LSC Lighting Systems MDRR DMX Splitter vs. Diamond Carbide Concrete Drill

Who’s your money on?

The LSC Lighting Systems MDRR is a five-way, 19” inch rack-mounted DMX splitter, not the sort of thing that usually gets in the way of a diamond carbide concrete drill. But, alas, at an install in Melbourne, this is exactly what happened. An unreasonably ‘enthusiastic’ worker was tasked with creating some extra access from the floor above, and drilled through the floor, through a cable tray, and straight through the already installed and functioning MDRR.

Staff from installers Installation Theatrical Engineering (ITE) went in to clean up the mess, and as a lark, sent the unit back to LSC Lighting in Melbourne with a cheeky note enquiring as to whether this was covered under warranty. The message then came back from LSC’s Richie Mickan “Warranty not required – unit still working.”

Amazingly, with a 10cm diameter circular hole drilled straight through it, the unit still powered up and passed DMX through one port. Now a one-way splitter as opposed to five, the fact it still functioned at all is testament to LSC’s solid engineering.

“We may be guilty of over-engineering a little,” conceded Richie. “Every single DMX output on the MDR series is not only individually data and earth isolated, but also the power supply to each DMX driver chip is isolated, so even though there’s a short on most of these output circuits, the DC-DC isolation prevents the short circuit from shutting down the unit’s power supply. Therefore the one remaining port on this unit still works perfectly.”

“I’ve successfully used LSC DMX splitters on installs and productions for years, all without a single failure.” said Installation Theatrical Engineering’s Peter Gray. “The thing we like about LSC Lighting Systems equipment is that it’s no-risk Australian-made gear that you know is going to work.”

The MDRR itself (pictured) recently completed a final tour-of-duty on LSC’s stand at the ENTECH Roadshow, taking a bow in front of every lighting tech in Australia, before being retired to a nice farm in the country where it has lots of space to run around with all of the other DMX control gear that has been destroyed by careless power tool usage.