Check every channel by eye

Some faults only show in the beam: a color wheel that sticks, a dead emitter, a gobo that won’t index, a tilt that stops short. The fixture can’t report any of them, so the report and a load test won’t find them. The channel walk brings each channel up in turn while you watch, and keeps what you saw.

Starting a walk

Take a report of the fixture first, then choose Fixture → Walk Channels…, or right-click the fixture in the sidebar. A fixture with no DMX channels in its current mode, like a rack’s root, has nothing to walk.

Every channel rests at its starting level, and one channel at a time goes up. Channel names and starting levels come from the same place as in Send DMX: the fixture’s own slot table, else its model’s profile, else “Channel 1”, “Channel 2” and so on. A channel with no starting level is not sent anything until its turn.

Levels

Each channel is shown at a few levels:

• 0, 128 and 255 for most channels.
• One level for each range when the model’s profile splits the channel into ranges, named the way the manual names them. A color wheel walks its colors, and a mode channel walks its modes.

Click a level to put it up, or press Next Level. A level you’ve already seen has a check, and one still to see has a dotted circle.

Fine and speed channels are left at rest: on their own they show nothing you can judge. So is a channel the model’s profile says can’t be judged by eye, like a dimmer mode that changes how a level fades rather than where it sits. The sheet names it before the walk starts.

Light to act on

A master dimmer, a strobe, a color wheel or a gobo only changes light something else is making. With every emitter at rest it shows nothing, and a healthy one looks dead. So while one of those is up, some light goes up with it, and the sheet says what:

• From the fixture’s slot table: intensity at full. On a fixture with no intensity, its white emitter at full, or red, green and blue at full if it has no white. A master dimmer goes to full with everything else.
• From the model’s profile: whatever the profile says to light it with, for example white at full for a master dimmer.

What was up is filed with your mark, so a pass reads as “passed with white up”. When no light is known to put up, the sheet says it may show nothing on its own. Skip it rather than fail it if nothing changes.

Pass, fail or skip

Type what you saw in the note, then mark the channel:

• Pass — it did what it should. If some of its levels were never put up, the sheet names them first and the button becomes Pass Anyway. A pass with levels unseen is filed with them listed.
• Fail — it didn’t. Say how in the note, for example “sticks between red and blue”. The note goes on the repair sheet word for word.
• Skip — you didn’t judge it, for example a channel the sheet says may show nothing on its own.

Marking a channel moves on to the next one that isn’t marked yet. Click a channel in the list to go back to it. Marking it again replaces what you said.

Finishing

Finish ends output, leaving the line as it was before, and files the walk under the unit. Any channel you never marked is filed as not checked. Closing the sheet early finishes the walk the same way, so nothing stays lit and nothing you marked is lost.

The unit’s repair sheet lists the last walk of the repair: how many of the channels you passed or failed worked, then each one that didn’t, with your note. Skipped channels are not counted.

From the command line

rdmbench-cli walk walks the first fixture found; give a UID to pick one. Press Enter for the next level, p to pass, f and a note to fail (f sticks between red and blue), s to skip, and q to stop. A p with levels never put up names them; p again passes anyway. Ctrl-C stops the walk too, and output ends either way. --plan lists what the walk would show without sending anything.