Lighting New Cidly Apollo 4 LED - Custom

[Hansbricks]

Just to follow up my Apollo is still going strong, no issues after almost 2 years now... unlike my Vipar LED which has had 3 of 4 drivers fail and about a dozen LEDs burnout lol.

Also as for spectrum, I still think the original one I posted is one of the best for a full cycle grow. With my set-up dialled in now my last two plants under just the Apollo4 yielded 126g and 119g @62%RH so basically 1g/watt.... not bad for a cheap Chinese LED using old tech.

 

[Obustus]

Hansbricks, How did the mars2's spectrum compare to the custom's?
Which light would you recommend the custom cidley or mars ?

 

[Hansbricks]

Hansbricks, How did the mars2's spectrum compare to the custom's?
Which light would you recommend the custom cidley or mars ?

Hey man, welcome to AFN.
The Mars2 spectrum is quite good, it has a bit higher ratio of red LEDs than my custom Apollo but both work well for a full cycle grow.... I would recommend both lights, the Mars2 is probably a bit better bang for your buck but I think I'd give Cidly the slight edge due to it's modular design, which makes it much easier to repair this unit. The new Mars Pro series is definitely worth checking out as well... although it's fairly pricey.

 

[Obustus]

Thanks for the input and the welcome Hansbrick.

 

[LED Borg]

yeah you cant go wrong with the cidly. easy to repair and upgrade. just received two Apollo 8's to muck about with.
Both knackered tho, just the diodes have gone in each module, bet its the blue ones,,,again. lol.
Love working on them I must admit, even tho they are a bit outdated now, they are still the best leds to really get stuck into and upgrade to your own spectrum. Just takes a bit of soldering practice.
I use one of the internal power drivers running at half power to test my led boards,,,i have no idea how the power driver lost half its power, its just made two modules run very dimly, so opened up the unit, took out, replaced with new one and had it ever since, you can plug a whole board into it, or two, after soldering in new leds just to see if all is ok before assembling it back onto the heatsink bar.
im not gonna open it to see, just stick with I guess, but they are good old power drivers. better than those little black box one.
Kinder egg drivers. so easy can be put together by kids. lol.
Anyhoooo yeah over the two, for usage and performance, they go together quite well.
If you wanted a LED that breaks less,,,well, I would have to say the Mars II.
The only thing ive ever seen that obliterated the board on it, was a sulphur bomb used when it was on.
Not by me ill add, I just had to repair the poor growers LED afterwards. but it melted the Zener diodes next to the leds on the mars board, and they aint modular like the Apollo either, sure tho, easy enough to solder out leds from, and replace as the whole mars/lg circuit board is ally/mix, not cheap circuit board material with low tolerance copper tracking like the Apollo has.
Too much soldering in other words and the copper will just break away, with mars boards? they cant. its embedded into the ally/steel mix whatever they use.
and on that note, I wonder if you can actually get better round circuit boards for the Apollo now?
and those hexagonal allan key screws they got? euuurgh, get rid as quick as. lol. it don't need 'torque' adjustments. lol.
just a nice Phillips crosshead screw is suffice. so im gonna replace all of mine if I can remember the mm of them..
and don't even get me started on those lenses behind the plates.... lol. wot fun they are.
Why oh why oh why don't they make lenses that are part of the plate, like the next generation leds have got,. ie , the Vipars, Novas, early budmasters... Shame, Cidly should pull their finger out and upgrade it better.
but it all about the cost innit? lol. money money money. so, its down to us.
Thanks all for putting up with the above biblical post. lol. its only a fraction of my opinion tho. Got plenty more... lol
but overall.
Yeah both are good, both Tonka toy leds tho. lol. simplicity is sometimes best.

 

[LED Borg]

Yo hans bro & all, heres the speccy im working on, you n all are very welcome to have it as knowledge is for sharing.
its been tested a few times and is excellent for veggin and flowering, we mainly use it for veggin tho as the flowering tent has mighty osram ssl80 oslon leds in it. But its superb for starting seedlings off in 1L airpots for a couple of weeks, the root growth is very impressive. But that's air pots for ya, not necessarily the spectrum, needs more testing.
Here you go bro, have a play about with that,
also check out Weins law of converting Nm into Kelvin & visa versa
the possibilities of playing with white temperatures are endless then.

 

[Hansbricks]

Cool man thanks for sharing... might give that a try if I need to replace any modules. Are those all Epistar LEDs?

 

[LED Borg]

:smoking:Your welcome bro, I think I got a mix of everything, epistars, epileds and bridgelux goin on. lol they all work fine side by side as long as the forward voltages doesn't exceed what the driver can give out,, then your cookin bro.

 

[LED Borg]

Hi fellow ledders, thought id give you all a update on my Apollo upgrade.
I finished the 8 spot Apollo I was upgrading and its been over some plants for the last week.
Here they are all,, in bits... complete LED chaos to some. Tech Paradise for others. lol.
I just copied the spectrum over from the gold one to the red one.
and too make it a bit more festive, I popped a robin in the picture aswell. :smoking:

running low voltage through it, for test purposes, also doesn't burn your eyeballs out.
and yeah, spot the mistake, I stuffed up putting in 630nm reds and 660nm reds, they are bloody hard to tell the difference by eye. My fault tho as I mixed them all up by accident when I got them. DOH! lesson learnt there.

Now the 8 spotter has been finished its been hanging over these ladies for the last week, no problems...yet,,,touch wood.

bit of history on these girls first tho.....
The taller one is a Bloody Skunk Auto & the other is a Chemdoggin Auto.
They both had been started under the other 6 spot Apollo with the same spectrum and grown for 4 weeks, to date, they are both 35 days old.
They both were germinated/started in biobizz lightmix soil, 1L Airpot for 2 weeks, then transplanted into 6 L Airpots for another two weeks, now at week 5 they have both just been moved into 20L air pruning pots, <different to airpots but have slits down the sides so air pruning still takes place.>
Nutrients have been Growing Edge Technologies Lets Grow A & B Range.
Schedule : 24/0

More pics... might have to move them at a later date but will keep them or one of them under this led to see how well it flowers, will update later if ok with hans bro.

ChemDoggin Auto Day 35

Bloody Skunk Auto Day 35

 

[garnier]

Cidly's Apollo6 can be configured just about same as GN MS0006 from that I've found so far...
Apart from that it can't have Rebel upgrade. ( possibly You can get Rebel upgrade from GN and DIY it Yourself ? )

Also Apollo6 can have two switches to control modules separately - 2/4/6.

That leads me to idea having custom spectrum of: two middle ones especially for bloom and four modules on site to have mixed spectrum ( possibly Hansbricks layout ).

what would be Your suggestion on this guys?

lights in yellow circle to be focused to bloom,
green circle both veg+bloom


thanks for very interesting thread
I'm going to order two of these Apollo6 in few weeks, just waiting for suggestions.