Vertex Illumina Club

Here is my 6 foot (1800) Vertex Illumina SR 260
9f0e9936.jpg
 
Owners, now that you have owned the unit Im wondering about the lack of neutral white, and not having full spectrum on this unit. I know you can get the reds and the UV as additional units but Im wondering your thoughts on the unit out of the box. Im comparing this to the new GHL coming out that really seems to be one of the first units to really have it all (maybe too much)...
 
You can forget about future upgrades on the Illumina, at least not in a cost effective manner. Did you see how much the main pads cost. Upgrading all the pads is like buying a brand new fixture.
 
studentdriver said:
You can forget about future upgrades on the Illumina, at least not in a cost effective manner. Did you see how much the main pads cost. Upgrading all the pads is like buying a brand new fixture.
Click to expand...

I have a 260 and thought the same, I was actually a little ticked about this so I emailed them and the response was:

Dear Dave,
The parts are available globally for repair just in case of a mishap for example dropping the fixture in water….
We make these parts available globally since we would want our customers to have fast access to parts should they need it in such cases mentioned.
Since the fault ratio of the pads since launch of the platform in 2009 has been close to zero. Our dealers bear the cost of stocking these and carrying inventory of a part that might never sell, hence the higher pricing.
These prices do not reflect what the cost to upgrade would be. At the moment we have not had many requests to upgrade. This is simply because even the SR200 is more than what any reef would require. In most cases people are turning all channels down anywhere from 50 to 80%.
The main reason for increasing the power are as follow:
1- New XTE platform while more advanced and superior in many fronts is cheaper so we can maintain the pricing while increasing the power.
2- The stronger fixture can penetrate more depth for anyone that might possibly run the fixture on deeper tanks in their current and or future set up. Specially in EU we are seeing a new trend of deeper aquaria.
3- You can run the fixture at lower power and save energy. Her at Vertex being a German company we are always conscious about our product’s power consumption both for monetery and Carbon footprint reduction purposes.
We are planing to offer an Upgrade program in the near future. This will not be launched until the new year but its already in the work at the marketing department. We just have to overcome the logistical challenges of “factory-direct” so we can offer the best prices and availability to all our customers globally.
Best Regards,
Vertex Aquaristik Support
 
To be honest I felt a little disturbed after sending the email since I have no plan to upgrade anyway :)
 
I'm with you Dave. I'm in no position to upgrade anytime soon nor do I have the need to do that. I'm currently running my whites at 32%, my royal blues at 58%, my blues at 50%, and my reds at 8%. It's plenty of light. I highly doubt anyone on here is running everything at 100% without burning his corals.
 
Animadverto said:
I'm with you Dave. I'm in no position to upgrade anytime soon nor do I have the need to do that. I'm currently running my whites at 32%, my royal blues at 58%, my blues at 50%, and my reds at 8%. It's plenty of light. I highly doubt anyone on here is running everything at 100% without burning his corals.
Click to expand...

Now I feel like a sicko sending the email.:hmm4:
Rick James should change his line.
Damn fish tank is worse than crack!
 
OK, I may want to upgrade as I have the 1st generation SR200 which is using Philips LEDs! I have both Blue and Royal Blue set to 100% and White 55%, but the white washes out those blues!

I was hoping they have like 6 B, 6 RB, and 4 W on their future pads, but guess it won't happen becaue of the fundamental design on the pad and software, etc.
 
I bought my fixture in mid October 2010, very bad luck that it was just two weeks before Vertex announced new models and lowered prices on the old models significantly! There has been no hardware issue since then fortunately.

I planned on buying RB aux modules, then have decided to just go for the UV first and see how they work out.

Right now I have set the UV to 15% and am planning to increase it by 5% every week.
 
It's not about needing to upgrade at the moment, maybe a year down the line. Don't get me wrong, I like the Illumina. I have the SR1200 and just installed 3 UV pads and think they are great.

It's when you advertise that it'll be so easy to upgrade and that up to 80% of cost is in the base unit itself and not the LED pads. It makes it sound like it'll be very cost effective to upgrade when the time comes. Then you see Vertex selling replace pads at around $250 each. It's false advertising.
 
studentdriver said:
It's not about needing to upgrade at the moment, maybe a year down the line. Don't get me wrong, I like the Illumina. I have the SR1200 and just installed 3 UV pads and think they are great.

It's when you advertise that it'll be so easy to upgrade and that up to 80% of cost is in the base unit itself and not the LED pads. It makes it sound like it'll be very cost effective to upgrade when the time comes. Then you see Vertex selling replace pads at around $250 each. It's false advertising.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with you about the less than effective cost of upgrading the led pads, but it does sound like this is the result of outrageous markup by the middle man like BRS or Premium because they have to sit on their led pads inventory for a long time according to an email from Vertex to Luxo posted above. It also appears that Vertex is trying "to overcome the logistical challenges of factory-direct to offer the best prices." I sure hope Vertex is keeping a close eye on this forum to overcome these challenges very soon as they certainly will appear less appealing to potential buyers, and this will have a direct impact on Vertex's ability to gain market shares in the led lighting industry. While this may not be a pressing issue right now in terms of light intensity for existing Vertex owners, but we all may want to upgrade when multi-color led chips are available. If Vertex is not staying ahead of the game to bring down the cost of upgrading, most of us will probably not pay the cost to upgrade almost equivalent to a brand new fixture and will probably buy another brand if it has more bells and whistles with comparable or better performance. Studentdriver, I get your point.



Notclear, are you seeing outrageous markups as well at Vertex retailers for their main led modules in Canada?
 
Note that we are talking about full replacement pad prices here, NOT auxiliary modules. Auxiliary modules are $99 or less (Royal Blue, Red, UV, etc). I can tell you that the margins in the Auxiliary pads are ridiculous for the retailers - about $15 or less markup. On the full replacements pads I can tell you that the margins for the end hobbyist are ridiculous - about 50% markup.

At this time I don't think anyone is really looking to upgrade their 200 to a 260, as it doesn't make sense. Once the 360 comes out someone may want to upgrade a 200 to a 360, but that would be the rare case. I can tell you that the margins are going to be looked at again for the full pads, and I'm about certain that retail will come down on these. Again, it's kind of a moot point at this time because there really isn't anyone out there with an Illumina who is looking to upgrade the full pad yet, only auxiliary modules at this time which us retailers have REALLY LOW margins in.
 
Maybe I misunderstood Luxo's post, but I inferred from it that Vertex is really offering the full pads right now only as spare parts for failed modules, with a corresponding high markup. I also gathered from his post that by next year they will be offering a full set of pads for upgrading at a significantly lower cost per pad.

I'm a glass half full kind of guy, so maybe I read too much into it :)
Mike
 
Mimbler1 said:
Maybe I misunderstood Luxo's post, but I inferred from it that Vertex is really offering the full pads right now only as spare parts for failed modules, with a corresponding high markup. I also gathered from his post that by next year they will be offering a full set of pads for upgrading at a significantly lower cost per pad.

I'm a glass half full kind of guy, so maybe I read too much into it :)
Mike
Click to expand...


Correct... Think of it in terms of a "360 Series - 900 Upgrade Package", which would basically be 6 of the 360 Series pads for upgrading a 36" fixture, at a reduced cost for doing the full fixture upgrade.
 
Im still interested to hear from owners if they feel the light is missing anything spectrum wise with the use of the "typical" 3 LED's. This fixture not using neutral whites and no RGB is the only thing stopping from pulling the trigger. How is this light going to compare with the new boys, namely the new GHL Mitras (9 different leds) coming out
 
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