Hello, my the main worship area in my church uses a lighting system with dimmers (two NSI/ Leviton DS12’s) near the circuit breakers in the basement, and wall control panels that communicate with the dimmers via Luma-net. The control panels are two NSI/ Leviton 404CP’s (one each at two different entrance doors), which of course aren’t manufactured anymore, and one of them has kicked the bucket.
So now I’d like to find a replacement for the 404CP, and I think it looks like the Leviton D4200 series (such as the D42P4-W) should work. But this is a little “out of my field” and would love some advice on whether this would work or not. Thanks!
The best course of action if you were going to replace your existing wall panels would be to use some sort of scene controller and wall panels. This much more capable system has capacity to talk with network lighting, DMX lighting (like you have), and much higher channel counts. So you can theoretically use it to run LEDs, moving heads, etc.
My favorite solution here is a cueserver2, a cuestation hub, and a cuestation wall panels. The server does the work, the hub talks to wall panels, and then the wall panels are what people interact with. This to me is the best path forward.
That said, if your existing system is still working for you, there are plenty of people who repair lunanet stuff. It was used for a very long time and is relatively simple.
Thanks so much, Karl, that’s very helpful! I’m not sure a whole new lighting system is really in our budget right now, and what we have is working well enough. I was hoping there might be a “drop-in” replacement for the lumanet wall panels we currently have, but it sounds like perhaps that’s not the case. For now I think we might just send off for repair the one panel that’s not working, and perhaps upgrade to a more modern solution down the road…
Thanks again!
So - I would recommend that you either replace with an entertainment specific lighting control solution, or you repair what you have.
That said - while the luma-net devices you have are EOL - luma-net as a whole isn’t.
I believe - but have not ever tried - that the legacy-but-still-shipping luma-net III devices can be made to work with your dimmers - specifically the D4200 lumanet control panel and the ZMAX wall plates. There is also single to dual gang adapters for the ZMAX plates somewhere in the Leviton catalog for retrofit applications.
Additionally, I believe - but have never tried - that the current LumaCAN wall plates can be made to work with Luma-Net devices by way of the appropriate protocol bridge.
So - there is a good chance that you could use some combination of devices up here to get a working system on the current wall boxes and cabling you have without “abandoning” lumanet.
That said, all this sounds like substantially more trouble than just moving over to network or DMX control. Thus I would recommend you consider sticking to that path. Or just keep what you have and fix it if it’s working.