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Hi, the title says it all! Does the DJ Scan 250EX have Micro Stepping Motors?

These are the ones that allow smother movement correct? And are better then regular stepper motors?
I am sort of at a deadlock between the DJ Scan 250EX and Chauvet's Intimidator 1.0s. I was originally leaning towards the Intimidators, but I found The DJ Scan at the same price, which made me research it further. Overall, its got a lot more features; separate color/gobo wheel, gobo shake ect. My mind was instantly changed.

So, will I be able to do a slow scan across the room? Or will it jump? I'm still going to go with the DJ Scans, I just would like to know.

Maybe a better model does have have this feature? However, I'm on a tight budget as well, which is why I was going to go with the Intimidators as they are the cheapest scanners available. At least until I found the DJ Scan 250EX!!

Thanks for your help!
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Hey kamil, welcome to the forums. to answer your question the DJ Scan 250 EX. does not have micro stepping motors. These lights are better for quick rapid movements where it doesn't have to be super smooth. The type of fixture that allows for smooth movement would be a fixture that has pan and tilt Fine channels or as it is known as 16bit pan and tilt. the DJ scan's have 8 bit. So don't be too surprised if the movement is somewhat "choppy".
Sincerely,
If you want smooth movement stay away from the 250EX. I got two of them and just installed them yesterday. When doing slow scans these looked terrible. WTF was American DJ thinking when they made these?

However yes the seperate color and gobo wheels are nice, plus the mirrors are very fast. So if you only need these for fast across the room scans they are great. I also like the Digital LED controls to set addressing and invert Pan / Tilt. However another gripe I have about these is they are not very bright. They have an MR 16 bulb with a very small hole for the light to go through, This is one of the main reasons for the small projection angle.

I have these fixtures sitting next to some Venue Scan 250's. The venues are perfectly smooth and much brighter ( using the same bulb ). But their mirrors are a bit slow.

Right now I am trying to find all the used Mighty Scans ( no longer made ) I can, as those did it all, and used ones can usually be found for less than the 250EX
quote:
Originally posted by WhiteSites:
Is it possible to upgrade the motors on the 250 EX to a micro Stepping motor? Maybe by using a part from another fixture?


YOu might be able too, but,
1) You will void your warranty
2) It may not work for whatever reason

I also have a question. Is it true the DJ Scan 250ES's are now discontinued? I still haven't bought them, and I'm just wondering if a similar fixture is going to be revealed at NAMM in a few days? Guess I'll just have to wait and see! Can't wait!
There's another issue:

Even if you do have micro-stepping motors, you've got to have the programming in the DMX chipset to properly control the micro-stepping motors. Without having finer control(16-bit), you can't really take full advantage of this. Plus, the programming goes WITH the motor. I can't explain it, but if you have X-amount of degrees of movement, then the motor needs to be calibrated to that in steps, and without having finer control, you're just replacing one issue with the same issue just with a different part.

If you NEED smoother movement, you need to do one of 2 things:
1: Get 16-bit fixtures, or at least 16-bit CAPABLE fixtures(I have moving yokes that have 8-bit and 16-bit modes)
2: Hope that your fixture has an option to SLOW DOWN that movement, preferably via DMX.
Overall, this is a good reason why people should watch the ADJ product videos, ask questions ahead of time, educate themselves a bit(harder for newbies due to lack of experience and knowing what to ask/educate themselves over) and seeing the fixture in action if possible, before purchase.

This next part may appear to be an attack on DJ's, but that's not my intention. These lower cost fixtures are favored by many DJ's because not only of the cost, but they also know their crowd won't really mind the fast movement of such lights. The audience is typically there fore the music and/or the DJ(some DJ's cater better to certain crowd types or have made such a name for themselves that their name is a draw). The audience in such instances will love almost any lighting and won't be inclined to complain too much if at all.

For some of the events I used to do, such fast moving scanners would have been just fine. But, since I don't do those anymore, there's currently no reason for me to want to buy something like that. But, I am sort of wishing I had some applications where I could use my 10-foot truss and hang 4 scanners off it and do some stuff with that. Most of my events don't leave me space to put up a truss, much less the time to put it up. Some events, I can't even put up the truss because it's blocking stuff!

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