Stellar: Introducing Cygnus 200W Wash

As energy concerns rise, it’s no surprise that LEDs have commanded much of the lighting world’s attention. Unfortunately, many of the fixtures flooding the market provide less than stellar light. Technicians and lighting designers are still in pursuit of that holy grail of LEDs: one that can provide incandescent-quality light while still remaining simple, energy efficient and easy to maintain.

“When we were first investigating the properties of commercially available LED wash fixtures,” says Wybron Director of Technologies John Sondericker III, “it became obvious that the current offerings were poor in both the color rendering and the amount of light these fixtures produced. We surveyed some of the new and emerging LED technologies for what would be a generation ahead of the current offerings.”

Wybron is proud to announce that such new technologies have made possible the Wybron Cygnus 200W Wash, an LED luminaire that quite simply is a generation ahead—and one that is worthy of the Wybron brand and its long history of innovation.

Compact, lightweight and self-contained, Cygnus is the first and only fixed-focus luminaire on the market to incorporate red, green, blue and white elements housed in a single LED package. This technological adaptation allows color mixing to occur in the lenses, rather that outside the fixture itself, and also eliminates distracting rainbow shadows produced by most LED fixtures. The addition of a white element to the red, green and blue also means that Cygnus produces dazzling, never-before-seen pastels, each mixed within the lens itself.

Alongside the integrated LED elements comes a better-quality white and terrific color-rendering, which, all said, may help elbow the LED fixture out of the world of rock shows and architectural installments and into the world of professional theatre. "We've finally achieved output levels and color rendering quality that allow LED fixtures to become something more than a novel wall wash," says Sondericker.

Cygnus is also bright, astoundingly so for such a small and efficient fixture—up to five times as bright as comparable LED fixtures on the market. This, and its compact size, means more light in less space, and, ultimately, less money spent on better light. In terms of lumens per dollar, no competing fixture even comes close to Cygnus 200W.

The thought put into the design doesn’t stop with optics, however. Cygnus employs advanced dimming algorithms, which eliminate the stepped dimming common with other LED fixtures. In addition, each Cygnus offers flexible operating modes, such as 8- or 16-bit control, numerous strobe controls and color chases. Intelligent color mixing, using RGBW total power scaling, achieves the highest possible output without overloading elements. All of this translates to true, versatile and simple control, allowing you to do the most with Cygnus.

Attractively designed, Cygnus’ housing is custom-cast and extruded from lightweight aluminum with a durable powder-coat finish. A single-arm yoke allows for versatile mounting, whether in a line or array, affixed to a pipe or floor. In addition, its 60,000-hour lifespan and advanced heat management combine with efficiency to make for a truly “green” fixture whose greenness works with, rather than against, its quality of light.

Control is through standard 5-pin XLR for data, and 5-pin XLR connector output for daisy-chaining units. Cygnus is fully RDM-compatible. Each unit has an integrated 100-240VAC 50-60Hz universal power supply, making it possible to have standalone fixtures.

Accessories for Cygnus will include beam shaping appliances and optional double-armed yokes.

Wybron Sales Manager Dusty Hudgins shows Cygnus at LDI 2009: