Light a fixture with Send DMX

Send DMX puts levels on the line and holds them, so you can see the fixture work while you read it: prove what a channel does, confirm a new address by lighting it, or load the fixture while the monitor watches its temperature. The levels stay up through every RDM request the bench makes, until you release them.

Opening it

Select the fixture and choose Fixture → Send DMX… (⇧⌘K) (macOS), or right-click it in the sidebar. Channels are numbered the fixture’s way, from 1 at its start address, as its manual numbers them. The DMX column beside each one is where it lands on the line. When the two disagree with the desk’s patch, that is often the fault.

The channel list

There is one row per channel. Where the rows come from changes what they start at:

• The fixture reports a slot table. Each row is named by the fixture and starts at the fixture’s own default. Raise the channels you want and leave the rest resting. standard name beside a row means the fixture gave no name of its own, and the standard’s name for that kind of slot is shown.
• The bench has a profile for the model. Names, what each range of a channel does, and starting levels come from the model’s profile, written down from its manual. profile beside a name says so.
• Neither. Rows are just “Channel 1”, “Channel 2” and so on. Nothing is sent for a channel until you set it. The manual says which ones to raise: usually a dimmer, and not a macro or strobe channel.

Each row has a slider, 0, 50 and Full, and a button to put it back where it started. Reset All puts every row back.

Every channel at one level

The switch at the top sends one level to every channel of the fixture. It is quick, and it can mislead: full on a color-macro channel is a macro, not white. One fixture lit UV only this way. When a fixture lights in an unexpected color, set channels one at a time instead.

Hold, Done and Release

Hold puts the levels up. From then on, every change in the sheet goes straight to the fixture.

• Done closes the sheet and leaves the levels up, so you can take a report, monitor or walk around the fixture. A banner says what is being held. Adjust… on the banner reopens the sheet where you left it.
• Release ends output and leaves the line as it was before.
• Cancel, before anything is held, closes the sheet having sent nothing.

The frame

By default the frame ends at the fixture’s last channel rather than running to 512, because some fixtures miss RDM requests while a long frame is on the line. Anything patched past that point sees no signal.

Under Frame, Full frame sends all 512 slots, as a desk does. If the fixture stops answering RDM with it on and answers with it off, this unit misses requests under a long frame.

From the command line

rdmbench-cli dmx --fixture 1=255 7=255 8=40 holds those channels of the first fixture found, counted from its start address, until Ctrl-C. --fixture=UID picks a fixture, --all VALUE sends every channel at one level, --full-frame sends all 512 slots, and --seconds N releases after a while.

To read the fixture while it is lit, see Read a fixture’s report.