Vintage Lighting Just for curiosity and discussion...

Scenemaster60

Well-Known Member
As I have become more involved in lighting work again, I remember (both fondly and with frustration) the first system that I REALLY cut my teeth on in High School back in the 1980s. I came across the following photos that I took in about 1988 of the Major system that had been installed at Hastings High School in MN in 1976. By the time I got there in 1986 we had lost a number of dimmers because of control card issues. I have attached pictures. The first is of the 2-scene preset light board which was typical in most ways in that it had A & B submasters for each back EXCEPT that bank 2 instead of having an OFF selection had an IND which had its own master that was not affected by the crossfaders. The second is of the the dimmer rack itself. The left rack contained the 30 dimmers for the stage. There were 24 4.2 kw (that's NOT a typo) 35 amp dimmers and 6 7.2 kw 60 amp dimmers. The right rack controlled the house lights, aisle lights and non-dims. The last pic is the slider patch-panel. There were just shy of 100 lighting circuits between the stage and the house.

This system was replaced with a Colortran ENR system in the summer of 1989. It proved to be MORE problematic than the Major system. :(
Scan5.jpegScan5 1.jpegScan5 2.jpeg
 
Former owner of Hub/Major occasionally checkes into the website I think and does service calls at times while retired. I'll attempt to off line send him a link but just got a new computer at work and stuff like links are harder to find. Otherwise, I believe I have provided some links to "Hub" in past years - Hub owns Major even if now both non existant as per companies - there s a master tech person out there perhaps.

Otherwise, contact your local S/S companies and see if they can fix it - often in this era it's not a difficult thing for a trained electronics person to fix - I know where I work we have people that can keep alive the old stuff or reproduce, all for paying for them in expert price. Possible.

Contact your source at ETC or this Website's source at ETC about your light board, and I hear they can also fix dimmers or do fun stuff if cost effective overall this upgrade won't be. Light board on the other hand might be interesting to them as with working thru your local supplier a quote for upgrade. Overall I would think not cost effective to fix.
 

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