After reading 5 books with 10 comprehensive studies and spent 6 weeks tons of research on 20 best LED grow lights, we discovered the Advanced Platinum Series is the best way to start growing.
We used the P300 model during the vegetative cycle in an 8×8 grow tent, over 16 plants. The result was impressive with 100x rapid growth in just 4 weeks and plants were looking healthy and happy.
Best LED Grow Lights
Advanced Platinum P300
The best fuller spectrum light
This light is the best energy efficient which gives healthier environment, produced great results and the best for all phases of the plants. It is also fit for all major or small indoor growing.
Getting Started led Grow lights Buying Guide
Before we jump into the Best Led Grow lights Buying Guide, so now!
What is an LED? And it’s Background?
LED is an electric component or small light bulb that emits light when plugged in. It depends on the flow of electrons through a semiconductor to create light.History of LEDs - Light Emitting Diodes
The principle is electroluminescent that led operate for emitting the light visible to the eye. LEDs convert 80% of the electricity that goes in, it means 80 percent light of it is converted into the light. This light is then emitted by the diode.
In past years Light-emitting diodes were very high in price approximately 200 dollars per piece so those lights are just using as indicators in laboratories,
Fairchild Semiconductors struggled to overcome the price and won in the 1970s and did the cost in the low price of individual led.
Fairchild made it possible into commercial products now it is using in watches, calculators, and flashlights. Infrared led is using Mouse light, Backlighting cell phones, TVs, Microwave, and many other devices.
Music Shows Lights and Christmas lighting is also a great example of LED Lighting.
How do LEDs work?
LED stands for the light-emitting diode or tiny light bulb.
Basically, it is used as the semiconductor device that produces a light source.
A small piece of silicone that has Positive (P-type) and Negative (N-type) Junction. This is called P-N Junction.
Essentially Incandescent lighting emits the light in a vacuum or fluorescent lights that produce its light in a gas, and LEDs expelled the light from his solid piece of material which is called a semiconductor.
- Negative junction (Red) has extra black electrons.
- The positive junction (Blue) has extra white holes.
- Both P-N (Positive and Negative) are connected with Battery to pushing the electrons from Negative to Positive direction and holes go in the reverse direction
- These junctions create light.
However, if we join these two semiconductors together they act in a very different way into a circuit then it moves from the negative to the positive side and produces light in that process. LEDs produce less heat, so it is important that the heat moves at a distance, so the semiconductor stays safe from the heat.
Simply we can say it is used to make brighter light and focused on a single point. Previous LEDs was produced only red light, but now the latest LEDs can illuminate by several different colors, like white, red, green, and blue lights.
Features of LEDs:
- Low energy consumption
- Small size
- Longer lifetime Efficiency
- Faster switching Colors
- Slow Failure
What is GROW LIGHT?
Light as the sun rises on the Earth of Gardening. It is a Grow light or Plant grow light.
This light acts as the alternate of sunlight for growing the plants. It is an artificial light that is made out of the radiation of the light (LEDs) with varying wavelengths that are used to stimulate plant growth.
LED Grow Light Bulbs
A set of LEDs have arranged in one lamp it means that a substantial amount of LEDs have placed in one space called Led grow light bulbs.
The following LEDs have different types.
These are of different sizes and shapes and colors, the color of the lights determines the type of material that used to make led.
Incandescent lights
Incandescent lights are the famous light bulbs that are easily available in any grocery or hardware store. And mostly we use it in our home.
Growing plants, we need the right light which has the right color spectrum.
These bulbs produce more red lights so not best for growing plants.
Plants need the lights in different phases of growth from vegetative to blooming. If you select the incandescent light in this process so you will harm your plants due to a lot of heat. These bulbs use a filament to emit a light that’s the main cause of heat. These type of lights only uses for street lighting.
- Lighting in home or Growing low light plants
- Bulbs relatively low in price and work with universal sockets
- Good source of Red Light
- Best for small spaces or house rooms.
- The Amount of light is very high as compared to energy.
- Poor productivity for growing plants with high light intensity.
- Have 90% heat over 10% Energy.
- Has only one RED light source.
- Had a short lifespan as compared to other light bulbs
- Cannot place near to the plants
Fluorescent Grow light
Fluorescents are more productive than incandescent lights using the same amount of energy. They are the cheapest lights for interior gardening. Fluorescent has different forms, shapes, thin bulbs, long bulbs, as well as coil-shaped bulbs. These lights use less electricity to generate the desired output.
Usually, these lights are a bad choice for flowering plants due to the low lumen. But are the best for herb plants. For indoor Growers, the great advantage of using these lights is less heat other than the incandescent bulbs and you can place near closer to the plant.
- Perfect for seed starting
- You can use near to the plant
- Lighting heat much cooler and is more energy-efficient
- Pleasurable lights
- Cheap in price
- The best light for growing plants indoors, seedlings and young plants
- Very large in size
- The light from the lamp can’t reach properly into the plant
- they aren’t sufficient to sustain tall plants in the blossoming phase
- Need near to the plants
- Require a large amount of the lights or energy
There are Two Types of fluorescent grow lights
1 - Tube-Style Fluorescent Lights
These lights are the first option for several gardeners for starting seedlings, and mostly they used for vegetables and seeds indoors.
These are relatively less powerful, low in price, easy to use, and are more appropriate for plants. Fluorescent lights provide the blue light mainly on the end of the spectrum, so it has a cool impact to the touch, Therefore, fluorescent lights are available in multiple forms, T5, T8, and T12.
These versions have lots of brightness. Growers are truly safe to use fluorescent lights.
- Best lights for indoor growing
- These lights have the ability to cover up the larger area.
- They normally have longer size,
- Generally cheap in price
- Frequent Replacement issue during the phase of plant growth.
- Are not helpful for the period of vegetative growth
- Are not helpful at the flowering stage.
2 - Compact Fluorescent Lights.
Compact fluorescent lights are great for partial or short space to grow the plants.
You can also use the latest full-spectrum fluorescent grow lights because the spectrum of the lights is on both ends, so are extremely close to natural light.
Common sizes that are using 125 Watt, 200 Watt, 250 Watt, and 300 Watt, also available in Red (2700 K), full-spectrum or daylight (5000 K), and Blue (6500 K) versions.
- CFL Bulbs are energy efficient and Good for Home growers
- These Bulbs can easily fit in the normal light socket and does not need any other fixtures.
- Inexpensive Price Compared to Incandescent Bulbs these lights have more than 10,000 hrs Lifespan
- Very Versatile for growing seedlings.
- Dimmers are also now available in some CFL’s so you can control the brightness
- Low-Temperature effects on the plant’s growth.
- 1-3 minutes require to heat up
- Need to place closer to the plants
- Need to use more additional lights at a time
HID Lighting
In the HID category, we had High-Pressure Sodium which is HPS and Metal Halide which is typically referred to as MH Lighting.
HPS Lights
High-Pressure Sodium Bulbs usually referred to as HPS Bulbs. HPS light more fully simulates the spectrum of the Sunlight which is awesome when we're looking for a good full-spectrum light. They altered to reflect more in like the yellow, orange, green, and Red light so you get a more warm color out of most HPS fixtures. It means they are great for herbs, vegetables, fruits, or flowers. It’s producing a lot more light is going to penetrate the canopy to give you better penetration at lower levels and right full spectrum for a broad variety of crops.
HPS Bulbs are available in all sizes to accommodate any grower’s needs. so, the benefits of high-pressure sodium are the cost of implementing them is very low even if their energy efficiency is not good or not high as LED.
The research coming out right now is that these lamps do really well for supplemental lighting so they're only coming for especially in the night in a greenhouse when you're typically going for more heat that's the lights really shine and they produce a lot of heat. It's a huge drawback for indoor growers.
In greenhouses HID lights are oftentimes more appropriate than LED, however, the energy costs of these are much higher so if you have a greenhouse or any other environment where your energy costs are much higher LED will probably win out.
It'll be really clear these lights are primarily used for top lighting you're very seldom going to see these as inter lighting just because these get so hot sitting underneath in these lighting it's like sitting in a little oven.
These are very hot fixtures and so actually sticking them into the canopy is going to burn up the plants It's one of the reasons with inter lighting style lights has never really taken off the heat issues are just too high and are primarily used for top lighting.
- It’s a great option for supplemental
- Greenhouse or some environments where energy cost is very low
- It replicates the orange Fall Sun and is used 12 to 16 hours a day during a plant’s Flowering or Fruiting phase.
- Heat is a serious problem using the HID Lights
- Mostly for Top Lighting Applications
- Cannot be used for the complete growth cycle of indoor plants
MH
Metal Halide Bulbs, commonly referred to as MH Bulbs. These Lights are typically for indoor gardening. The wattage of these lights is much higher as compared to Florescent and LED lights. So Many Growers are using for bigger plants to maximize the productivity level.
When growing indoors we require the light equal to the natural sunlight during the seasons. MH bulb has a higher temperature which requires during a plant's growth phase.
MH Bulbs can be used for the entire growth phase of leafy plants like lettuces and herbs.
Metal Halide Bulbs are available in all sizes which are fit for any grower’s needs.
- Less Expensive than other lights
- MH provide the right type high light for plants like cannabis
- Work well for Cloning and Vegetative Growth
- Don’t work well for Flowering
- Not Reliable
- Replacement Cost overtime
LED
Big Blast lighting type in the market is LED. It is really the future of lighting because the costs are decreasing very rapidly and the efficiencies are much high as compare to other lights and where in many applications the overall cost of purchasing and the cost of operation if you sum up after like three or four years. The LED is much less expensive and more effective according to these troubles.
LEDs are starting to come out ahead of your standard HPS fixture or your metal halide fixtures so for indoor growers it is the great bonus for you, that these lights are really energy efficient which means you're producing a lot less heat typically around half as much heat as HPS fixture that's a really big deal because in indoor environments we already struggle with the heat.
But LED is fairly significant. HPS and metal halide will sell come out ahead of LED but especially for top lighting applications.
But once we start getting into inner lighting or a lighting setup is very close to the plants LED Is more beneficial just because of the reduced heat aspects. So Many Growers are working with lights that are really close to the plant canopy and are getting many effective results due to the lower heat generation that comes with LED lights
HPS and Metal halide lights are still much better in many greenhouse applications where you're dealing with top lighting especially in environments where almost need to be heating the greenhouse at the same time as you're applying light. However, in almost every other scenario. LEDs come out way ahead and especially in places where your electrical costs are higher. It is going to consistently ahead in the future that means the cost is coming down very rapidly and the efficiencies are rising with HPS and metal halide lamps.
The future is a lot less bright for HID lights because the efficiencies are not rising very quickly.
One misconception with LEDs is that they somehow miraculously produce a lot less. Not, its heat is twice as efficient when it comes to other light production standpoints compared to an HID light however that doesn’t mean they're producing half of the heat they're still producing a significant amount of heat and that is something as a grower you need.
We can get the results really close with good coverage while simultaneously removing almost all of that heat and that gives us as growers a lot more flexibility and control over our temperatures
Optimizing for effects and our Management things that you need to be considering
- To Get the Heat out of the area
- Manage our Costs and Productivity
- Some of the Additional costs of lamp Replacement
- They provide Targeted wavelengths for optimum plant growth
- No Energy wasted
- Colors Light Convertible switches
- Passively cooled without the need for fans
- Always safe in wet and damp locations
- Quite Expensive
- Cover the smaller area generally to directional light
- Very Sensitive due to high-temperature lights can suffer
- Color change after a while is the problem in cheap led grow lights.
Why LED’s light is the best choice?
Today, we know that many types of lighting are available. HPS, HID and fluorescent grows lights. Gardeners always prefer these lights in their grow rooms because the focused spectrum of an LED is perfect as the needs of a plant, Plants can become leggy as to upward for the light. And when foliage comes close to the lamps, the tops will often bend or some time it causes to even fade the leaves from due to the high intensity of heat.
But led lighting is totally different from other light sources such as incandescent, fluorescent, and gas-discharge lamps.
Led’s offering main advantages:
- They give off particular wavelengths of light that are super-efficient in the growth of a plant
- The electricity bill will never boost.
- More profit than the HPS, Fluorescent lights
- Perfect light spectrum where plants need it.
- The amount of light helps to make a plant to more flourishing
- Blue and Red support for vegetative and fruiting growth.
LED colors help in the plant's growth by emitting an electromagnetic spectrum in its various period of time: from seed to flower. Plants grow differently with those colors of light. Because the grow light has a different spectrum of light and spectrum of light has a measurable impact on the amount of energy a plant absorbs.
LED grow lights colors depending on the intended use:
- Purple or violet: Purple light has the highest energy impact on the plants
- Green: Greenlight is the least effective color light because the plants are green and they simply reflect green light due to the pigment Chlorophyll
- Red: Red LEDs are among the most efficient energy for Phytochrome pigments; Phytochromes control many aspects of plant development and red portions of the light and modulate seed germination, movement of leaves, root development, blooming, and fruits.
- Blue: Blue light is the most useful to encourage vegetative leaf growth and strong stems, stems elongation, leaf expansion, and blooming time.
This process of transformation of the light is called Photomorphogenesis.
Grow lights are best for sprouts as well as houseplants.
How important to check the right led grow light?
When building a setup for growing indoor plants the most important factor to know what kind of led grow lights are best to save the life of plants. Plants with low light can become weak and too much light can harm the plants. Additionally, if the light intensity is much hot. so it will cause to burn the plant. It’s very important to check the right place, distance, and light to the safe health of a plant. The lighting depends on the types of plants. Some plants like brightness and some plants require the dark to grow well.
Quick Guide: LED Grow Light Infographic
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