Hi everyone. I recognize there's some knowledge base here and am hoping someone might be able to help.

It would seem that the brains on our CD80 Supervisor have given up the ghost. I have been kindly pointed by my very helpful local lighting dealer to a reputable company that does a retrofit on the brains of old CD80 units.  I am planning on purchasing the retrofit, which seems to be the way to go assuming that I have correctly diagnosed the problem.

And there's the rub. I'm still having nagging doubts that there may be something simpler going on, and nobody seems able/willing to diagnose. Our school district electricians are not familiar enough with Strand products and the company I am purchasing from says they are in the business of sales, not trying to service our existing system. But we're about to drop 8 grand....it would be nice to have some assurance that we've got it right!

So, maybe some here might have some ideas if there is indeed anything simple I've overlooked.

Normal Situation:
1. Three wall panels that control house lights (pot lights, mezzanine, sconces, step lights).
2. ETC lighting board that can also control house lights as well as all other theatre lighting instruments

Symptoms:
1. Not able to bring up any lights with the usual methods: wall panels & lighting board
2. "local panic" button on CD80 brings up house lights only (obviously hard wired this way?)
3. As expected, with local panic on wall panels/lighting board can not control
4. Simultaneous with the above, a clickity-clicking noise from the lower part of the CD80 Supervisor unit (fan belt?)
5. Fan still works - comes on when "local panic" is activated
6. Tried cutting power to the CD80 then turning back on (from the breaker box) to see if computer would "reset". No such luck.

My Diagnosis:
1. Not a breaker off or faulty dimmers since local panic brings a set of lights up.
2. Not our wall panels or lighting board since they visually SEEM to be operating as normal (other than the fact that no lights come up, of course)
3. Not just something like an unplugged dmx connector from lighting board since the wall panels also don't work
4. Must be the brains of the CD80???

Questions:
1. Is it possible that the connection from the wall panels/lighting board into the CD80 itself has been disconnected? Where is this - how would I check?
2. Although it is probably just a wiring choice 16 years ago that makes the "local panic" function bring up the house lights only, it does bother me that it is the same set of lights that can be controlled by both the lighting board AND the wall panels. Is there a chance this is something going funky in the communication between the panels, board, and CD80?
3. Any other possibilities I might have missed?

Any help any of you can offer would be most appreciated!

Edited by fourninety - 3/16/12 at 10:36am