JasonH said:
Whats wrong with the LBX? while we are at it, whats wrong with
strand dimmers? The
strand stuff is great quality.
What do you mean by
conventional work lights? and where would i put them? I'm really really dont want to have fluorecent fixtures haning over my
stage....
As far as the LBX goes, after a good seven years of use or so, major problems start to arise. Esepecially simple mechanic things, the faders don't clean themselves, stuff gets easily stuck in there. And there is a major processing flaw, it will crap out doing anything moderately sophisticated after only a few years of use. Many have reported that the
console has a problem with parking dimmers, esepecially
house lights. The
console's
processor tends to get confused parking the
house lights at a specific
intensity, while operating a sophisticated
stage design. The LBX is like a time bomb, you may not notice the problems right away, but they slowly arise and bite you in the ass later. Not all had problems, but most have. Ask any
strand tech, they have no problem admitting the LBX is a complete and utter failure, it's one of the worst modern day consoles they've ever made. Nothing wrong with
strand dimmers, they just aren't as nice as
ETC sensor racks.
Strand dimmers are a
bit lower in quality too, a neighboring school (Supervisor and LBX dimmers) only a few years old since their past renovation already has a few dead dimmers, a few
dimmer recepticles are taped off and bad modules have been pulled out. When I worked at the school during the summer, they had to have an electrician come out and fix internal muilticables in the dimmers processing units.
Strand dimmers also do not have the helful sensor features. The sensor racks have a
system called
ETC net which is a
CAT5 cable connected up to the dimmers and it will transmit information about the dimmers to the
console, it will tell you if any
bulb or
dimmer is burned out, the temperature of the dimmers, the air circulation status, it can tell you if something is
blocking the
dimmer's airflow, it will actual tell you the perfect of the air flow that is blocked, there is a wealth of useful information it will notify/alert you.
As far as worklights, I can't really tell you without pictures of them. Like for example my catwalks light up from those lights that light up bomb shelters. You know the ones with the grills surrounding the bulbs. We also have worklights on our
pinrail that are just stardard bulbs in a metal lamp shade hung by a heavy duty cable powered by a a
circuit controlled by
DMX. There are tons of
worklight options to choose from. Many of our work lights are these basic
altman fixtures, I have no idea what kind they are but they get used the most and their bulbs never burn out. Next time I'm in, I'll ask my TD about them. I'll let you know.