Featured LED Grow Light Journal:
What Benefits Do LED Grow Lights Offer?
There are many good reasons to choose LED grow lights over HID or CFL. Their vast versatility makes them shine above the rest. Following are just a few of the more common uses for LED grow lights:
- Growing Herbs - This includes oregano, basil, cilantro, and many others
- Flowering Plants - Ranging from perennials to annuals to orchids or zinnia varieties.
- Fruit and Vegetable Growers - Professional hydroponic farmers and recreational gardeners alike can benefit from the advantages of LED grow lights. Self sufficient homesteads can grow their personal food requirements much easier, using less power and at a significant savings over HID or CFL..
- Medical Marijuana Usage – Lets face it, nothing compares to the quality of medical marijuana grown under LED grow lights. Enhanced trichome production with THC levels like you have never experienced before make growing medical marijuana under today’s high power led grow lights a virtual no brainer!
LED Grow Lights Are Here To Stay
Decades after their initial introduction and countless upgrades and product improvements, LED grow lights have finally emerged as a solid presence in the indoor horticultural lighting industry. This in itself illustrates that they are more than just a passing fad. In fact, today’s high powered led grow lights are easily comparable to the industry standard HID lighting that has been around for the past 100 years… and in the case of some of the industry’s premiere manufacturers that offer cutting edge technology in their led grow lights it is completely apparent that their HID counterparts have been all but left in the wake of these high powered, bud producing machines.
Some say a picture is worth a thousand words, so see for yourself LED Grow Lights in action!
Get the Best LED Grow Light For You
When determining the ideal LED grow light for your individual needs, gathering sufficient information through investigation is essential. A general rule of thumb would be that if it sounds too good to be true, chances are it is… If a manufacturer is making all sorts of outlandish claims on how great their product is… do a simple search for that product on google and look for independent grow journals that can back up their claims, and don’t just settle for one or two. If a company has a legit product there will be several successfull journals at more than one forum from various growers from all over the world. A common trick that some of the led grow light manufacturers use is to stage grows that show their products as the holy grail of indoor lighting solutions, in fact, I know of at least 3 companies that employ full time professional growers online. All of whom post very successful grow journals at various forums. I have designed this website to allow for unbiased reviews and professional, controlled enviornment, testing of various brands of led grow lights. I have constructed a state of the art grow lab with 4 independent 4′ x 8′ x 8′ grow chanbers that are completely self sufficient from one another where I test led grow lights along with other indoor horticultural products. Each grow is completely controlled from the ground up assuring that everything in each chamber is the EXACT same except for the light that is being tested. I have a state of the art quantum meter that I use to measure the PAR values (levels of Photosynthetically Active Radiation, visable light occuring between 400nm – 700nm that is responsible for photosynthesis) and each individual chamber is equipt with a 24/7 live feed high definition web cam. Each chamber has 1 165 cfm intake fan and one 165cfm exhaust fan and are equipt with temperature and humidity gauges. In other words, I test each light in the EXACT same enviornment and completely document the results and allow for scientific data that I compile to support the results obtained. In other words, what you see is what you get!
Review of LED Grow Lights
You will find several detailed LED grow light reviews backed by actual live grow results and undeniable scientific data on this website.
- Overview of 2011 Grow Light Models
- Some major reviews of LED grow lights that are brand specific include; Magnum LED and Magnum Plus LED, Penetrator Xtreme, Apollo and Stealthgrow. Beta testing is currently in progress for other products such as Grow LED Hydro/Spectra, FERO, Cidly, E-Shine and several others. If you want to find cannabis-oriented LED grow lights, look at my section dedicated exclusively to growing high grade medical marijuana under LED grow lights. This section explains in great detail various growing methods, natural fertilizers, grow mediums and more used in the cultivation of premium quality medical marijuana using LED grow lights.
Main Advantages of LED Grow Lights
You obviously already know something about the huge advantages of LED grow lights or you wouldn’t be here. Although many of the claims being stated are bang on accurate, 90% of what you read is pure horse shit plastered all over the web by dishonest marketers that don’t know the first thing about LED grow lights. Your best bet for getting the true lowdown on LED is to read through my no bullshit reviews and decide for yourself which led grow light is best for you. Invest a few hours of your time reading through the coles notes version of the industry I have compiled and make an educated decision before you end up buying something that doesn’t work.
When looking for a new LED grow light fixture consider these main factors before making a purchase:
Energy Efficiency. Power rating versus actual draw, the power rating is the number of diodes times the wattage of the diodes. As an example we will take the Magnum Plus because it is pretty much the model all other led grow light manufacturers are striving to achieve. The Magnum Plus has 230 x 3w diodes, therefore the total power rating is 230 x 3 = 690w. Now for the actual draw, in the case of the magnum plus that I have personally tested the actual power draw for the entire fixture is right around 350w. What this means is that you are only paying the power consumtption on the actual draw which is 350w as opposed to the maximum power rating of 690w. The magnum plus is also a great example because it realistically does replace a 1000w HID using about 1/3 of the power consumption. If you are looking for a good led grow light, the rule of thumb is that they actually draw about 1/3 of their HID counterparts.
One time cost. No more need to buy ballasts, reflectors, replace bulbs or vent out the massive heat. When you buy one of today’s high power LEDs they come as complete full spectrum fixtures that last for many, many years to come.
Exceptional Longevity. Featuring average lifespans between 50 and 100 thousand kilowatt hours, it’s pretty easy to see that LED grow lights easily justify the pricy upfront costs. BUT, beware!!! 95% of the companies out there have little to no clue on how to correctly drive power to these diodes to ensure maximum output and efficiency. Let’s take a 3w stacked diode for example as this is BY FAR the most intense and efficient diode for LED grow lights. Even though the diode is max rated for 3w, you should NEVER drive more than 50% of the maximum power to a diode as it does three things; 1) greatly reduces the lifespan of the diode 2) produces excess heat 3) degrades the spectrum that the diode is supposed to be emitting. It’s pretty simple, more power into the diodes means more heat that is produced by the diode which in turn shortens the lifespan and skews the spectrum that is supposed to be emitted. Don’t believe the hype about 3w diodes being better than 3w stacked triple diodes either. multiple sources of light are always more intense than a single source of light and so is the case of 1 single 3w diode powered correctly to 1.5w vs. a 3 x 1w triple stacked powered correctly which is also pulling 1.5w.
Near 100 percent efficient. Even under most optimal conditions, HID lights have maximum efficiency levels of only about 20 percent. This means that 80% of their emitted light is entirely useless and simply produces heat by product which is not only a pain in the ass to vent out but very expensive to deal with as well. LED grow lights on the other hand are close to 100% efficient. This is due to relative Photosynthetic Active Radiation (“PAR”) emitted light levels. That value merely indicates that exposed plants may utilize 100% of the exact spectrums being emitted by the LED grow light for photosynthesis.
Do You Need Further Data About LED Grow Lights?
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