waynehoskins
Active Member
I had a moment of realization the other day, and it occurred to me that I ought to upgrade the dimmers at the church sometime in the near future.
We have two first-generation Genesis 12-packs, 12x2.4k. Pre-Comstar. They talk 0-10 and TMux, which means they only talk 0-10, which is fine; I've got an old Lep analog board in there.
I'm looking for 24 channels of 2.4k or even 1.2k .. and cheap. I'm leaning to old CD80 racks (I have a Response AMX-DMX converter already, so an AMX rack ought to be fine). Actually, I'm really liking a CD80 half-rack that's only half-loaded.
My basic criteria are modular (don't have to do major surgery on the chassis to replace a dead power cube) and modern control protocol.
Any ideas on where a good place to look would be? Ebay was swimming in CD80 modules this summer, but now there's nothing. I'd really prefer to find some local place that's upgrading that might make a sweet deal on an old CD80 or MD288 or some such .. half-rack or even quarter-rack.
I read an older thread mentioning NSI's DS series of rack-mount modular dimmers. Are they worth even considering? I have a love-hate relationship with NSI that basically boils down to I don't trust them enough to install them.
And chances are we don't even have the money right now to do it, so it'd be a while off probably, unless there's a stupid-good deal now. Realistically, looking at 5K. That's not a lot, but I think it could get something better than the two Genesis packs. And since I'm running 0-10 control already, I suppose there's no reason a first-gen CD80 wouldn't do, when you get down to it. And nobody in their right mind wants pre-SV CD80, so they should be paying me to get rid of it for them!
So .. where would I look? The online places didn't have a whole lot that jumped out and screamed "I'm the one!" .. mostly they had L86 and other touring racks.
Or, alternatively, does anybody have a couple of spare Comstar cards for Genesis? And who could convince me that maintaining a Genesis rack is really a piece of cake and there's no need to worry about getting to the power cubes?
We have two first-generation Genesis 12-packs, 12x2.4k. Pre-Comstar. They talk 0-10 and TMux, which means they only talk 0-10, which is fine; I've got an old Lep analog board in there.
I'm looking for 24 channels of 2.4k or even 1.2k .. and cheap. I'm leaning to old CD80 racks (I have a Response AMX-DMX converter already, so an AMX rack ought to be fine). Actually, I'm really liking a CD80 half-rack that's only half-loaded.
My basic criteria are modular (don't have to do major surgery on the chassis to replace a dead power cube) and modern control protocol.
Any ideas on where a good place to look would be? Ebay was swimming in CD80 modules this summer, but now there's nothing. I'd really prefer to find some local place that's upgrading that might make a sweet deal on an old CD80 or MD288 or some such .. half-rack or even quarter-rack.
I read an older thread mentioning NSI's DS series of rack-mount modular dimmers. Are they worth even considering? I have a love-hate relationship with NSI that basically boils down to I don't trust them enough to install them.
And chances are we don't even have the money right now to do it, so it'd be a while off probably, unless there's a stupid-good deal now. Realistically, looking at 5K. That's not a lot, but I think it could get something better than the two Genesis packs. And since I'm running 0-10 control already, I suppose there's no reason a first-gen CD80 wouldn't do, when you get down to it. And nobody in their right mind wants pre-SV CD80, so they should be paying me to get rid of it for them!
So .. where would I look? The online places didn't have a whole lot that jumped out and screamed "I'm the one!" .. mostly they had L86 and other touring racks.
Or, alternatively, does anybody have a couple of spare Comstar cards for Genesis? And who could convince me that maintaining a Genesis rack is really a piece of cake and there's no need to worry about getting to the power cubes?