Nice! sounds awesome! I'm excited to hear how the Apollos perform. MARS hydro LED's have been recommended to me also so maybe check those out..
Lets see a pic of the setup!
Yea, my fan vents into the same room that my tent is in. It isn't ideal, but it is what it is.. We do the best we can with what we have.
Also, how much cooler is 100w of LED over 100w of CFL? Is it like you have no heat at all? Or is it just much less heat? If you shut off your fan would the tent still heat up? I'm thinking of getting the Mars Hydro for Veg.
Yeah so far I am liking the LED. Still time should be the judge, but they seem to do what they are suppose to do very well. The Apollo have 3 watt Epistar chips which I was told to look for though they are actually running at something like 2 Watt to improve the lifespan of the unit. I also hear that MARS hydro was very good. The Apollo 180W (actually 109W) was fairly cheap at about $100 USD. This is the one I got right
HERE. and as far as temps go without any ventilation, they run cool to the touch, but are slightly warm. The fan at the top is pushing air out of the LED but again is just a little warm, about the same heat that comes out of the back of a desktop computer. I just closed the tent, a small tent btw its like 2x3x4 or something I don't remember, for about 30 minutes and it steadied out at 81f, but remember thats only with 1 LED system running. When I have two it's gonna be a little warmer. My 105 watt CFL bulb you see in the picture gets rather hot once its been going for a few minutes, can keep hand on it for a few seconds before it becomes uncomfortable. The LED I could leave my hand on it all day. Now if I left my CFL running with no ventilation the tent would be in the high 90's maybe even in the 100s. So I would say there is at least a 10-15f difference in temps in the tent. Currently the LED with vent is staying about 72f, the CFL was staying around 82f sometimes higher. Here are some pictures... And don't laugh at the carbon filter haha, it was $13 to make, beats $50+ for ones on Amazon, and is doing a good job so far, though when she starts to get smelly we will see. If anyone is wondering it is just two mesh pencil cups with activated carbon and panty hoes, theres a tutorial somewhere.