On this thread, I suggest we wait for people to weigh in who have
actually used both of these specific products. Other information will be tangential to the question at
hand.
ST
My turn:
As Mr. Terry has said in his post, we should hear from people that have USED BOTH. That would definitely be myself.
One year ago, I started working for Philip's Lighting Controls (
Strand Lighting, Vari*Lite, Entertainment Technology, Lightolier Controls, and
Strand*
Selecon). Ten years before that I worked directly under the owner/President of Felix Lighting in Los Angeles as his
Production Manager/
Lighting Designer/Crew Chief.
Felix Lighting is known as a key player
in one offs in the LA area. He also is known for his subrentals of a wide variety of moving lights, consoles, rigging, and dimmers. For the ten years I was there, I got VERY familiar with the
ETC Sensor racks. That was all we had. 6-48 racks (touring) and 8-24
channel racks that we made custom
road cases for.
Sensor racks have their pro's and their cons. I mainly knew them because that is all I had to use. The 24 racks are a great size, and can handle a 24
circuit rig perfectly if you only want dimming. The hard patching is really difficult with them if you have the socopex out one as you have to use a bunch of
fan in's, and fan outs to get the patch that you are looking for. The 48's are quire large, and HELLA HEAVY. We would always have a saying that you NEVER wanted to see the fan of 48 rack because that would mean that it is off it's wheels, and you are in a heap of trouble if you don't have 4 or 5 guys to flip it.
ETC Sensors are known in the touring industry as the standard, and this is a true statement. They are
SCR dimmers (thats all we had anyway) and they work very well.
The main thing with me was that we would do shows that would 98.9% of the time be a mixture of moving fixtures and dimming. So you would always have to make sure you are putting the right gear on your pull sheet. If I had 24 VL-3K's and 24 circuits of dimming, I would have to either A.) Take a ML
distro and a 24
channel ETC Sensor (and if I did this, I would have to 100% make sure that I had a set of camlock t's, as the 24 racks didn't have camlock
thru's, and a set of 10' cam jumpers) or B.) Take a ML
distro and a 48
channel ETC Sensor rack(has camlock
thru's, but is MUCH MUCH larger, and weights a ton more, and takes up a lot of room on my 24' truck). So I had to make sure that I was completely aware of what kind of
distro I had, all the time.
I sat down recently and started playing around with the Lightrack. I have to be honest here, and say that I really wish we would of had 4 or 6 of these in our shop. The flexibility of things that you can do with the rack is amazing. You can have a 48
circuit rack, and have 24 circuits of dimming, and 24 circuits of 208v constant for your movers. The dimming on the racks are
IGBT technology. Which if you know what that is, it is fantastic stuff. Not great for rock and
roll because the rise time is a little slower than the standard
SCR dimmer, and we all know the
road hounds that still tour with KISS and Van Halen still love their
par can, and
ACL, and
molefay bumps to the
beat of the music. If you are in a studio,
ballroom, cooperate event, theater, or any other quite
venue, the
IGBT will blow your mind on the quietness of the dimmers, and the filaments in the
fixture. The Lightrack also comes with camlock
thru's on both models. The size is perfect for flipping up on top of a caddy or lowboy cam case, or even a stack of moving light cases. Only negative I could find when I was down looking through them was you are not able to do the hard patch like you can on a sensor 48 or 96 touring rack. But if you need to do that then you could do the
fan in/fan out method.
That is my take on both racks. You are dealing with the two major players in dimming, so it will be up to you.
Also, I wanted to note, that since
Strand Lighting has moved here in April of this year, we have really been striving to clean up the
image of the bad customer support from the past. Evey one in Support Services have a company
cell phone, that we will ALWAYS answer if you ever needed help. We are also in the office from 7am to 6pm CST M-F, and you can
call our cells 24/7. If you ever need any of us, please see the following link:
Support/Field Service Contacts | Strand Lighting - A Philips Group Brand
Good luck with your outcome, and if you have any questions, please feel free to
call me at any time.
Thanks,
Randy Schwimmer
