Of course, this method does not take into account the efficiency of the light. One light that uses watts may have a much higher output than another light that uses watts. Wattage is used as a good approximation for the amount of light a fixture will provide, but the actual output will vary greatly from one manufacturer to the next. For example, the Phlizon COB lights get a large amount of output for the wattage they consume, while Roleadro lights give you far less output for the same wattage.
Phlizon lights are simply far more efficient. While this method is the most accurate, it is also the most difficult to use, because many manufacturers do not provide a lot of if any good data on the output of their lights.
This is especially true with the Chinese brands. Even if they do provide output info, they often only take a reading dead center below the light, where the output is strongest. They do not give you readings for the rest of the coverage area, usually because the light is very weak around the outside of the area.
All lights will be stronger dead center, but good lights will still get you decent readings around the outside. Light output can be measured in a number of different ways, but the most useful measurement for plants is ppfd, or Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density. This contrasts with another light measurement lumen, which measures the amount for light that is visible to the human eye. Plants will do fine with less than that, but those are the numbers to shoot for if you want to optimize yields.
These footprints show the PPFD output of a light at various locations in the coverage area. The best lights will not have sky high readings in the middle and thus much smaller ones around the outside, even if the manufacturer only provides the figure for the middle , but good readings all around.
Fluorescent lights only make sense for a plant or two. Any more than that and they become too inefficient. This article covers how to determine how many fluorescent bulbs you need. I doubt that would be enough for 3 plants, but maybe for one. I would go with two lights that cover 4 by 4 feet each 1. At an absolute minimum, go with 4 of the Phlizon s link in the comment above , but larger lights would obviously give you better yields.
If budget is not an issue, go with 4 SFs. I have a 4 x 4 area have currently acquired a mars hydro ts what do you think of my light coverage.
Do you think I have too much light for my space to flower at a height of 12 inches. Will I be in danger of light burn. Have you seen or heard of any results using this light. Hi steven im a big fan of your site Im now using hps lamps watt 5 x 5 feet the yields are great but the electricity is expensive and want to change to LED I want a led for growth and flowering but one with the best harvest yielding results which led lamp can covers 5 x 5 feet with the result about the same as a watt hps lamp?
Thanks you. I have asked for some info before I wanted to make purchases and I was told that I will not achieve the same harvest as hps watts with the spider farmer sf i have read it is the same like hid now im doubting is the spider Farmer isf good enough to harvest at least grams??
Just a idea. Hi Ricardo thank you mate I almost lost dollars Because it was recommanded to me Like it is the same it is a Shame you never can make that comparison. Yes it is sad, the thing is when someone is used to hid lighting and the weight they can achieve switching to led can be misleading, they recommend around All I can say is led lighting is abit more efficient, abit cooler to run!!
Ricardo can you tel me now I know the spider farmer is only cheap in the Bills Wich led is good to compare with hps led minimum watt Not in the spectrum only But in the result.
So if you are looking to save on power costs have you thought about a dimmable ballast for your hps?? Optic 6 optic 8 or optic 8 plus!!! Check the specs especially the power draw I think the optic 6 pulls around watts which is nice!! The problem with led is the more they pull from the wall the more the light costs??
If money is no problem for you just keep looking untill you find one with a power draw close to what you need. Thank you Ricardo Im pulling now between 0,8 and 1. I have a 15 x 15 grow room. How do you recommend I setup my room? How many lights? How many plants? I just need one for succulents. I have a 2ft by 5 ft a 3ft display that I need proper lighting for. How many watts do you recommend? Installed 8 watt equivalent led bulbs 5oook lumens daylight with 4 20w k lum.
The only way to really know is to measure your lights performance with a PAR meter. Thank you Klaus. And how high from the plant should i keep it. Hi Charbel, I could not find any information on the Lucio Bulbs you reference. However, looking at the specs you provided, it does not appear they are the right grow lights for you. Wattage is a measurement of energy consumption. Is it 40w or w? It can not be both and there is no equal.
Lumens is a measurement of brightness for Humans, kelvin is a measurement of color for humans. None of these specs should ever be used to grow plants. The measurement missing is micromoles, without this I can not know whether this setup will work or how high to hang the lights. You may want to look at our LED Under-cabinet Lights , depending on how many plants you are growing, one or two of them will work perfectly. All our lights ship for free!
Sincerely, Klaus. Hi Karyn, we have 3 hanging light fixtures available that might fit your needs. Our LED Under-cabinet is the smallest of our lights. Is this the info you were looking for? Best, Klaus. My best is Hugh and humidity is low. Am I putting out too much light??? If so, I can adjust the output. And how far from plants should the height of my lights be?
Hi Anthony, You should try to get umol at the plant canopy. We would suggest you contact the manufacturer of your lights to get specific recommendations Best, Klaus. Thanks a lot for this information. As far as I can fathom you are one of the few people who actually talk about what really matters. Reading other comments as well, most producers are focusing on wattage — which as you rightly pointed out — is a consumption unit.
And at least in my researches most producers do not publish micromoles data but focus on wattage. Gaga, You are welcome! Thank you for the feedback. We have been fighting the idea that is takes watts to grow since we started LED Habitats. We recently shipped an order to Dubai, our customer used Aramax as a freight forwarding service. This is a company you will want to research if you do additional posts about LED.
Not to promote them leave that to me! If you have contacts there — I am looking for some technical information I was not able to find online.
Also, any suggestions for a quantum meter if I were to buy one? I have not measured them, and could not find any values on line. Amazing article…I found LED lighting is truly the next generation of technology which features various benefits to consumers. Your information is WAY behind the curve. And using watts I agree, is a meaningless metric that tells you nothing about the light.
Yet the metrics that do, people are too lazy to bother to learn and so, people continue to buy inefficient, poorly made, and sometimes UNSAFE lighting! A fire waiting to happen! So educate your a little better before posting an article like this, your about 4 year behind the curve! It was a great post. Very Helpful. Thanks so much for this timely article. I appreciate your ability to take a subject that just might make my head explode and put it into graspable context.
I have a light meter which measures PAR which are the wavelengths that plants use for growth. This is a good way to test these lights. Light falloff can be an additional problem depending on design. I use 3 watt units in greenhouse for winter light for citrus and veggies which has worked quite well. I agree we need better labeling and for anything other than seedlings people need to think about exactly how to mount lights. There are many high tech commercial greenhouses that rely exclusively on LED lights with great results.
So they can work if you get the right ones and are careful about how you mount them. So narrow, in fact, that a different recipe for light seems to be needed for op- timum growth of different kinds of plants, or different stages of growth. Performance is generally enhanced with the addition of a small amount of light in the green as well as far-red spectrum the part of the electromagnetic spectrum just beyond the red that we can see, but shorter wavelength than infra-red. It is therefore monochromatic.
Then I discovered that a white LED emits that light for exactly the same reason as a fluorescent tube. Its monochromatic radiation is in the ultraviolet UV , and the white light is a combination of emissions of phosphors energised by the UV photons.
Madder still, phosphors that emit in the green range are rather a waste for indoor plant lighting. It is interesting that you say they are monochromatic — that is what I would have expected. The light is not monochromatic at least not the light that reaches the plant. They are quite wide spectras, and nowhere near being several monochromatic lines.
It turns out that green light is actually used by plants and can be an important component of the light they get. If Round-up affects plant by being absorbed by leaves, why does painting cut trunk or root surfaces damage weeds? Works great and the price is right.
As a matter of interest I used one of these grow lamps. It was fantastic. A huge difference…. One of the reasons it works in this situation is simply because I gave the plants 12 hours of light per day instead of the natural 6 or 8.
Any extra light would have worked. As for wattage, ignore it. Even if the real brightness of the units differs, placed close enough gets rid of most of that problem if all you are trying to do is grow in the darker months rather than for a special reason. As for coverage. The light from LEDs basically goes down so the lamp unit wants to cover the same area as the plants occupy but, and I have a photo of this somewhere, the plants under the lamp grew up — very well as expected, the plants even 3 or 5 feet away could still tell where the light was because all the seedlings from around the greenhouse were leaning toward the lamp unit even though they were no where near it.
Mobile phones often have a light meter in them, get an app to read the LUX light levels and take the phone outside make a note, then take the phone indoors or in the greenhouse or where ever you want your grow lamp and even put it under your grow lamp — massive difference. The sunlight produces a huge amount of light compared with one of these grow lamps. Fascinating subject light is. Your living room light bulb provides very low level light by the time it hits the floor compared to sunlight hitting the floor.
The light meter in a phone is a good idea, but you need to buy the light to use it. Not much help in selecting a light. The wattage numbers of the lamps are really only of use so you know how much electricity they will cost you — then they are very useful. Press here to subscribe. Garden Myths - Learn the truth about gardening. If you like this post, please share This entry is filed under Plant Care and tagged grow lights , seedlings. August 27, at pm. Robert Pavlis says:. September 28, at pm.
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