Looking for lighting equipment to cover a Friday night DJ setup. Went to the San Marcos Guitar Center last Saturday. I met Donnie there who was very helpful, but not too familiar with lighting. He said his area of expertise is in recording equipment. Donnie showed me what the GC had in stock, helped look up info on PAR lighting, explained the basics of DMX. They had an Elation hybrid controller for ~$330 in stock. This unit controlled DMX units as well as analog dimmers. Checked power ratings and pricing on PAR cans:
PAR38 (150W) $25; PAR56 (300W) $45 / $40 on-line; PAR64 (DMX RGB LED) $199
Info for PAR64 LED-based states they consume 30W, which is great for limiting power consumption of the overall system! Of course we want to be environmentally friendly, but also have the immediate need to limit our power consumption when using a generator. So apparently Donnie knew more than he realized about lighting, enough to be resourceful and to get me started on my learning.
One of the problems I found while visiting GC was that all the equipment in stock was made in China! I guess this was to be expected though, but I feel compelled to spend as much effort as possible to find controllers and lighting that is Made in USA. Second best would be to purchase equipment made overseas but is designed and tested in the USA. I sent requests to GC & Musicians Friend websites but have not received any replies yet after 2 days’ time.
I was able to find a DMX-based RGB LED PAR64 can on the web for $169 from TriNorthLighting, claimed to be better quality because the LEDs are made in USA… investigating further.
Also found good info on the DMX512 standard on wikipedia, and even some programming demo videos on YouTube :-)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment