A long shot I know, but wondering if anyone can recall a name and contact for the designer of the NJD dimmers? it may no longer be valid after the changes at NJD and time passing, but I found a reference by chance a few months ago either here or on Google, didn't make a note of it as it wasn't relevant at the time, and now it would be useful and I can't find any trace of it with a Google site: search or any other method.

Is it the one described here?

Thanks very much Tom, that was the post.

I think the NJD designer was Brian Binns but I might be mistaken, no idea where he is now.

I dont think Kevin Hopcroft of Premier is terribly technical, there was quite a palarver when I tried to obtain an A-D converter off them for a lighting desk and they didnt think NJD desks had them...despite me having just taken one out of one here!

I emailed technical and got a reply within a few minutes from Ian, who said that he had designed the product that I had a problem with (NJD DPX 12/4) back in the late 90's. They may well have had several designers across their range. The unit has some decent dimming curves (it has several to choose from) and works well, but with one critical flaw of the first level being far too bright and able to clearly light a stage from some distance away with a patt [1]23. This looks poor on a slow fade to black as the stage suddenly goes black, isn't great for house lights, and no good for HA use. It also has a pre-heat feature that lights to the same level so is of no use should one want to use it. Ian said that from memory he had used a 300 watt par lamp when he worked out the curves, and it seems unlikely that the units behaved then as they do now. Maybe there where changes to parts that have thrown off the behaviour of the timings at the low end. Anyway, I had a chat and hopefully he's sending a new PIC to try, which will be good support if it arrives and resolves.