What does RGBW do?

[beatlerat]

I have some DIY LED floods that I built a few years ago.   They run off of 24 volts and are RGBW.   Using Renard, I have always assigned separate channels (4) to each flood.   When I toggle the floods in the sequence tab, I only get one node, even though the Models in the Layout tab shows 4 channels.   Should I treat these as independent (one color) channels and assign 4 channels to each flood?
Thanks

[sean]

 Build your model using string type RGBW instead of RGB. It will use 4 consecutive channels

[Steve Gase]

how does RGBW work, sean? 

if getting the color FF.FF.FF does it put on W and turn off the RGB channels?
if doing C0.C0.C0 will it again do W only?

[dkulp]

how does RGBW work, sean? 

if getting the color FF.FF.FF does it put on W and turn off the RGB channels?
if doing C0.C0.C0 will it again do W only?

Yes.  Exactly.

Dan

[beatlerat]

Build your model using string type RGBW instead of RGB. It will use 4 consecutive channels

Sean,
Just to make sure, these are not smart LED's or pixels, but individual red, green, blue, and white LED's with separate 24v inputs.  Hopefully not, but I am assuming that I will have to redo these models.