by AquaNerd | Nov 26, 2013 | Equipment, Science
The Hydra FiftyTwo, AquaIllumination’s new flagship LED fixture that was announced at MACNA this year, is officially available to purchase from your favorite aquarium equipment retailer. Priced at $599, the FiftyTwo is AI’s biggest and beefiest LED module to date. It sports 52 individual LEDs that are spread across four different clusters, delivering tons of power and color to your reef. The LEDs come in the same colors that are found on the original Hydra, but there are simply a lot more of them. In fact, the original Hydra only had a total of 20 LEDs (five per cluster) where the FiftyTwo ups that number way up 13 per cluster. Like the rest of the fixtures in the AI lineup, the Hydra FiftyTwo uses a variety of Cree diodes, each designed to deliver the perfect amount of light and color. While there are almost three times the LEDs in the FifityTwo than in the original fixture, this beefier version will only draw around 135 watts by AquaNerd | Nov 6, 2013 | Equipment, Science, Tanks
Good news AquaIllumination fans. The long awaited AI Director controller is now available to pre-order through any one of a number of different aquarium equipment retailers. Priced at $99, the AI Director allows hobbyists to control any of the wirelessly enabled AI modues with any web enabled device from any part of the world. Users will be able to access the controller via AquaIllumination’s cloud-based service, myAI, and native apps for both iOS and Android will also be available soon. A single AI Director can manage up to 10 tanks and up to 30 different AquaIllumination LED modules. Users can also take advantage of all of the features of each light, being able to adjust weather patterns (rolling clouds and lightning) lunar cycles, and coral acclimation cycles. The Director can also control up to 100 time points per LED color per group for a given day by AquaNerd | Sep 19, 2013 | Equipment, Industry
embedded content The Hydra FiftyTwo is the latest addition to the AquaIllumination lineup, and it’s their most promising fixture to date. Although we’ve already covered the details of the FiftyTwo in our original MACNA article, we couldn’t help but mention it again worth the recent release of this fun video. Highlighting all of the key features, this promo uses plenty of bright flashing lights and techno music to get the get the point across. As for all of the new features if the Hydra FiftyTwo, we just have to rehash the details of our original article. The fixture sports the same color offerings of the original Hydra, but spreads them out over a whopping 52 LEDs. The diodes are spread across four different clusters, with 13 diodes per cluster. The light gets focused into the tank with the same 80 degree optics seen in other AI modules, and 50 degree lenses are always there as an option for those deeper aquariums by AquaNerd | Sep 13, 2013 | Equipment, Industry, MACNA
As we’ve said plenty of times this week and last, Neptune Systems was working overtime for MACNA, showing off several new products that only add to the already immense level of control that their Apex aquarium controllers bring to the hobby. One of the newest items on the list is the AquaIllumination Wireless Module (AWM), which serves as the first ever wireless control interface between the Apex controller and several AI wireless products. With this new module, not only can hobbyists control the lights wirelessly, but they can also control each and every one of the numerous color channels through all sorts of mobile devices or remotely located computers. With the rising popularity of AI’s LED products, including the release of several products with dedicated wireless communication in recent years, it was only a matter of time before Neptune Systems would take advantage of these features. The AWM can communicate with the AI Vega, Hydra, and the brand new Hydra FiftyTwo, but will not be able to control the AI Sol or Nano modules whose abilities have been augmented with wireless dongle. The AWM connects to the controller via the AquaBus, and a 3′ long cable is included. The expected retail price on the AWM is $124.95 with a proposed release date sometime in November of this year. « Previous post
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by AquaNerd | May 31, 2013 | Equipment, Industry
A little more than a week ago, we found ourselves gawking at the new Hydra LED fixture that AquaIllumination snuck onto the market. At the time, we found what little info we could from the product pages of an online vendor who just so happened to put the light up for pre-order. Whether that listing was by accident or by design is still a little bit of a mystery to us, as AI hadn’t even officially released that info on their site or through mailing lists, and no other authorized AI dealers had them listed. Fortunately, that’s all a moot point as the new Hydra went live on AI’s website very recently, and it gives us more info that shines a little more light on what we can expect in terms of performance. As we mentioned in the previous article on the Hydra, the new fixture isn’t much different than its Vega brethren, but AI makes those few differences really count. For starters, the LED color offering has been revamped. Where the AI Vega Color offers six different colors, the Hydra offers seven. In addition to one more color, there are a couple of different emitter brands that have been brought on board. These include the SemiLED 415nm Violet and Edison Opto 400nm UV LEDs, which expand the color spectrum of the Hydra beyond what any of the other AI products use. Glancing at the image of the Hydra above, another difference that jumps out at us is the orientation of the LEDs. The clusters have been rotated slightly, which coupled with the modified lenses, provides for a better color mixing for a more uniform light output. The lenses are 80 degrees and use a TIR (Total Internal Reflection) optical design with a diffuse exit surface. Given the fact that the LEDs are the same wattage as those found in the Vega, we assume that the diffuse surface of the optics will spread the light out at the cost of depth penetration, though its probably only slight. Taking a slight detour back to the similarities, the AI Hydra will sport the same built-in wireless control technology found in the Vega. It is compatible with both the New Controller and the more advanced, web-based Director software. The new AI Hydra is not a replacement for the Sol fixture, but instead another key product to the AI product line. It might cause a slight price drop in the Sol and Nano fixtures, but that’s a guess on our part.
