The price of Plasma lighting hasn’t come down much but that hasn’t stopped new companies from betting on this promising new technology. Aquatop USA has a new fixture called the Sun on Earth and the $1600 light at least appears to be a more manageable size than the jumbo Seashine fixture from Stray Light, but not by much.
The one curious feature of the Sun on Earth Plasma light from Aquatop USA is the optional ten foot cord between the driver and the waveguide, which we though was limited to 18 inches of distance out of efficiency. If the waveguide, emitter and reflector can be disjointed by up to ten feet without too much efficiency loss the Sun on Earth could have a a slight edge on other Plasma lights. The price of Plasma lighting technology still is prohibitive for many applications but if you want full spectrum lighting, eletrodeless HID lighting is still probably much better than any color wheel of LEDs.
update: following this posting we were quickly contacted by individuals who have had less than stellar business dealings with the operators of Aquatop USA. We thought it was odd that the Sun on Earth plasma was illustrated solely with a rendering, but in any case, if you want one of these lights proceed with caution and read a couple threads on Reefs.org and Monster Fishkeepers.
