The Vertex Illumina Two is the first real major revision to the LED Light from Vertex Aquaristik since it was introduced more than four years ago. In some ways the Vertex Illumina has been the dark horse of LED reef fixtures from Germany with an exceptional industrial design, distinctive heat channeling features, and a thoughtful modules to create a simple upgrade path to the latest and greatest LEDs.
With their second iteration, Vertex takes the Illumina Two into new territory, shedding the old-style of modules and built-in controller to squeeze in as much practical functionality as physically possible. The headline feature of the Illumina Two will be its eleven colors with eleven channels of color control.
The Eleven colors will be spread across 22 LEDs per pad, with two pads per 30cm/12 inches and they will include the following:
- 8 * cool white (option up to 1,5A)- Cree
- 10 * royal blue (option up to 1,5A) – Cree
- 10 * blue (1A) – Cree
- 2 * Cyan (505 nm) – Cree
- 2 * red (640nm) – Cree
- 2 * hyper red (660nm)- Phillips
- 2 * green (530 nm)- Cree
- 2 * Lime (567 nm) – Phillips
- 2 * UV 405nm- SemiLED
- 2 * UV 420nm- SemiLED
- 2 * UV 390nm- SemiLED
The standout new additions to the Vertex Illumina Two’s LED lineup includes the option to use cool white and royal blue Cree XML LEDs which can get to blindingly bright 7 watts each. Another standout in the LED color lineup is the addition of Lime Green LEDs which we had the pleasure of viewing on its own thanks to the Illumina Two’s single-color channel control – we have to admit that certain fluorescent yellow and green colors stood out under lime green in a way we’ve never seen before. All of these new top of the line LEDs in the refreshed configuration of the Illumina Two will make this fixture 40% brighter than Vertex’s best Illumina 360 fixtures with their top binned LEDs.
All of the hardware revisions of the Vertex Illumina Two will be balanced and leveraged by a lot of new features in the software department. The refreshed Vertex Desktop will include new Preset Settings with control sliders and color-temperature sliders, advanced lighting simulation settings and a multi-fixture master/slave configurations. Look for more details about the Vertex Illumina Two to be announced regarding pricing and availability with the release date expected to be in the last quarter of 2014 or first quarter of 2015.
