Legacy Console Purchase Advice

Hello,
I run a 400 seat venue in Garden City Idaho. We do everything from Full Theatrical runs to Rock Concerts and Burlesque shows.

We have been for the last several years using a Hog emulator and are wanting to make the switch to a dedicated console and ETC because it is what most of the theatrical lighting students are getting trained on in our area and what the majority of the other houses are using. The new Ion XE is a bit out of budget for us so we are thinking of purchasing a used Ion 6000 and a fader wing. I know this is a good system that will suit my needs but my board of directors is concerned with me buying a legacy product. Can anyone comment on how ETC is in regards to support and software upgrades for legacy units? I am looking for this to last at minimum 5 years before having to consider any sort of upgrade 10 would be better.
Thank you for your time. - Samuel

Top Replies

bosox242 over 5 years ago

Do you know if the used Ion is one with XP or Win7? If it has 2 ethernet ports it's a Win7 Ion. I'm pretty sure all legacy XP based Ions are upgradeable to Win7. Cost depends on how old the Ion is, with the oldest ones needing more parts. Once it's on Win7 you should be good with software updates for the future. If you don't upgrade it I believe software v2.8 will be the last for the XP based consoles.
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Samuelf over 5 years ago in reply to bosox242

www.usedlighting.com/.../etc-ion-6000
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Samuelf over 5 years ago in reply to Samuelf

That is the same unit...thank you for your time and input.
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ueliriegg over 5 years ago in reply to Samuelf

the XP version of an Ion can only handle up to 3072 addresses, so if you have an Ion 6000 you can be sure that it's a Win7 version.

if you look at the picture of the backplane you can see the dark grey RJ45 above the two blue USBs and the red RJ45 above the black USBs, so with two RJ45 sockets at the back it's a Win7 console on the picture.
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Samuelf over 5 years ago in reply to ueliriegg

Thank you
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RickR over 5 years ago

ETC policy is to support anything ever made as far as hardware is available. They still repair Express (not made for 10 yrs or so) and older consoles that I can't even recall how old they are. I've personally sent in equipment 20 years old that they repair without a qualm, sometimes as warranty work.

The Ion classic line is still quite active even if that model is not made. Software development is very active! The XP based hardware can't do the embedded manual. Word is "soon" some new features will be beyond them as well. They still do everything they did before and can update with new stuff, just not a few demanding features.

The others have described the hardware upgrade path that will go around most or all of those limitations. A used ETC console is really close to as good as a new one.

If you haven't heard of their phenomenal support you will. Just ask around, I could go on for pages...
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