Mars Hydro FC-E 4800 480W LED Grow Light VS TotalGrow MH Lumyre 480W LED Grow Light
You don’t need a lot of space to grow your own plants, but light is essential. Choosing the best LED grow lights is a key factor in providing plants with the right environment for healthy growth. Along with air, water, and nutrients, light quality has a major impact on a plant’s survival.
Grow lights are not like standard household lights. They fall into two categories: either blue/red spectrum or full spectrum. The blue/red (also known as blurple) spectrum maximizes photosynthesis for overall plant health, and it’s frequently recommended in greenhouses which already receive a lot of natural light. Full spectrum adds that “white” sunlight component for indoor growing. Full spectrum also has green light, which until fairly recently was not thought of as particularly important to plant growth. However, research now suggests it may be helpful during photosynthesis.
LED grow lights — well, LED lights in general — consume less energy than traditional fluorescent or high-density discharge models, have a lifespan two to three times that of non-LED rivals, and can largely be recycled. They can suit both commercial and home users, come in several different models, and offer a variety of features. The sheer diversity can make choosing the most appropriate model challenging. We took a look at the best LED grow lights for a range of different purposes.
Why Use LED Lights?
There are many reasons to use LED lights when growing plants.
Affordability
For many, the main reason is that they are relatively inexpensive when compared to the much pricier HID setup. This is especially true if you are growing a smaller number of plants. Our grow lights at A Pot for Pot are specifically designed for growing a small number of plants and is priced well under $200 — proof that high-quality lighting doesn’t need to be expensive.
This was not always the case. When LEDs were first gaining momentum among growers, the technology was still fairly new and had not entirely been perfected. Think about how expensive and inconvenient cutting-edge technology like smartphones were when they first came out, and it often wasn’t worth it. For example, many agree that the first-generation iPhone was not the greatest. However, today’s smartphones are much more affordable, and they are everywhere.
Energy Savings and Privacy
Another thing to consider is how much money LED grow lights will save you on your energy bill. HID lights are good at what they do, but the amount of energy they use will cause your energy bills to skyrocket. This not only hurts your pocketbook, but it can also draw unwanted attention in your direction either by a landlord, a nosy neighbor, and/or the police. When people had to keep their plants growing activities under wraps, spiking electricity bills often gave them away.
Reduced Water Usage
Not only are LED lights more energy-efficient, but you’ll also save on water usage as well. As you are now aware, HID lights use a lot of energy, which in turn produces more heat. This dramatically increases the temperature of the grow room, causing your plants to consume more water. Any way to reduce water consumption is great for the environment, not to mention great for your utility bill.
Durability
Finally, LED lights last longer than HID or CFL bulbs, ensuring many years of good use before they need to be replaced. Traditional grow lights last for only 20 thousand hours. In contrast, LED bulbs last more than twice as long, for up to 50 thousand, or sometimes even 100 thousand hours. That’s five times the life of HID lights!
Mars Hydro FC-E 4800 480W LED Grow Light
Features:
The Mars Hydro LED grow light consumes 480W input power, FC-E4800 has 2646 pcs high-quality BridgeLux chips, perfectly cover 4x4 ft (flower), 5x5ft(veg) grow space, more cost-effective compared with other same type lights. Not only the driver is removable, but also the light bars, which makes it easy to install, store, and replace the light bars. Meanwhile, cultivators can freely adjust the light bar space according to your growing needs in order to maximize light utilization. The newly developed chip arrangement by mars hydro enables a more even and efficient light distribution, thus promising growers a more uniform crop. Light designed with a dimmer knob which makes dimming more convenient.
TotalGrow MH Lumyre 480W LED Grow Light
Features:
TotalGrow LED grow lights feature multiple high-intensity light strips in a slim profile and built-in power supply to distribute the ideal light intensity evenly across your growing area to meet your growing goals. Superior, customizable full spectrum supports efficient, high-quality growth of any life stage and crop variety. This plug-and-play solution with direct daisy chaining is easy to implement, has low up-front and ongoing costs, and sustainably produces high-quality crops. The efficacy of this LED grow light is as high as 2.8 μmol/J to meet the light intensity your plants need. Robust, reliable, ideally shaped design for ease of use and excellent uniformity.
Things to Look for in a LED Grow Light
Once you decide that you want to invest in a grow light, it is time to give them a try. However, do bear in mind that you would need to know the basics in order to buy the right kind of LED light.
Some of the factors that require consideration include:
POWER
Of course, power is the first thing that requires consideration. You need to know the amount of power you would require. You measure the power in watts. A general rule is that a grow plant with higher power tends to cover larger area.
However, do bear in mind that raw power is not the only thing that you need, there are several other things that require consideration.
PAR
PAR is as important as raw power. PAR means Photosynthetically Active Radiation. It basically refers to the wavelengths that are important for the plant. These are the wavelengths that are part of the photosynthesis process.
In simple words, plants require red and blue light for photosynthesis. When you have higher PAR, it means that the Grow light would deliver a higher amount of these specific wavelengths. A light with a higher PAR number equals to more effectively grow light.
PPFD
The Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD) is a branch of PAR. Basically, a light that has a good PPFD rating has the ability to deliver wavelengths that are important to the plant’s growth instead of generic wavelengths.
HEIGHT AND AREA
Every grow light has a rating that greatly depends upon the area of the plants it can cover when you hang it at a specific height. Sometimes, you need to invest in waterproof LED grow light strips especially when there are chances that the light would come in contact with water.
It is important to ensure that the light you choose matches your requirements. For instance, there is a light that can cover an area of 3ft x 3ft, when you hang them at a height of 24 inches.
SPECTRUM
When we talk about spectrum, it is basically the range of wavelengths that these grow lights can produce. For instance, there are certain grow lights that are labeled as the “Full spectrum”. This means that these lights can produce all the wavelengths that a human eye can see.
However, not all “full-spectrum” models include ultraviolet and infrared light. Since these lights are useful for plants as they help them fight bacterial infection, therefore, it is better to opt for models that offer both the above lights.
MODES AND DEVELOPMENT PHASES
The growth of the plant goes through different development phases such as germination, seedling, vegetative, and fruiting or blooming.
Since each phase requires a different type of light requirement, the grow lights need to make adjustments accordingly.
This means your plant would get all wavelengths all the time. In order words, these are suitable for all development phases of all plants. However, these usually are not energy efficient.
The other option is to choose to grow lights that can switch between modes. For the vegetative phase, you can opt for blue and white light. When it comes to blooming, switch to red and white light. This is a better, more effective, and more efficient way to develop plant faster.
SAFETY FEATURES
A cooling system is an imperative safety feature of a grow light. Although, LED units run cooler in comparison to the traditional grow lights, yet they need an additional cooling system to prevent overheating.
These systems consist of one or more fans, depending upon different factors. They also have a head sink and similar features to aid ventilation. It is important to use an LED grow light that doesn’t overheat, especially when you use it intensively.
Some of the other safety features include light operators. This is important as it does not let one LED burn all the others. This is an important feature as it extends the life of the overall LED grow light. You would end up losing just one LED bulb instead of the entire LED light.
Conclusion
Quality LED grow lights are the best solution we have today for growing plants indoors. They are more efficient that traditional forms of light, meaning they produce more output, while using less electricity and producing less heat.
They also last much longer. You won’t have to change bulbs for at least 5 years, and often over 10.
