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Blizzard Lighting's service department


Mutha Goose

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So, not too long ago I made a major upgrade to my lighting rig that included 4 additional Blizzard Q6As and 2 additional Blizzard Fab5s (amoung other fixtures).

 

Of this order, there were two defective fixtures:

  1. One Q6A: The reds did not work at all
  2. One Fab5: The greens did not work at all

I shipped them out to Blizzard on 1/16 and had them back in my hands on 1/23 all fixed and ready to go.

Now-a-days with SO many companies dropping the ball on the service end of things, I figured a quick Kudos to Blizzard for taking care of business in a timely manner was in order. Keep up the good work guys... (now let's focus some efforts on the delivered quality side of things :smileyhappy:)

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Interesting - my experience with them has been the opposite.

Purchased (2) Weather Systems from them....  found that someone made a huge mistake in the carry-case design.  They basically said,  thanks for the tip, we'll update the design.  But sorry, you won't be receiving a replacement case after we fix the issue. 

You'll have to just use the cases we gave you that don't fit the fixtures.  Feel free to modify it on your own if you want.

Want a free T-Shirt??    

 

Laughable.

 

 

Further - last year,  I put a rush order in with them.   They 'forgot' about it,  left for the NAMM show, and didn't send out the order until late in the week after the NAMM show.   They offered no explaination, nor did they seem to care they made a mistake.    I opted to purchase a set of fixtures from a different vendor to provide needed coverage for that client...  but it was pretty ridiculous that they didn't seem to care they 'forgot' about a rush order that was put-in.

 

I gave them (1) last chance with this most recent order with the Fab5's and Weather Systems...  Never again.

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Just got 2 Fab 5's. One works fine, the other powers on but no light or display...so, back to Blizzard at $24 shipping to repair a brand new fixture. Not too happy, but love the light. It seems the quatlity control is severly lacking.

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My two cents...After a lot of research, I bought 6 of the Q6A's about a year ago.  They were new in the box.  I had heard a lot of great things about Blizzard.  For the money, they seemed to offer more than the competition.  Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble with my Q6A's (not responding, not powering).  I spoke with Blizzard's service department.  They were friendly and helpful with suggestions.  However, after having my lights fail at several shows, I decided to stop using them completely.  I hope they can improve the quality because when they worked, the Q6A's were pretty awesome. 

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Chauvet and ADJ used to be complete crap. ADJ products became more reliable once Elation took them over. And Chauvet products just seemed to become more hearty over time. I have some old Q Spot 152s that have been through the ringer and stil work great. They even survived a major fall once.

 

I have had issues with Chauvet Customer Service department. Elation/ADJ have always responded to my needs very quickly.

 

This thread has me nervous about the Fab 5s Im upgrading to. Guess I had better have a back up plan just in case.

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Voltage55 wrote:

 

 

 

This thread has me nervous about the Fab 5s Im upgrading to. Guess I had better have a back up plan just in case.

 

That's where I am at, to be honest. I have a bunch of Chauvet lights already, so I was looking at the Fab5 Pucks and some other nice Blizzard offerings to put out front for the performers' faces. The way I have been using the lights I have so far is:

 

Two Chauvet 4Bar Tri's, one on each side of the stage near the front left and right, pointing in and back. Two Chauvet COLORPalette's on a T-shaped light stand in front-center pointing back and left and right, and a Chauvet Eclipse, pointed at the audience and dance floor.

Truth be told, I have an almost insane amount of light as it is, but all my lights now are RGB not RGBA or RGBW. So for a few hundred dollars, I can add like 3 Fab5 Pucks or something to the front pointed at the faces of the singers (me, the female vocalist, and rhythm guitarist who also sings) and then put the 4Bar Tri's on each side of the stage pointed directly in and down and use the COLORPalette's as back washes.

But I feel like I may be asking for trouble until this common problem gets resolved.

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The only reason I am upgrading right now is because the par cans I currently have are falling apart. If it wasnt for that I would have no problem sticking with just RGB. RGBA and RGBAW are nce features to have but they are not critical. All of us tech heads in here may notice the difference but most people out there arent going to notice the difference.

 

That being said I primarily work with a jam band. So spotlighting people for me usually isnt a big issue. Its more about color mixing with the scenes you are running.

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Voltage55 wrote:

 

 

 

That being said I primarily work with a jam band. So spotlighting people for me usually isnt a big issue. Its more about color mixing with the scenes you are running.

 

Yeah that's my thought as well. My band is a Grateful Dead cover band called Unbroken Chain, so I am not nearly as concerned with having proper white or amber for faces as I am having multi-colored, trippy lights. For me, I would rather have washes all emiting different colors at the same time than even try for any sort of uniformity.

I still may get some RGBA and RGBW for the hell of it. but I don't feel a pressing need for the same reason as you laid out. 

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To be honest with you...   I RARELY utilize the Amber and White at the same time on my Fab5's...   It's always some mixture of  RGA, RBA,  BGA,  RGW, RBW,  RGBA,  etc...    

Starting to look at upcoming high power RGBA fixtures, and possibly sell the Fab5's next year.

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Trust me, the blue is dead on that fixture.  All of our other lights were functioning fine.... including the fixture on the other side of our setup, set to the same DMX channel.

Then to 4x check,  , I plugged it in at home today, direct into a smaller format DMX controller...   Blue channel is completely non-functional.

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What I have heard is that Blizzard had some issues with some of the units on the first batch of the Fab 5s. The problem has since been corrected on the units that are being shipped in now.

 

Im not saying this is all accurate. But this is what I was told.

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Voltage55 wrote:

 

What I have heard is that Blizzard had some issues with some of the units on the first batch of the Fab 5s. The problem has since been corrected on the units that are being shipped in now.

 

 

 

Im not saying this is all accurate. But this is what I was told.

 

 

I wish this was the case. But this thread is now discussing the Fab5. But remember, it started with a discussion that included a Q6A and also the original RGB Puck. It sounds like Blizzard is having some real delivered quality problems. And IME, companies that continually blame others for their quality problems, continue having quality problems until they go out of business.

As a fan and user of many Blizzard fixtures, I REALLY hope they get their act together before it ruins them for good!

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All my new Fab5's have been good so far. Out of 20 fixtures, 12 - 3NX & 8 - Fab5's, only one 3NX is wonky. It doesn't respond to DMXIS, but does respond to an Obey70. I might have time next Friday to talk to tech support about it.

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I've always made my own Cables. Between you and me, my current batch are actually XLR cables.

 

I do have a couple 50' DMX cables I bought with the purpose of dicing up into 2' cables for my lighting. One of these days when I get the time.

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Im ordering some Fab 5s this afternoon. I have already bought two of these and they seem to work okay. Havent used them in a show yet.

 

I have a festival coming up in a couple of weeks that is going to require some spotting. So I am going to mix in 4 Fab 5s with my other led par 64 cans. I will be sure to report how they work out.

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I don't know, man. I am having a lot of trouble summoning the will to order the Fab5 fixtures, though I really want three of them for the faces of the singers in my band.

 

I just don't trust the intrinsic build after everything I have read in this thread AND after dcastar's very well created and balanced videos. I know his "tone" was a little sarcastic in the videos, but the issues he brought up are VERY damning and he even showed the weakness of the build quality.

I would even consider buying his used, "fixed" ones, but again, the same problem. I hope Blizzard gets all this sorted out. I really do.

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