2022 Best 400W LED Grow Lights for Indoor Plants
Some people have a hobby to grow green plants in their garden or backyard. These plants need enough light to grow well. The amount of light required for growth varies based on the type of plants. When you desire to grow plants indoors, certainly, they will not get enough sunlight. You need to provide them an artificial light source for proper growth. The 400 watt LED grow lights are the best light sources available in the market for plants grown indoors.
These lights are well-known for offering full-spectrum lighting and intensity. In addition to being used in fluorescent lamps, LED lights are also used in grow lights. The presence of LEDs makes sure the brightness at the output is always excellent. Generally, these light products produce low heat and come with easy plug & play convenience. The output consists of intense bright light without much consumption of energy.
How to identify quality LED grow lights: PAR, PPF, and PPFD
As you continue to become an experienced grower and find new ways to improve your yield, it will benefit you to familiarise yourself with some acronyms for indoor plant growing.
What is PAR?
Photosynthetic Active Radiation (PAR) describes the wavelengths of light within the visible range: 400 to 700nm (nm is the unit used to measure wavelength). It’s not a metric like feet or inches, but rather a term that helps plants growers determine two things: the type and volume of light required to optimize the plants’ yield and health.
When purchasing LED grow lights, PAR is an important consideration because the more PAR your light can produce, the more PAR available to plants, the better they will grow.
What is PPF?
Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF) is the term we use to define the measurement of PAR. Its underlying value determines how much PAR your LED grow lights can produce per second. The PPF measurement helps you understand how much of the light your fixtures are producing, which can be used by your plants for photosynthesis.
PPF is measured in micromoles per second or “µMol/s”, where one micromole is equal to approximately 602 quadrillion photons. Measuring your PPF properly requires a thorough understanding of the process and a little bit of mathematical subtleness and patience. And while there are PPF measurement tools that can be purchased from the open market, you might work with a trusted partner who can help you choose the perfect LED grow lights that are efficient enough to provide the desired PAR and PPF.
The most popular LED lights on the market currently deliver from 2000 to 2900 µmol/s.
What is PPFD?
Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD) is the third and final part of the PAR equation. PPFD measures not just the PPF but also the surface area. The unit for measurement is micromoles per square meter per second or “µMol/m²/s”, which is used to determine how many PAR photons are effectively landing on a given area. So, PPFD has to do with how many of those crucial photosynthetic photons actually positively impact the growing area and how efficiently your LED grow lights are working in terms of output.
As a plants grower, you need to bear in mind the distance from the light source. A few measurements can be used as an average (the minimum and maximum ratio) before buying LED grow light. We’d again recommend working with a trusted LED grow light partner who can provide the necessary and reliable metrics.
Beyond what we’ve explained for these three terms, it can all get extremely technical, which may serve more counterintuitive for the average grower than anything else. Your LED grow light partner can help you understand the best lighting system needed according to your specific growing needs.
ECO Farm SP-400 Samsung Foldable Dimmable Full Spectrum LED Grow Light
Features:
ECO Farm LED grow light is equipped with 1088 high-efficiency Samsung LM281B LEDs. It has a market lighting efficiency of 2.8μmol/J and an output of 2.5g per watt. The average PPFD is increased by 30%, and the actual power is 420 watts. Proven high-yield full-spectrum (lm281b LEDs (3000k+5000k) + RED 660nm + IR 730nm + UV 395nm), with enhanced deep red 660nm. Born for big buds, the plant responds quickly from seed to flowering, which speeds up the flowering time and increases the yield. The relaxed dimming design meets the needs of different growth stages of indoor plants. No fan, no noise. The aluminum light bar can better dissipate heat and keep cool, and at the same time spread the light evenly. Save you a lot of ventilation and exhaust costs. The most powerful daisy chain-up to 100 lights can be connected, the controller can be used, especially suitable for homes, planting tents, planting rooms, greenhouses, gardens, and hydroponics.
Mars Hydro FC-E 4800 480W LED Grow Light
Features:
The grow light consumes 480W input power. The FC-E4800 has 2646 high-quality BridgeLux chips, which can perfectly cover the growing space of 4x4 feet (flowers) and 5x5 feet (vegetables), which is more cost-effective than other lights of the same type. Not only the driver is removable, but the light bar is also removable for easy installation, storage and replacement of the light bar. At the same time, growers can freely adjust the light bar space according to their own growth needs to maximize the use of light. mars Hydro’s newly developed chip arrangement enables a more uniform and efficient light distribution, allowing growers to achieve a more uniform crop. The light is designed with a dimming knob, which is more convenient for dimming. Up to 30 lamps can be daisy-chained and controlled from a single lamp.
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 consider before buying LED Grow Light for the Money
Space Matters
You need to consider how much space you have available for your grow operation. The lights that best fit a small indoor operation are not always the same as those that will work well in an outdoor garden. Indoor growers should consider an LED light that is thin and lightweight, so it may be mounted above their plants with minimal intrusion into other spaces in the room. If they choose LED lights of different colors, they can change the look of the growing environment by altering lighting schemes from time to time. Outdoor growers have more options when choosing how to hang their lamps, but even these operations can benefit from lightweight fixtures that allow excess heat and moisture to escape quickly through air vents at top or bottom of the fixture housing.
Total Light Output
We all know the saying ‘Bigger is Better’, this applies to LED grow lights as well. The bigger the light, the more output it will provide for your garden. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have under-powered lights that don’t give off enough intensity for proper growth of your plants.
Manufacturer’s Lifespan Rating
While no manufacturer can guarantee total lifespan of their LED grow light fixtures, they do guarantee at least a certain level of output over an 18 month period. This should give you confidence when buying a unit from any manufacturer and won’t leave you thinking twice about purchasing it if you believe in how reliable they are stating their product is.
Heat Management
As with all high powered lighting systems, heat dissipation is always an important factor to consider when choosing a light for your operation. The larger the light, the more heat it is going to create and you want to make sure you have some place for that excess heat to go in order to keep your grow room or garden from overheating.
Fan Controllers
Depending on how your specific grow operation is set up, you may already have an exhaust system built into place. If not, then a fan controller might be something you wish to purchase with one of these lights. These go by many names, but essentially they are electronic devices that help run fans in sync with the power draw of the LED light(s) allowing them to work at optimum efficiency while keeping everything within your growing space cool enough for healthy plant growth.
Conclusion
We hope that by the time you reach this section, you’ve got a fair idea about what to expect from these grow lights. One needs to understand that LED grow lights are critical when it comes to growing plants indoors. However, one doesn’t always need to buy expensive lights, because sometimes cheaper lights do the trick too. And it isn’t right for one to associate that cheap lights are bad lights. If you buy one of the lights from our list, or if there are any grow lights that you would want us to review, or add to our list, do let us know in the comments below, or drop us a mail and we shall get it done as soon as we can!
