Mars Hydro FC-E 4800 480W LED Grow Light VS PhotonTek X 465W PRO LED
Regardless of the type of plant, light plays a crucial role in photosynthesis and helps it grow effectively. The same is the case with the plant. If you grow these plants in an outdoor environment, the sun fulfils the light requirements.
But, if you are planning to grow your indoor plants, artificial light would be needed to provide a comfortable environment to maintain smooth growing conditions. This is where LED grow lights play their part. The best thing about using these lights is adjusting the amount of light required for better growth.
Choosing the ideal LED grow lights is not a piece of cake. Some are expensive, whereas others are not efficient enough to give the desired results. Similarly, some lights are lightweight, whereas others come with bulky spare parts. Do you intend to grow indoor plants? Looking for better LED grow lights? Don’t miss the discussion below.
What is the best colour spectrum for growing indoors?
Natural sunlight contains the full spectrum of light, including all colors of the rainbow and even non-visible light like infrared and UV. When we use LED grow lights for indoor growing, we want to mimic natural sunlight as closely as possible, to create the perfect growing environment for our plants, even better than what we could find outdoors. Because we want to mimic the perfect growing environment for our plant, we should copy the natural environment of our plant while using a light source that produces a full spectrum of light.
The color of the light is one of the most important aspects that affect indoor growing. The two colors red and blue are on either end of the spectrum, and they have different effects on your plant. Further, your plants will utilize certain colors at various stages in the grow cycle: for example, plants utilize blue light to grow new leaves and to stretch stems and branches, while they use red light to produce buds and flowers.
A good grow light will need to produce sufficient red and blue light as these parts of the spectrum are extremely important to plant growth, while plants reflect a lot more green and yellow light, which is what gives them their color. During the process of photosynthesis, plants usually respond to 400 and 700 nanometer wavelengths, which, coincidentally and very useful for growers, corresponds to the visible portion of the light spectrum.
Mars Hydro FC-E 4800 480W LED Grow Light
Features：
The Mars Hydro LED 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.
Features:
PHOTONTEK LED grow lights use only the highest grade materials and components and provide safe, reliable light PHOTONTEK luminaires feature industry-leading performance. Delivered through multiple linear designs with the perfect balance of high-quality full spectrum light and highest intensity PPFD. PHOTONTEK creates the ultimate light top for the entire plant growth cycle, making these LEDs the brightest choice for a higher and faster return on investment. The PHOTONTEK X 465W Pro LED produces a total PPF output of 1256 µmol/s and a photon efficiency (fixture efficiency) of 2.7 µmol/J, producing uniform light spread close to the crop canopy, ideal for use in indoor multi-layer cultivation systems, growing room and tent.
Factors to consider when buying the best grow light
Aluminum-plastic or plastic heat sink
The components that ensure the operation of the grow light are more likely to fail. The main danger for the chip is overheating. Good heat dissipation ensures the long and correct operation of the grow light chip.
Since the production and processing of metal is a relatively expensive enterprise, there has been a launch of aluminum-plastic radiators. The aluminum cup is placed inside the housing made of pressed plastic powder. The more powerful the light, the thicker this glass should be.
Unscrupulous manufacturers save on what is not visible to the eye and make the metal part not correspond to the light bulb’s power.
You can determine this by weight: take two similar lights with an aluminum-plastic housing and hold them in your hand. The better quality is the heavier one.
Wattage
There are a few rules for choosing the best grow light bulb based on wattage. It consumes 8–10 times less than incandescent light and 1.5–2 times less than a fluorescent light.
However, formula 1:10, declared by the manufacturers, is crafty. A 6W grow light will shine worse than a 60 W incandescent light because part of the energy will go to the heat sink.
In addition, the brightness of the grow light is dimmed by 20–30 % by a matte bulb.
To not miscalculate when changing a regular light to 60 W, it makes sense to take a grow light and choose the correspondence not by watts but by lumens, in which the luminous flux is measured.
You can easily find the correspondence table for different types of lights on the Web, and the light indicators are on the box.
The more lumens per watt output, the better. On average, 700 lm is enough for a bedroom and about 1000 for a living room.
Color temperature
When buying the best grow light, consider the color temperature. You can look for it on the package. Color temperature is measured in kelvins and conditionally divides light into warm (up to 3500K), neutral (3500–4500K), and cold (from 4500K).
What is the color temperature of grow light? The higher the number, the colder the shade, and the more intense the glow in the blue spectrum. This spectrum is the most unpleasant for the retina and can cause vision problems with prolonged exposure.
The lens of a child’s eye is even more susceptible to blue, so it’s best not to use cold white grow lights in a nursery. Optimal is 2700 to 3000K, corresponding to a conventional incandescent light or sunlight. The lamp’s location is also essential, and you need to ensure there is no direct light entering the eyes.
Cold light is good on the street and neutral in the office. This is because it invigorates and mobilizes brain resources. The color temperature above 4000K is ideal for public and educational buildings.
Ripple factor
This is the crucial factor to consider when buying the grow light. A warm white grow light can be a nuisance if it has a high (over 20%) ripple factor.
Life hacks will help determine the level of pulsation. First, move the pencil back and forth in front of the lamp. If the pulsation is high, the silhouette will fall apart, and if it is low, it will smudge.
The second method looks even more straightforward. Point your smartphone at the lamp with the camera turned on; the ripple will be visible in the image: the more blinks and more stripes, the worse.
However, there are nuances here. After a second of camera operation, many smartphones compensate for pulsations programmatically by launching the anti-flicker function. In addition, circuitry and firmware that processes light pulsations will be different at different cameras.
As a result, you can both miss strong ripples and panic because of very strong flickers, although they will be high-frequency and harmless to the eyes.
Color rendering index
Another important factor to consider when buying the best grow light is the color rendering index that affects lighting quality. This is between the natural color of an object and the color under the light.
The index is denoted by the letters CRI (Ra) and a number on a 100-point scale. Typically, the higher it is, the better the color rendering. Grow light for 3×3 with an indicator of less than 80Ra can significantly change the color of objects.
The color rendering index indicates how uniform the level of different color components is in grow light. At low Ra, shades are less visible. Such grow light is visually unpleasant, and it is challenging to understand what is wrong with it.
Merge different shades into one, so it is better not to install them in apartments and offices. Sometimes manufacturers hide CRI in a class from 1 to 4 or in a three-digit number. Class 1A is a range of 90–100Ra, 1B is a little worse, 80–89Ra, and 2A is already 70–79Ra.
The rest are best used outdoors. Three-digit number — for example, 927- indicates that the grow light has a color rendering index of 90Ra and a color temperature of 2700K.
Sound
This is the crucial factor if you want the best product. Some grow lights products a buzz, so it is vital to check them in the store. Even if the sound is quiet at home, it won’t be very pleasant.
And remember that any light under consumer protection law can be returned within 14 days. In addition, grow light has a guarantee of 1–5 years.
So save the receipt or take a picture of it with your phone. Therefore, consider the sound produced when looking for the best grow lights.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our article on the best led grow lights. When it comes to growers, tend to need all of their help. With led grow lights, they can save a lot of money and time, and energy in the long run. We know that you’ll be able to use the information we provided to make the most out of your next growing session. So what are you waiting for? Start researching led grow lights today!
