Lighting Methods inc. Light Board

Anyone have any info on one? I saved one when we were cleaning out one of our storage spaces but I can't find any info on it. It's an old 24? channel anolog board.

Pics to come...

 

I have one of their analogue boards in my storeroom in the 18 channel version with 2 presets and the fancy switchcraft switches along the top. As a lighting board it makes a good boat anchor. Uses a pulse width modulation technique for the channel summation. Good example of how people tried to get more out of analogue boards before digital came along in the early 80s. i have the circuit diagram for the board after that it is just potentiometers, diodes and wire.

 

LMI was a dimming and control company based in Rochester, NY. They made great dimming systems, as well as a few good basic consoles. The dimmers and racks were about as good as they came, back in the early to late 80's, first with analog control, then proprietary digital, finally with DMX. They also made assorted digital to analog convertors, digital control protocol convertors to convert Strand to Colortran to ETC to Kliegl, as well as a DMX Snapshot 12 sub device, all of which became ETC's Response series devices, I believe.

At that point they were scooped up by ETC, when ETC was only doing consoles and needed dimmers to sell.

I really don't remember LMI making that many consoles beyond the the basic one and two scene preset analog models (for all I know they may have made larger multi-scene systems for permanent installs). We had a 24 channel 2 scene (still in storage I believe). The analog consoles drove 10 volts plus DC, using 10 pin Cinch-Jones connectors, 1 connector per 6 channels.

If you need help with this stuff, parts, etc... contact Steve Short at Litetrol Service in Hicksville, NY. Steve's fellow master service tech. is a guy named Kevin, who once worked at LMI. 516 681-5288

Steve B.

 

Yeah, we have LMI dimmers installed in our round/thrust space, probably dating from the early 80's, and a portable 30 dimmer rack downstairs in the small black box. We also have a 12 dimmer portable unit that we use in the unlikely event that we run out of circuits somewhere. I have noticed that some of the modules have the ETC logo on them, now I know why.

We're trying to get new dimmers and distribution in the round/thrust space rolled in with the building renovation/ADA compliance construction. Right now all the raceways have the old style twistlocks...and they're not installed in logical positions. We'd convert to stagepin and get Sensor racks to be consistent with our proscenium space which already has six Sensor racks and stagepin distribution.

 

They did in fact make larger preset consoles, we have a 5 scens preset from LMI, as well as a lot of their old analog control dimmers. It makes sense though cause were only like 3 hours from Rochester NY. And now that i think of it i wonder if they manufactured the telephone style patch panal that we have in our mainstage. Ill have to check Tomm.

 

Anyone convert one of these things for anything else?(non-commercial)

 

Traitor--I'll bet that's the case. Hows it doing upstate, my friend? Still working up a storm?

 

Not much there to work with. It's analog out, so you'd need an Analog to Digital converter ($1000 or so), plus some sort of remote patching device to patch the 24 analog channels to 512 DMX channels (might be the same unit as the A to D, but maybe not, so another grand). Then you get no recordable subs or scenes.

For the money invested making it work with modern gear, you might as well buy a Smartfade or Leprecon.

SB

 

I toured with Hair using all LMI gear back in the 70's. Anyone remember the WB-6 effects board? That was a hot little bugger for its' time.

 

Exactly. For features-per dollar, make a planter out of the LMI board and buy something modern (I like Steve Bailey's Smartfade suggestion).

And this, coming from the first-ever volume user of LMI consoles in about 1977!

My favorite feature of the protoype: It had a split/dipless crossfader that they hadn't quite figured out yet. Split the crossfader fully and put +20V on the input to the +10V dimmers!

We helped them with PWM crossfader designs and integrators on the dimmer inputs, and it turned out to be a great product.

But. it's time to retire that puppy!

ST

 

I was thinking if rewiring it to do something completely different...

 

Like what?

 

I don't know, that why I'm asking if anyone has ever done it.

 

LMI did make a programmable board. I have it laying in my room. It uses a tape drive to store the shows on. i'm trying to revive it and start using it at shows. It has some really cool logic redundacy/backup circuits built in, incase one part of the console fails. Also these two separate logic systems can be run totally independent, they are even on their own independent power supply. You still dont see redundancy in lighting consoles yet this one does and it was built in 85.

 

We had that (or similar) LMI console in my high school. 36 Channel, 2 scene preset, with 8 independant subs. It was DMX out.

I do remember the odd quirk of that (and maybe all the LMI digital boards?) You could proportionally patch EVERY DIMMER to EVERY CHANNEL. Steve, do you remember this?

Yes, you could crash the board by trying to put too much information into the softpatch.

I remember running dance shows on that thing--live fades, riding the group/sub sliders, and at one point using my nose to hit a bump button in a crazy part of the show.

*sigh*......the memories...

--Sean

 

We got an LMI system (2-scene, 18 channel board with 3 blue-box dimmers, if I remember correctly) in my high school around 1979 or 1980. The school where I do my daughter's dance recital still has the 24-channel board driving a blue box.

I use a DMX-analog converter to let me drive the dimmers without the board.
/mike

 

Just saw this discussion. If you still have the 5-Scene Board, I (as a representative of ETC and LMI) would love pictures of the board. It somehow escaped all our archives.

 

We actually just sold the board to a middle school that is still using analoge dimmers, cause its been sitting in our Black Box booth for 5 years(its scarry that was the board in my mainstage till 5 years ago) but Im sure that I can get some pictures taken of it and when I do I will post them.