logging when it fails and when it comes back on. She had an electrician come and check if it was an electrical problem, which it wasn't (that's how we know it is a failing
dimmer module). She trying to have a
dimmer technician come in and fix the failing
dimmer modules (there are more than just the houselights) and reprogram the
processor, however, in the eyes of the school board it is a minor issue, and they want to wait until it becomes a major issue (which probably means the whole
dimmer rack has to die).
As for the sound
system, everything is fine and dandy. The
mixer is a
Mackie SR24-4, which is in great condition. All 24 channels work, along with every sub and aux. To my knowledge, nothing is wrong with it (but don't quote me on that, I am a lighting tech, not a sound tech.) We have four amps, I am not to sure what they are or have any of the details about them, so when I go back to school on Monday I will look into it. Our recent additions to the sound
system include 10 wireless
headset microphones the school bought since they don't want to have to rent microphones year after year after year for school musical. We also just got a duel
compressor gate, which has worked wonders on the sound
system. As for microphones, we have about 4 or 5
Shure SM58s, 4 microphones I know nothing about, and 1 wireless handheld
microphone (an electrovoice I believe). We also have 2 InterM graphic eqs, one is a
mono channel, the other is a duel
channel, a Denon cd player, which we never use, and a Behringer Shark
DSP. In addition to the sound equipment for the booth we have a
portable cart for events in other places of the school, with a really basic
mixer on it, along with two JBL speakers. I don't know what the
mixer is off the top of my head, so I will have to look into that on Monday.
Now I have some questions about the old dimming
system. How much of it worked when they removed it? For its age at the time I would expect there to be a lot of dead circuits and stuff, but just how dead was it. A music teach told me that techs were messing with wiring they shouldn't have been touching and ended up blowing apart the
dimmer controller. Did this actually happen? If it did how massive was the damage? Obviously it was enough that they had to replace it. Also, how was it discovered that techs has rewired the
auditorium? Lots of teachers have told me different and conflicting things about that, and I have been interested in what techs have to say about it. Why did techs even rewire the
auditorium in the first place? Also, do you have any pictures of the booth from this time, the only pictures of the
dimmer controller I can find include the one from the first year
book (we still have that alt spot!) and another one from the 1978 year
book. Also, did you ever see or take picture of the actual EC
dimmer in the mechanical room upstairs where the CD-80 is now? I have never seen it and have always been interested. Did you ever see or use the
patch panel (if there was one) for the
dimmer. Our booth key works for the accordion closet and the plans for the school say there is supposed to be a
patch panel in there. I assume it was put in for the EC
system and then removed when the CD-80 was installed. How did it work? Was it the slider type
patch panel or were there actual
wire connections? I am sorry if this seems weird, but I have always been interested in the old dimming
system because of the crazy stories about techs rewiring the
auditorium and stuff.
