I personally am totally satisfied with the output of the Rebel LED's but Vertex just announced that the Illumina is to begin shipping with CREE LED's November 1st.

"Dear Aquarium enthusiast, business partner
We are happy to bring to you exciting news regarding our elegant, superior line of LED luminaries “Illumina SR series”.

As you are already aware, the LED technology is advancing forward rapidly.
This presents us with the opportunity to develop better and stronger
light sources that answer the needs of deeper aquariums and or aquarist
with extremely high demanding species.

Our original Illumina 200
fixtures have been equipped with “Luxeon Rebel” LEDs. While a great
product and proved to be more than sufficient for any type of light
demanding corals, new LEDs from Cree brand have been introduced that are
much higher in output while maintaining similar CRI index and core
temperature management curves.

On the other hand customer
feedback has us convinced that our current LEDs pack enough punch to
answer the needs of all, even the light hungriest Stony corals and or
other marine or fresh water flora and fauna. In most cases, users report
that the operational intensity of LEDs (especially for white channel)
had to be reduced to 40 – 60%.

Considering the above field data,
we have decided to keep the Illumina 200 luminaries in our program as
the cornerstone of our LED lighting that will be sufficient for any
aquaria.

However, to answer the needs of extremely deep aquariums
and or excessively light demanding species, we have decided to release
the Illumina 260 luminaries, equipped with Cree XPG 139lm/W LEDs.

Further to that Illumina 260 will be offered with much stronger Royal blue LEDs
the XPE-425mV and the stronger Blue LEDs the XPE-30.6lm/W.
This will make the Illumina 260 approximately upwards of 30% brighter and more
PAR capable of Illumina 200 which was already renowned for its light
output intensity.

Another exciting news; we are delighted to report that the Illumina 200 models have been updated to Cree LEDs as well.
This means all the new Illumina 200s shipped from the house of Vertex coming
this November 1st 2010 will be equipped with Cree White 100lm/W XPE,
Cree Royal Blue 350mV XPE and Cree Blue 23.6lm/W XPE.

Illumina 200’s new LED configuration will maintain the same intensity of
light-output both for White and blue channels, while intensifying the
Royal blue output by approximately 20% compared to the original Illumina
200. This in return enables the aquarist to further tweak their
Illumina 200s to their desired blue shade of light both for visual
effect and increased fluorescent pigment agitating illumination.
Table below will represent different versions of Illumina available up-to-date:

Other exciting news about Illumina SR series is the release of our beta test
MAC V-LINK software as well as introduction of auxiliary pads in other
colors such as Red and UV chips in different combinations.

All these new color modules will be controlled on separate channels. The
increased aptitude of color composition will further enhance both visual
effects, and the ability to better mimic a natural environment for
captive animals exactly as nature intended.

We look forward to hearing your feedback and review on our products and are looking forward to serving you in the near future.

Best Regards,
Vertex Aquaristik GmbH"

They should allow you owners to pay for an upgrade and ship out your old fixtures for the new cree illuminas. :lol:

That may be an option but I personally don't think it's a worth while upgrade for existing Illumina owners... My guess is that the choice to move to CREE was for marketing reasons. The CRI on the Rebel's is near perfect and they put out plenty of light.

-TDF

Too bad I just got mine about a month ago. But to be honest, it has more light power than I need. I have to scale down to 45% white, 70% blue, and 90% royal blue.

But I do wish they have more blue and royal blue LEDs than the white ones. Right now each module has 8 white, 4 blue and 4 royal blue.

Ok i am setting mine all up right now..
I need some help with the Vlink i can connect and talk to you unit fine but not really sure what settings to put in place and how to send it to the unit properly so that it starts running the new settings

On the light controls did you set it to Expert Mode? Once you do that you can program the advanced functions...

What size Illumina did you get? I can send you my config file that you can use as a starting point to set your fixture up with the advanced features and settings.

Cheers!

-TDF

I have the SR900, i will pm you my email address.
To send it to the unit you just upload correct?

When in expert mode do should you just be able to click and add new points?
Weird i'm having a hard time doing that. I loaded your config but i dont have any points for white or the blues

Can you post a screen shot?

I think its got your moon cycle in there..
Whats the difference from day& moon and startup-settings

Attachment 7075

Think i got it figured out now!
my biggest issue was i had the time set to 8 Am.. I was trying to figure out why the hell the unit was doing a sunrise at 7pm at night..
:redface:

Can anyone help me with setting a lunar cycle.
I got it all setup but when i go to set the number of days till full moon it does something weird and disconnects from the unit when i put the number of days in and click ok.

So i found an error in the actual light!
They put the wrong color leds in my 2 pads close to the side where the power cord comes out.

I was showing the gf all the cool things the light can do when she asked me why 2 pads had different leds, at first we thought it was our eyes playing tricks on us but it is actually is wrong.
Where it should be blue i have royal blue leds in its place, so essentially that pad has all Royal blue.

There is nothing strange going on, when you enter a value for the number of days until the next full moon and click Ok it sends the new value to the fixture immediately and the fixture then restarts using the new value.

About the color problem, did you isolate the pod by selecting it in the Special Setting option using the enable buttons and then adjusting the colors using the compose color feature in the Day menu under actions? This will allow you to tun off all the other pods and just tweak the colors of the pod in question to confirm your suspicion that one of your pods only has RB LED's and not both RB and B...

Cheers!

-TDF

Anyone remember the days when lights just had an on and off switch.

Yup i did that i also could just see it when i only select blue across all pods you can clearly see the difference between the remaining pods then turn on royal blue you can see that the leds in question match that color., I sent an email to Vertex and they asked for pictures which i responded with just waiting for them to reply back with what they think. Oh well i still love the unit just a small hiccup

Can someone else test this to make sure I'm not crazy?
First if your unit is hung like mine what you will see standing in front of the unit the power cord is to your right hand and the display is to your left.

Select light composer(on the physical light) and turn down all 3 colors to 0%
Next turn Blue on to 1% take note of where the LEDS are
Next turn on Royal Blue to 1% take note of where the LEDS are

Now if you have VLink go to compose color and do the same
Turn blue on to 1% take note
Turn Royal on to 1% take note

What i found is that when i turn Royal on 1% on the software its actually turning on the Blue lights. The blue LEDS should be on the back of the pods if you are facing it and it is hung like mine.

I wonder if its a bug in the software or just my unit

So there was a software bug i updated the firmware and that solved the reverse sliders.

But i still have the wrong LEDs which Vertex said they would fix for me i am just waiting to hear back from them. They have been super helpful during the whole time going back and forth in emails.

Vertex and Proline sorted me out on the LEDs quick to resolve :-):biggrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP8u2Zbs-LM

Quick video i put together for my light still messing around with it all!

Finally I also have some time to prepare one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a2BIg5bdnA

For those who just got the fixture and are wondering how to program the fixture using the V-link software, be sure to check this out first, it will save you some time :)

Nice work and great looking tank!

-TDF

Thanks and thank you for your help along the way!

For those who own the fixture, Vertex has new software and firmware updates on their website!

I highly recommend everyone upgrade the VertexDesktop Windows application to version 1630 and flash all LED pads to firmware version 1631 to get the full benefit of this latest release!

Cheers!

-TDF

Of course i check it last night when i saw the post i said to myself i will update first thing before work. Now that i check the website is down just my luck.

You can grab the files from here until the web site comes back...

Cheers!

-TDF

I have redone the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOACyN4AOS0

You can now select 720p to view it.

Please take a moment and vote for my Vertex contest entry (ThePugFather)!

Thank you for your support!

-TDF

For the vote, I think it will be very hard to beat those kids in the high school!

Yeah, as soon as I saw that a school entered I knew it was pretty much game over...

Ah, well... Making the video was a heck of a lot of fun and I feel like I gave it a good shot.

-TDF

power cords....?
 

just unpacked my new Vertex 200 60 inch unit.... no power cords. three adapters, one splitter, no power cords-- they are supposed to come with power cords, aren't they? :sad:

yup they should be in one of the small brown boxes. sweet light hope you have fun with it!

nope, no cords... called the LFS I ordered it through, he called the supplier and they're couriering the cords from Vancouver... now I just have to pluck up enough courage to hang them...stud, stud, where's the frickin' stud...

and now the splitter box issue...
 

Well, the power cords came-- after ten days because the warehouse apparently "forgot" to give them to the UPS delivery guy (had I known they were just standard computer cords, I could gone out and bought them here in Winnipeg in five minutes).
Plugged it all in, only to find one of the inputs on the splitter box does not work. and the slot on the box that takes the fixture's control cable must have something wrong with it, too, because the control cable is clearly designed to "click" into the splitter box, and it does not. Minor moving of the splitter box causes the control cable to slip out and it has to be gently put back in, whereupon the unit re-initializes. Fortunately, the unit has so far unfailingly saved the custom settings and returns to them when it goes back on. Having to reprogram every time would have driven me nuts by now.
The two banks of lights that do work right now -- white (thank heaven) and one of the blues (royal, I think but am not sure without the other blue bank to compare to) are lovely! I'm sure when the third bank is added to the mix, it will be really quite remarkable...
BUT-- for $3300, these problems should NOT have cropped up!!
I am torn between being a happy customer because these lights look great already, and I am sure will be really, really great once they are working properly-- and being a totally cheesed-off customer because I have had them now for almost a month and they still aren't working properly!!
I just hope the workmanship on the lamps does not turn out to be a shoddy as the quality control-- which should have shipped the required cables that DO comes with the unit-- or the lousy workmanship that went into this crappy splitter box!
It's one thing designing a wonderful lighting system. It's another having the service orientation to make sure the light gets to the customer in proper condition.

sorry to read about your issues but once you get past them you will be soooooooooooo happy with your light! I cant say money well spent but sure wont be going back.

oh, i know-- i can tell from just the two banks of lights. It's wonderful!!!
(the light unit's control cable should "click" into the splitter box and hold, right???)

Yup they should just push together and stay. Are they sending you a new part?

that's what I thought. I just hope it's the splitter box and not the plastic clip on the fixture's control cable-- because THAT piece is hard-wired into the UNIT!! I can't tell from visual inspection that there's anything wrong with the control cable. but with my luck....:redface:

haven't heard back yet-- it was late Friday afternoon by the time I picked up the cables, got home, and got the thing plugged in. I hope to hear back on Monday...

Just heard from Albert, bless his sunday afternoon working soul... he's shipping a fresh splitter box to my home, putting it out tomorrow for delivery. he has been quite patient with my brand of fishy infuriation.

Albert is a good dude so I'm not surprised he's helping you on a Sunday.