Our Guide to the VDO Atomic Dot – Compact Hybrid Lighting Fixture | Martin Professional

Sharing DNA with the industry renowned Atomic 3000 strobe light from Martin, the Atomic Dot may appear as a straightforward, compact strobe light, but it is much, much more...

A Strobe With More

A single VDO Atomic Dot is a small and compact fixture housed in a sturdy aluminium enclosure with an IP65 rating for indoor and outdoor use.

Employing a white main beam with high output (3500 Lumen during strobing) and the same strobe engine as the rest of the Atomic family, the Atomic Dot is right at home for any strobing and blinder duties. But with an additional 16 RGB Aura LEDs, an array of internal effect macros, as well as complete pixel mapping hybrid control, the Atomic Dot can also be a spotlight, eye candy fixture, or video pixel to make your performances pop.

The VDO Atomic Dot is passively cooled for silent operation and features its own internal power supply to avoid any troublesome inline transformers. Connectivity-wise, it features an integrated PDE input lead and PDE output socket for power, DMX, and ethernet in one easy-to-deploy, waterproof and tour-proof cable.

In short, it’s an incredibly versatile fixture for a huge array of applications, capable of creating a multitude of different looks on stage.

Two Versions – CLD and WRM

The Atomic Dot comes in 2 variants, one in a Cold white at 5700K temperature and another in a Warm white colour at 2700k temperature to match your desired look.

The Dot’s main beam is White, whilst the Aura backlight of the Atomic Dot is split into 16 RGB LEDs. Familiar to anyone who has used a MAC Aura, the backlight is capable of vibrant colour effects in addition to the main beam.

Internal FX Macros

The VDO Atomic Dot includes hundreds of built-in internal FX macros include unique Aura effects including colour waves, spirals, rotations, and more as well as Aura and Beam combined macros for more complex looks.

More The Merrier

One Atomic Dot is impressive enough, however when they really start to ignite the imagination of a lighting designer is when they are used in multiples and positioned as part of a stage cluster or an array.

With a plethora of bracket and interlocking options available, Atomic Dots can be easily fixed to one another to form rigid structures and be deployed as battens, vertical lines, or advanced matrices following the form of a stage. Up to 32 Atomic Dots can be easily daisy-chained from a single power source to make larger installations easy to connect and tour systems easy to build-up and break-down - there’s even a custom flight case available that securely houses up to 45 Atomic dots with appropriate accessories.

Simple Rigging For Gigging

With rigging simplicity at its core, the Atomic Dot and its available rigging accessories effortlessly slide into aluminium channels on the top, bottom and sides of the fixture itself and lock into place with simple locking pins that are easy to release when it comes to packing down.

The available interlocking fixtures include:

Interlock coupler that interlocks fixtures horizontally and/or vertically.
Interlocking half-coupler that locks onto any side of the fixture and has a standard 48-51mm half coupler for hanging off truss.
Interlocking adapter with an M8 and 3/8” thread for mounting a single unit onto an M8 thread or a mic stand.
28mm Spigot adapter for compatible floor plates and stands.
Pivot coupler for interlocking units at angles and curves for creating circles and complex shapes.
Double width bracket that creates 2 or 4 light clusters.

Interlock Coupler	Half Coupler	Interlocking Adapter	Spigot Adapter

	Pivot Coupler	Double Bracket

For more details on the accessories for the Atomic Dot, follow the link here.

When Atomic Dots are positioned in close quarters within complex shapes, the fly-in lead of each fixture can easily connect to the next in the chain without needing multiple extensions or extra cabling.

Connectivity

Whilst each fixture utilises the all-in-one PDE cabling, Martin have an array of junction boxes to break out these proprietary connections into separate standard power, DMX and Ethernet ports for connecting to your controller of choice. Available junction solutions include:

PDE Passive junction box that merges DMX, Ethernet, and power with a PDE output to go onwards to your Atomic Dot fixtures.
PDE Active junction box that has merges power, DMX and Ethernet signals into a PDE output. It also has a DMX-thru and Ethernet-thru port, supported by the internal RDM-compliant DMX splitter and 3-port Ethernet switch. It also has a test button to check all connected fixtures.
A range of terminated and unterminated PDE break-in and break-out cables for simple connectivity on and off of the PDE system.

PDE Junction Box Passive	PDE Junction Box Active

Find more details about the PDE System accessories here.

Going Hybrid - Video and DMX

Being a Hybrid fixture, Atomic Dot is capable of being completely controlled via DMX, Martin’s P3 video mapping server, or even both DMX and video at the same time using the Martin P3 Mix channel that blends the output between the two.

With 5 DMX modes in total ranging from a 1 channel ‘blinder’ mode to 64 channels of full control over the Aura and Beam, the Atomic Dot can be configured to work in any sized system. There's also an intermediate 19 channel mode that offers RGB colour mixing of the backlight/aura, strobe effects and pre-programmed dynamic effects whilst P3 video data can also be superimposed or mixed in under DMX control.

If you are using the Atomic Dot with other Atomic 3000 fixtures, you can put it into a 3-channel or 4-channel mode that matches the rates and control of any Atomic 3000 in the rig.