What size led would be overkill?

I'm going to get a cidly apollo led. It's between the 4,6, or 8. My box is 24"w x 18"d x 36"h. If I'm going to drop that kind of money on a light I only wanna do it once. Not find out my apollo 4 wasn't enough for my auto's. I will be growing auto's by the way thanks.

You'll want about 40 watts/ft2 for that quality of light so the Apollo 4 should do it for you. The one issue is coverage - you may need to add some small CFLs in the corners for flowering.

Would the apollo 6 have better coverage? I want the biggest I can fit without issues. I want some killer nugs.

36" high? Might be an issue unless you are going to train those autos. Some LEDs will bleach your plants when they get too close, it will be pretty hard not to do that with only 3 feet.

dufiwon said:

Would the apollo 6 have better coverage? I want the biggest I can fit without issues. I want some killer nugs.

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Yes, it would but at about 180 Watts you'll have about 60 watts/ft2 and you don't have a lot of space to dissipate heat. With your choices, I'd be more inclined to the Apollo 4 and a couple small CFLs.

One alternative you may wish to look at is the Hans Panel. It's really meant for small spaces that require high quality light without a lot of wattage...the better the LEDs (drivers,etc) the lower the wattage (heat) draw for the same amount of light to grow bud. With Hans Panel Crees, you should be able to get away with 20 watts/ft2, you'd get better coverage and at very reasonable wattage/heat. You still might want to add a couple of small CFLs for flower....but maybe not...the coverage is reasonable without it.

bonsaihero.com

I would have to look into that hans panel. I don't like the external supply. Does it have the secondary lenses?

As for cfl's I don't care for them. I was going to get some t5 strips for lower growth. Love those t5's. I have a 96watt 2 ft 4 bulb t5 with 2 bloom and 2 grow bulb's. It did really good on a himalaya blue diesel from short stuff. Had to pull two weeks early due to shitty homemade carbon filter. Stunk up my whole house. One little 9" auto. 9" tall, 8 1/2" of bud. Best I have had in a long time. I really like t5's but that's the biggest I can fit.


How much heat would the apollo 4 and 6 put off? Would it be more than t5's? I thought they were about the same.

I was going to either scrog or lst them. I've never scrog like to try it. I think the bleached tops look cool. Do they taste the same? Do they have the same potency?

Hans; http://www.bonsaihero.com/ledgrow.html
or
Rhino; http://www.rhinogrow.com/ I've score 2 of them from Ebay for around $330.00 each, new.

I would not want secondary lenses without some height.

I like that rhino but not for $500. I was looking at the cidly because it has custom spectrums and the apollo 6 shipped is about $240. I'm not trying to spend a whole lot.

Why wouldn't you want secondary lenses?

I was also looking at Blackstar 135w ufo, 180w chrome, or the 180w older model. But I was under the impression secondary lenses were the shit.

Should I go led or stick with my t5 or go pll and get an extra 2000 lumens? I've been wanting to try led since I started growing.

I'm really intrested in those induction light's but for $480 it would have to be the bomb.

I think you'd be much happier with the Hans panel over anything from Cidly, or Blackstar for that matter.

And with only 36" of height, which part of will be taken up with your growing container, and the light itself, you only have about 20" for your plant and distance needed between the plant tops and the light. Lenses are not a good idea in your situation.

And even though the Hans' is only 56w, I think it will still outperform 3Xs the power from Cidly, because it's higher bin Cree's/Philly's vs. low bin no name LEDs.

The thing's I don't like about the hans are the external power supply and in the specs it's only a tri band. From all the research I've read you need uv and ir. Not to mention 660nm. It does look cool and the price is about right. I haven't seen any grows with them. Have you used one? I'm worried about spending a lot of money and getting something that doesn't work good. I want optimum yield with the lowest wattage I can use.

"I want optimum yield with the lowest wattage I can use"
Hans.
http://www.ledgrow.eu/Reviews.html

There's some Hans grows on here as well as some other sites, just gotta search for them. They have some of the better gram-per-watt grows I've seen from LED.

UV, IR, and 660nm are 3 of the most overrated colors out there. Hans does have some 660nm, but not very much. Hell, Apache Tech has a 460nm+630nm only panel, and they'll outperform 90% of the LEDs on the market.

If you want the best "optimum yield with the lowest wattage you can use", Cidly is the last thing you should be looking at, and Hans should be on your short list.

Yea I'm checking out some thread's right now. I'm actually looking at a thread indagro pro 100 par vs hans panel that you were commenting on. I must admit the grows look pretty good. I saw you have some experience with cidly.

74 grams off a 65 watt led with a fucked up grow!! That is pretty damn nice better than 1 gpw. That's the shit I'm talking about. I may need that light now.

"I saw you have some experience with cidly".

He (Eraserhead) has a little experience with Area 51 as well. http://area51lighting.com/

Yea that area51 looks real nice way to big for me though. Didn't they used to have smaller panels? So you think I would be good with the han's in the 36" tall box? I still think the bleaching looks cool though!

My experience with Cidly is fairly limited, I had an Apollo 10 and a couple UFOs 2+ years ago. I was not at all impressed.

I do have some experience with A51 I think the A51 lamp will fry anything with just 36" of total height, plus 18"x24" is a little small too, if you had more height, it'd be okay.

There's some more A51 panels in the planning, a smaller one, and a long one, and possibly a larger one.

My vote for your area goes to either the Hans, or some CFLs.

I'm pretty sold on the hans. Looking through the setups he put in a lot of work and research. Buds look real nice. It should give me some dense nugs right?