REVIEWED
REVIEWED: Equinox Fusion Patriot 500 Beam
Yes, we’re through THAT time of year, with Christmas parties and New Year’s Eve comedowns as we face the January Blues. But there is one part of the festive season which excites me the most – light trails!
Our favourite landmark venues become radiant in colour as the early sunsets bring opportunity to transform these amazing places into something truly magical. Now, these trails are no easy feat to accomplish from an event production point of view, particularly when it comes to choosing the most suitable lighting fixtures for the right effect whilst being robust enough to withstand the elements. Thankfully, this is something many R&D teams are taking into account when a new product is released and we now see a plethora of lighting fixtures with much higher Ingress Protection ratings, or IP ratings as we most commonly see them displayed.
Now, when it comes to IP-rated moving heads, it’s not hard to find that some of the world’s biggest brands now have a wide range of moving spots, washes, beams and profiles to suit outdoor work, even in unpredictable conditions. The downside? Cost.
So, we’re looking for an IP-rated fixture to fit the gap between the non-IP rated moving heads and the industry-standard IP-rated fixtures. Prolight Concepts have the solution with the brand new Equinox Fusion Patriot 500 Beam – an IP65-rated moving beam with a 50W cool-white laser source.
Now that I’ve mentioned the word “laser”, it is imperative that I explain the safety requirements of using the fixture, as is the case with other laser-source moving lights and most show lasers. This is a Class 1 laser product, meaning there are certain safety guidelines around how it should be set up and operated around people and objects. The full guidelines of these can be found on the Health & Safety England website: hse.gov.uk
Requirements specific to the Patriot 500 Beam can be found within the manufacturer’s user guide. This mentions the minimum required distance from the fixture to people and to different types of materials to help simplify the setup of the fixture. This can also be found on the Prolight Concepts website.
With the safety jargon out of the way, it’s time to dive into the good stuff!
The Patriot 500 Beam is equipped with 19 gobos alongside the open gobo for a punchy beam. Within that gobo wheel are four beam reducers as well as shapes and smaller dotted gobos, which gives the light a wide, yet bold effect when coupled with a prism.
On the topic of prisms, the Patriot 500 comes with four, which are configured in two separate mechanisms. The first mechanism contains an 8-facet circular prism whilst the second mechanism contains another 8-facet circular prism as well as an 18-facet circular and 5-facet linear prism. The reason behind this is that the prisms can be overlapped, which really opens the door to a whole new tier of programming. With all moving head fixtures, the more gobos, colours and prisms you overlap, it’s expected that you’ll start to notice the drop in light output as the colours filter out from the source, gobos block parts of the light and the prisms split up whatever is left through the lens. However, this isn’t much of a concern with a 50W laser source rated to 105,000 lux at 10 metres.
The colour wheel contains 12 colours plus an open white output. Aside from the regular colours you’d expect to see on a moving head, this fixture also features a 3000K CTO for a warmer light output and CTB for a cooler output, plus a rainbow colour which mixes different colours on the same glass pane, which also looks fantastic with a mix of colour through the built-in prisms. The speed of the colour wheel, gobo wheel, prism mechanisms and focus motors on these fixtures is incredible, which helps for quick changes in cues.
In terms of movement, the pan yoke has a range of 540-degrees to make one-and-a-half revolutions on the axis as well as a 220-degree tilt yoke, meaning the head itself can tilt very close to the base regardless of orientation. The speed at which these motors operate is nothing short of impressive, making quick work of fast movements without missing a beat. Sensors inside the yokes feed back to the controller which means that if either the pan or the tilt yokes are knocked out of alignment, the fixture will correct itself without needing to reset the entire unit.
Looking at the back of the fixture, the Patriot 500 Beam is powered through a PowerTwist TR1 IP-rated locking power connector with a passthrough to daisychain multiple fixtures on one line. Also on the back, Prolight has implemented both 3-pin and 5-pin DMX input and output connectors, which makes light work of connecting data regardless of which DMX cables you have. Both the DMX ports and power ports have rubberised bungs attached to the sockets to cover each port when not in use to help maintain the fixture’s IP rating. Another method of connecting to these is through WDMX as listed on the fixture’s product page. This, however, I have not tried out.
Talking of DMX, the fixture has the option of either 14-channel or 18-channel modes for DMX control. Now, as these had only just landed in the UK when I had the fixtures, I built my own personality based on the 18-channel mode which adds finer movements to the pan and tilt yokes as well as adding dimming curve and refresh rate control over the LED source, making this fantastic for video work too! Once completed, the file was uploaded to my trusty Avolites desk and worked first time.
In most cases, my reviews are based on one or two fixtures. This time, we’re taking things to a whole new level: 16 fixtures!
You don’t need to be an avid racing fan to know about the legendary Brands Hatch racetrack in Kent and just a stone’s throw from the M25. It was started as a motorcycle dirt track in 1926, last saw the Formula 1 in 1986 where Nigel Mansell took the final F1 victory at this circuit and today is still home to many popular racing events throughout the year. 2025 was the year the team decided to open their first winter light trail featuring activations starting from Hailwoods Hill, around the entirety of South Bank and through the notorious Druids Hairpin with a different vision for every installation.
Part of that installation includes a fully timecoded light show from the Brabham Stewart building, which can be watched from a viewing point almost 200 metres away over the top of the Brabhams and Clark straights. Included in this light show are 16x Patriot 500 Beams along with 10x LEDJ Spectra QX40 exterior wash panels, 5x Elumen8 Evora 850 spots for gobo projection to the front of the building and 20x Equinox Blitzer Strobes to light up the suites from inside the building. With three very different tracks to program, I was ready to accept the challenge and put on a show.
With vastly varying weather conditions over the course of December, the Patriot 500 Beams held their own through high winds and heavy rain, through clear nights and thick fog, too. This was the perfect training ground to see what these fixtures are made of and I’ll be the first to admit that they certainly didn’t disappoint. Solid beams soaring through the air could be seen from almost everywhere within the trail but reducing the output power and using the various prisms inside the fixture meant I could effectively use these within the eyeline of those on the viewing point without causing retinal damage or sensor damage to those filming the show. Creating “fly out” cues for quick movements combined with the output power of the fixtures and the speed of the pan/tilt yokes on the fixtures took the show to an entirely new level. The goal was to create an immersive and exciting light show to three separate tracks, and the Equinox Patriot 500 Beam exceeded all expectations.
So, reading all of this, you might think “Lofty, this is far beyond a regular DJ fixture. Why on earth are you putting this into the Pro Mobile Magazine?” Well, more and more of our industry friends are evolving into event production and, until now, your options for powerful fixtures suitable for most outdoor events were slim unless you were willing to compromise on power, functionality or price. Prolight have engineered the Equinox Patriot 500 Beam to be a versatile, powerful IP-rated fixture without breaking the bank. It certainly stands a chance against the more premium brands at a fraction of the cost.
Will we see laser-source moving heads implemented into DJ level fixtures? Well, we’re a long way off yet with regulations being the main factor. But the Equinox Patriot 500 Beam sets the precedent towards the potential to evolve the LED market into lower powered laser-source fixtures so we’re heading in the right direction.
Our favourite landmark venues become radiant in colour as the early sunsets bring opportunity to transform these amazing places into something truly magical. Now, these trails are no easy feat to accomplish from an event production point of view, particularly when it comes to choosing the most suitable lighting fixtures for the right effect whilst being robust enough to withstand the elements. Thankfully, this is something many R&D teams are taking into account when a new product is released and we now see a plethora of lighting fixtures with much higher Ingress Protection ratings, or IP ratings as we most commonly see them displayed.
Now, when it comes to IP-rated moving heads, it’s not hard to find that some of the world’s biggest brands now have a wide range of moving spots, washes, beams and profiles to suit outdoor work, even in unpredictable conditions. The downside? Cost.
So, we’re looking for an IP-rated fixture to fit the gap between the non-IP rated moving heads and the industry-standard IP-rated fixtures. Prolight Concepts have the solution with the brand new Equinox Fusion Patriot 500 Beam – an IP65-rated moving beam with a 50W cool-white laser source.
Now that I’ve mentioned the word “laser”, it is imperative that I explain the safety requirements of using the fixture, as is the case with other laser-source moving lights and most show lasers. This is a Class 1 laser product, meaning there are certain safety guidelines around how it should be set up and operated around people and objects. The full guidelines of these can be found on the Health & Safety England website: hse.gov.uk
Requirements specific to the Patriot 500 Beam can be found within the manufacturer’s user guide. This mentions the minimum required distance from the fixture to people and to different types of materials to help simplify the setup of the fixture. This can also be found on the Prolight Concepts website.
With the safety jargon out of the way, it’s time to dive into the good stuff!
The Patriot 500 Beam is equipped with 19 gobos alongside the open gobo for a punchy beam. Within that gobo wheel are four beam reducers as well as shapes and smaller dotted gobos, which gives the light a wide, yet bold effect when coupled with a prism.
On the topic of prisms, the Patriot 500 comes with four, which are configured in two separate mechanisms. The first mechanism contains an 8-facet circular prism whilst the second mechanism contains another 8-facet circular prism as well as an 18-facet circular and 5-facet linear prism. The reason behind this is that the prisms can be overlapped, which really opens the door to a whole new tier of programming. With all moving head fixtures, the more gobos, colours and prisms you overlap, it’s expected that you’ll start to notice the drop in light output as the colours filter out from the source, gobos block parts of the light and the prisms split up whatever is left through the lens. However, this isn’t much of a concern with a 50W laser source rated to 105,000 lux at 10 metres.
The colour wheel contains 12 colours plus an open white output. Aside from the regular colours you’d expect to see on a moving head, this fixture also features a 3000K CTO for a warmer light output and CTB for a cooler output, plus a rainbow colour which mixes different colours on the same glass pane, which also looks fantastic with a mix of colour through the built-in prisms. The speed of the colour wheel, gobo wheel, prism mechanisms and focus motors on these fixtures is incredible, which helps for quick changes in cues.
In terms of movement, the pan yoke has a range of 540-degrees to make one-and-a-half revolutions on the axis as well as a 220-degree tilt yoke, meaning the head itself can tilt very close to the base regardless of orientation. The speed at which these motors operate is nothing short of impressive, making quick work of fast movements without missing a beat. Sensors inside the yokes feed back to the controller which means that if either the pan or the tilt yokes are knocked out of alignment, the fixture will correct itself without needing to reset the entire unit.
Looking at the back of the fixture, the Patriot 500 Beam is powered through a PowerTwist TR1 IP-rated locking power connector with a passthrough to daisychain multiple fixtures on one line. Also on the back, Prolight has implemented both 3-pin and 5-pin DMX input and output connectors, which makes light work of connecting data regardless of which DMX cables you have. Both the DMX ports and power ports have rubberised bungs attached to the sockets to cover each port when not in use to help maintain the fixture’s IP rating. Another method of connecting to these is through WDMX as listed on the fixture’s product page. This, however, I have not tried out.
Talking of DMX, the fixture has the option of either 14-channel or 18-channel modes for DMX control. Now, as these had only just landed in the UK when I had the fixtures, I built my own personality based on the 18-channel mode which adds finer movements to the pan and tilt yokes as well as adding dimming curve and refresh rate control over the LED source, making this fantastic for video work too! Once completed, the file was uploaded to my trusty Avolites desk and worked first time.
In most cases, my reviews are based on one or two fixtures. This time, we’re taking things to a whole new level: 16 fixtures!
You don’t need to be an avid racing fan to know about the legendary Brands Hatch racetrack in Kent and just a stone’s throw from the M25. It was started as a motorcycle dirt track in 1926, last saw the Formula 1 in 1986 where Nigel Mansell took the final F1 victory at this circuit and today is still home to many popular racing events throughout the year. 2025 was the year the team decided to open their first winter light trail featuring activations starting from Hailwoods Hill, around the entirety of South Bank and through the notorious Druids Hairpin with a different vision for every installation.
Part of that installation includes a fully timecoded light show from the Brabham Stewart building, which can be watched from a viewing point almost 200 metres away over the top of the Brabhams and Clark straights. Included in this light show are 16x Patriot 500 Beams along with 10x LEDJ Spectra QX40 exterior wash panels, 5x Elumen8 Evora 850 spots for gobo projection to the front of the building and 20x Equinox Blitzer Strobes to light up the suites from inside the building. With three very different tracks to program, I was ready to accept the challenge and put on a show.
With vastly varying weather conditions over the course of December, the Patriot 500 Beams held their own through high winds and heavy rain, through clear nights and thick fog, too. This was the perfect training ground to see what these fixtures are made of and I’ll be the first to admit that they certainly didn’t disappoint. Solid beams soaring through the air could be seen from almost everywhere within the trail but reducing the output power and using the various prisms inside the fixture meant I could effectively use these within the eyeline of those on the viewing point without causing retinal damage or sensor damage to those filming the show. Creating “fly out” cues for quick movements combined with the output power of the fixtures and the speed of the pan/tilt yokes on the fixtures took the show to an entirely new level. The goal was to create an immersive and exciting light show to three separate tracks, and the Equinox Patriot 500 Beam exceeded all expectations.
So, reading all of this, you might think “Lofty, this is far beyond a regular DJ fixture. Why on earth are you putting this into the Pro Mobile Magazine?” Well, more and more of our industry friends are evolving into event production and, until now, your options for powerful fixtures suitable for most outdoor events were slim unless you were willing to compromise on power, functionality or price. Prolight have engineered the Equinox Patriot 500 Beam to be a versatile, powerful IP-rated fixture without breaking the bank. It certainly stands a chance against the more premium brands at a fraction of the cost.
Will we see laser-source moving heads implemented into DJ level fixtures? Well, we’re a long way off yet with regulations being the main factor. But the Equinox Patriot 500 Beam sets the precedent towards the potential to evolve the LED market into lower powered laser-source fixtures so we’re heading in the right direction.
