Vertex Illumina LED Arrives

[TheDogFather]

Yesterday evening I picked up my new Vertex Illumina SR 1200 48" LED fixture and I'd like to share my initial impressions and a few photos.

I'll take PAR readings and shoot some video over the weekend so stay tuned.

Can you say early adopter? My fixture is serial number 000016!



The fixture is very well made. Solid and compact. Only 12 inches deep (front to back) the fixture has three absolutely silent fans on top and comes with the usual grip-lock hanging kit (no legs are offered by Vertex).



The 48" fixture is equipped with 8 LED pods running Phillips 3W Luxeon Rebel LEDs, 8 x 7500k White 105 lm/W, 4 x 470nm Blue and 4x 450nm Royal Blue. The LED's are driven at only 2.5W for a total of 40W per pod and 320W for the entire fixture. Each of the LED pods has its own on board ZigBee radio that communicates with the controller wirelessly. Vertex will be offering a USB dongle to program the fixture wirelessly from your PC down the road.



Below are the supplied Mean Well power supplies:


I have been playing with the menu options for a bit and found that the built-in demo program really shows off some the amazing natural simulations this light is capable of. But it appears that these advanced features (sunrise from left to right and lightning etc.) can only be programmed with the PC option that is not yet available. Maybe it's just me overlooking those feature options in the menu so I can't confirm this yet.

I've had a PFO Solaris, a Giesemann Infiniti 2x250W MH/T5 fixture and a 8 bulb ATI PowerModule and the Vertex Illumina is the coolest looking light over my tank so far. And after 2.5 hours the fixture is barley warm to the touch!



Tomorrow after work I plan on spending some more time exploring the menu options and tweaking the LED intensity ratios to get the perfect colour I'm looking for.



Cheers!

-TDF