I just received the Vivid 2 this week. A few of my impressions relating to topics and issues others have already brought up.
1) LIGHTING: very very bright (at 100%) and nice colors once adjusted. I wanted to make some nice sunrise/set ramps that fade from very low intensity moonlight/dusk in red/orange or blue/purple hues up to the high intensity balanced white. As others said, it is way too bright at even 1% on a single channel, looks like nightclub mood lighting, not a sunset or moonlight. It is also very hard to mix the color channels at low intensity. The proportional colors shown in the app don’t match what the light is actually doing. I have a Fluval Plant 3.0 and a Current Satellite Pro Plus that do all of this very nicely. Of course, the Chihiros Vivid 2 obliterates them with the high intensity photoperiod.
2) APP + INTEGRATED CONTROLLER: as mentioned, the app is finicky to work with and to adjust. When building a ramp schedule, t’s almost impossible to select the time you want without clicking randomly 30 times until you get it. Once you get it set, just save it and you are good to go.
If the light ever loses power, due to an outlet timer or a blackout, others have reported that the light loses its schedule. What actually happens is that the internal clock resets to midnight when the power is restored. The schedule is intact, but runs at the wrong time offset. My Fluval Plant 3.0 behaves the same way. I address this problem by putting the lights on an outlet timer that is set to turn off at 11:59pm and turn back on 1 minute later at 12:00am. This keeps everything on the right schedule and everything will recover at midnight if there is a power outage anytime during the day, especially if I’m traveling and can’t run the My Chihiros app to reset the light. The only problem now is if the power restores in the middle of the photoperiod and the CO2 solenoid turns back on without the light. A pH controller would help in that situation.
3) FAN NOISE: my unit came with a very noisy/buzzy fan. Others have said theirs is noisy, others say it is quiet. While CooKieS fixed the fan noise by tightening the screws, I was not so lucky. Mine was discernible across the living room and was only inaudible if I turned on the TV or music.
I swapped in a different 75mm GPU fan with a height of 10-15mm. It was slightly quieter than the original fan, but still noticeable across the room. In my quest for silence, I picked up an ultra quiet Noctua NF-A8 FLX 80mm x 25mm fan. I cut it out of its square mounting bracket and glued the bare fan with silicone inside the light assembly. Now I can’t hear a thing when the light is on except when I put my ear on top of the light. The faint electric whine from the PWM dimming of the led light arrays is louder than the fan.
One big problem, there isn’t enough clearance in the light assembly for a 25mm high fan. I cut out an 80mm circle from the plastic top cover and attached one of those wire fan grills on top of it. Now the cover can lock down and the fan works great. I anticipate that this quality fan will remain quiet for a longer time than the original one. I wish I didn’t have to modify the light this way, but I don’t have any warranty or support options with this light.
In the end I’m really happy even though I wanted throw the Vivid 2 out the window in a few moments of frustration.