Has anyone tried the Apollo LED lights?

ChemPro

Well-Known Member
I saw a 1200W Apollo LED for $500 on Amazon. Seems cheap. I bought the 300W for $100 just to see how it does and if it does well I'll consider getting the 1200W. But its too early to tell. Can someone comment on their experience with Apollo LEDs

Thank you
 

farmasensist

Well-Known Member
I have a 300 and a few 400's. They work good enough. I think the 400's have slightly different colors. The bluer one works well but the redder one seems to burn the plants a little easier.

I don't have much experience with other lighting, did half of my first grow with a 400 watt hps and I also have two 100 watt advanced led. The light from the advanced led looks a lot more clear but those ones were also a lot more expensive.
 

ChemPro

Well-Known Member
I have a 300 and a few 400's. They work good enough. I think the 400's have slightly different colors. The bluer one works well but the redder one seems to burn the plants a little easier.

I don't have much experience with other lighting, did half of my first grow with a 400 watt hps and I also have two 100 watt advanced led. The light from the advanced led looks a lot more clear but those ones were also a lot more expensive.
Do you think the Apollo 1200 watt would outperform a 1000w or 600w hps
 

farmasensist

Well-Known Member
Do you think the Apollo 1200 watt would outperform a 1000w or 600w hps
Not sure but if I had to guess, probably not. I forgot to mention the lights put out a lot of heat. Everyone says leds run cooler but if you have the apollos in a small closed space like a tent it will get warm in there.
 

OLD MOTHER SATIVA

Well-Known Member
i have apollos..they work..they are inexpensive,, BUT they are no where near the technology of the cob light s the people make on this forum..in the end you will not be happy..

not even close ..all watts are not equal
 

Mr Hyde

Well-Known Member
If you can make it work for you than do it, a high pressure sodium set up would cost within the same range and take care of a larger area however. I am an LED man myself but I have used HPS and we have all seen plenty of beautiful plants come from them. I don't follow the curve, don't give a shit what people say is the best or isn't and I make adjustments along the way to keep myself happy.

Lots of people grow for money, but if you are just growing for the experience and to have your own bud than start out with whatever the hell you feel like. I have seen people grow weed with a shop light and be happy. Of course there is a huge spectrum of bunk to grade A. Just do what makes you happy and throw a middle finger up in the air for everyone else.
 

hyroot

Well-Known Member
they make a great door stop after they fail. Most of the led heads on here including me started out with an apollo or pro gro as their first led panel. We all got what we paid for, Junk. Apollos use low bin epistar (shit) diodes and over drive them causing them to fail sooner than later. They're in China so good luck on getting them to honor a warranty.

There's far better led panels than apollos from other companies. PacificLight Concepts, Northern Grow Lights, Tasty Led
 

ChemPro

Well-Known Member
Yeah. I really like the review of the spyder 1200 and the solar storm 880 but that price is so high. I guess it'd pay for itself after the first harvest. Have you any experience with a brand of LED that is equal or better than a hps?
 

fuzzengrum

Well-Known Member
I have a Apollo 1200W LED, it does work and got good results despite lack of experience but ran a bit too hot and fried some LEDs. So I got around 15 weeks out of it enough to finish a season. It still works but I took it apart to repair and it isn't terrible quality but they used pretty crappy thermal transfer paste so I plan to replace the LEDs and use better quality thermal paste. It is a good deal for a easy high powered light that will give dense growth, but makes a lot of heat which can damage itself. It doesn't come with switchable colors. The hangers it comes with are utter garbage. All that said, it produced results but heat issues
 

ChemPro

Well-Known Member
I have a Apollo 1200W LED, it does work and got good results despite lack of experience but ran a bit too hot and fried some LEDs. So I got around 15 weeks out of it enough to finish a season. It still works but I took it apart to repair and it isn't terrible quality but they used pretty crappy thermal transfer paste so I plan to replace the LEDs and use better quality thermal paste. It is a good deal for a easy high powered light that will give dense growth, but makes a lot of heat which can damage itself. It doesn't come with switchable colors. The hangers it comes with are utter garbage. All that said, it produced results but heat issues
Where do you buy quality LED diodes? I assume the light itself has different kinds of diodes to achieve the right combination for ant growth. Is there a ratio and are they staggered in a certain way? Is there a way to tell what type of diode you are replacing? What do you mean by switchable colors? Sorry to bombard with the questions, I just want to learn. I'm not sure it's worth $500 for a single grow but if I can make it into LED that has some legivity (the advertised 50,000 hours then it could be worth it.
 

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
If you want to buy a semi-disposable grow light, then the apollo is for you!:mrgreen:.........personally I would stick with HID until I could afford an efficient and quality led fixture.

good luck
 
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Mr Hyde

Well-Known Member
Everyone has an opinion, most come from trial and error and others just throw out what they think. There are many people here who can steer you in the right direction but we all know that when others give advice it is up to ourselves to choose to take it or not. Most of the time people don't take the best advice and just do what they originally were going to do.

If you do end up going with apollo over an HPS setup than do us all a favor and journal it. Give us the most detail you can and that right there will help this discussion progress. If you get good results than good, if you get sub par results or you have too much heat to deal with than bad... but at least the next person can learn from your experience.

When we don't journal our experiences it is hard to really peg down what went wrong and even worse...no one here gets to see what a full term journal looks like with a cheaper light.

There is a person "IndicaAngel" that was growing with some Vipar LEDs and she does really good work and continually posts, you might wanna check her out.
 

fuzzengrum

Well-Known Member
Where do you buy quality LED diodes? I assume the light itself has different kinds of diodes to achieve the right combination for ant growth. Is there a ratio and are they staggered in a certain way? Is there a way to tell what type of diode you are replacing? What do you mean by switchable colors? Sorry to bombard with the questions, I just want to learn. I'm not sure it's worth $500 for a single grow but if I can make it into LED that has some legivity (the advertised 50,000 hours then it could be worth it.
Unfortunately I don't have a supply of high quality 5w diodes yet, I was actually coming here to see if anyone has any sources but I will probably order two different kinds of 5w LEDs from china, some of the older style that the panel came with and there are supposedly newer more efficient 5w LEDs with 4 diodes inside. Some LED panels you can turn off red and blue, apollo both spectrums are always on. The light has I think 4 different diodes, blue, red, white and a single ir, I will just be replacing burnt ones with red and blues. I don't recommend doing this thou unless you have electrical experience.

I saw this thread and remembered when I purchased my apollo reading such controversy over apollo/mars hydro and everyone commenting that they sucked even thou they never used them, that is a bit unfair. So I took the gamble on the unit and am happy, at 500$ for a 600w LED actual draw I still think it is one of the better deals.. To be honest, If I can replace the diodes myself and get it running cooler with better thermal paste I will have a perfect grow light. Now all that said I'm not like "go buy this right now", I just see some 600w LED panels going for a thousand or more and think wow.
I should also say that the grow journal in my signature is with the apollo 1200W I used from start to finish.
 

ChemPro

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately I don't have a supply of high quality 5w diodes yet, I was actually coming here to see if anyone has any sources but I will probably order two different kinds of 5w LEDs from china, some of the older style that the panel came with and there are supposedly newer more efficient 5w LEDs with 4 diodes inside. Some LED panels you can turn off red and blue, apollo both spectrums are always on. The light has I think 4 different diodes, blue, red, white and a single ir, I will just be replacing burnt ones with red and blues. I don't recommend doing this thou unless you have electrical experience.

I saw this thread and remembered when I purchased my apollo reading such controversy over apollo/mars hydro and everyone commenting that they sucked even thou they never used them, that is a bit unfair. So I took the gamble on the unit and am happy, at 500$ for a 600w LED actual draw I still think it is one of the better deals.. To be honest, If I can replace the diodes myself and get it running cooler with better thermal paste I will have a perfect grow light. Now all that said I'm not like "go buy this right now", I just see some 600w LED panels going for a thousand or more and think wow.
I should also say that the grow journal in my signature is with the apollo 1200W I used from start to finish.
Do you recall what your yield was?
 

ChemPro

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately I don't have a supply of high quality 5w diodes yet, I was actually coming here to see if anyone has any sources but I will probably order two different kinds of 5w LEDs from china, some of the older style that the panel came with and there are supposedly newer more efficient 5w LEDs with 4 diodes inside. Some LED panels you can turn off red and blue, apollo both spectrums are always on. The light has I think 4 different diodes, blue, red, white and a single ir, I will just be replacing burnt ones with red and blues. I don't recommend doing this thou unless you have electrical experience.

I saw this thread and remembered when I purchased my apollo reading such controversy over apollo/mars hydro and everyone commenting that they sucked even thou they never used them, that is a bit unfair. So I took the gamble on the unit and am happy, at 500$ for a 600w LED actual draw I still think it is one of the better deals.. To be honest, If I can replace the diodes myself and get it running cooler with better thermal paste I will have a perfect grow light. Now all that said I'm not like "go buy this right now", I just see some 600w LED panels going for a thousand or more and think wow.
I should also say that the grow journal in my signature is with the apollo 1200W I used from start to finish.
I did some digging. And the Spyder LED which (based on my research is the real deal) uses LED lights from a German company called Orsam. Here is their website. I see various diodes but I have no idea what I am looking at.

http://www.osram.com/osram_com/news-and-knowledge/led-home/index.jsp;jsessionid=18D67B46AFC0017E50B51D8C9C00E25C
 
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