Opinions on Martin Roboscan 218

[smalljoshua]

Looking in my local second hand store today I noticed 8 of the aforementioned lights being sold off at £60 each.

 

My Questions are,

 

Are these lights any good?

 

Are they DMX Compatable?

 

What features do they have? e.g. dimmer, shutter rotating gobos, iris etc etc.

 

Is £60 a good Price?

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Josh

[gareth]

Answers. More answers.

[smalljoshua]

Thankyou for those gareth they have both proved immensly heplful.

 

Just to check what I have gathered from the manuals is that the difference between the MK1 and MK2 is the DMX compatability out of the box and that the way to tell the difference between the Models is the number of DIP switches on the back of the units, 6 on MK1 and 9 on MK2. Is that correct.

 

My Request for Opinions on these lights still stands though.

 

Josh

 

Woo 200^th Post

[johnhuson]

Assuming they are MkIIs and are in reasonable condition then I'd say they're a good deal. Your going to get a lot more for your money and better build quality than the numerous budget scans on the market. One thing to bear in mind though is that as they're discharge units the lamps aren't going to be cheap to replace.

 

If you do buy them and then decide you don't like them you could probably fetch more than £60 for them on Ebay after a quick clean and polish.

[live]

For that price Josh I'd get them, but do make sure that they are mk2's not mk1's unless you just want to turn them into easy ready cash(still get close to 1k for 4 plus 2510 replay unit or 2308) I've installed loads of 218's and 812's in bars and clubs, ultra reliable scanner with decent optics no real issues with them apart from noisy mirror motors but they are all like that!! for £60 each they are a bargain and if you compare with the u/dated versions ( mx range) there is not a great deal of diffrence also be aware that early version's of the 218 ran off Martin Protocol and not DMX 512

from memory the 218 has a hti 150

if your serious about buying them take any DMX desk/playback plug it into 1 unit set DMX add (be aware they are phaze reversed on the DMX) if you can control them they are not on Martin Protocol (rs485) and they will give you years of service, if they are Martin Protocol you'll need a Martin converter or a 2308 controller

hope this helps

Live

ps mk2's have 16 bit movement as well

[smalljoshua]

What I was planning to do was just take my Scanmaster to test the all of the Scanners both on their own and together to check everything was in working order the Scanmaster also has a Switch to reverse Pins 2 and 3 so I don't have to make up any jumpers till I buy them.

 

Also the UK version is a MSD200 not a HTI150.

 

Thanks for all of the Help, I will check them out tomorrow and report back.

 

Josh

[smalljoshua]

Well I have put a Deposit on two of them.

 

Everything worked great on them, they were in the 16bit mode.

 

They had come out of a Local Club that went bust, so the only bad thing about them was they were a bit dusty (not really A Problem I know).

 

Josh

[smalljoshua]

Just an update. I have had these for a couple of weeks and they are good. To save from having to make jumpers for the reversed pins I simply reversed them in the plug that goes into the board and now they work great. They were very dusty and grimy when I got them but after a couple of hours and a can of compressed air they are as good as new. They came with brand new bulbs that the shop had the boxes for so I basically bought the bulbs because they are about £65 each.

 

Josh