Three common misunderstandings when purchasing LED plant lights

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When you purchasing LED plant lights, you would heard that LED plant growth lights are energy-saving, environmentally friendly, long life span, high efficiency etc. This is an indisputable fact, however some performance was exaggerated, the three common misunderstandings when purchasing LED plant lights are as below:

(1) The life span of LED plant growing lights is equal to the working time of LED plant growing lights

At present, most LED lighting fixture manufacturers can achieve the life span of LED plant lights for more than 50,000 hours. This life is the theory life that the lamps can be used. There is no indication of the factors of light decay and technical replacement.
The light decay of LED plant growth lamps includes many aspects. On the one hand, the lamp chip itself, any illuminating lamp brightness will decrease after working for a long time.
On the other hand, accessories, including wires, cob panels, lenses, cover etc., will age after a long time, even if it is replaced with new LED chips, it is impossible to achieve the best plant lighting effect as before.
Talking about the technical replacement of lamps, who knows what will happen after ten years? Every year, new products will be launched, and the performance will definitely be better than before. At this time, should you buy new ones or not? Perhaps one day LED plant lights will be replaced by the next generation of other emerging light sources. Should you buy new ones or not then?

(2) The higher the power, the greater the brightness, the better the effect

Power refers to the power consumption of LED plant growth light in a given time, and it has no direct relationship with LED plant growth light supplement effect. If a regular LED plant growth lamp produced by a manufacturer is irradiated with a small pot of aloe vera, the same luminous area and illumination angle, 24w LED plant lights hanging at 50cm height can meet their growth needs, why you need a 100W LED plant growth lamp placed at 100cm height? The key factor we should pay attention to is workmanship, quality and effectiveness.
Brightness is the definition of light perception by human eyes. The perception of light by plants is calculated according to illumination lux, it is not the brighter that the human eye feels, the better effect of plant LED light will be. We’d better choose different LED chip ratios according to different stages of plant growth, to achieve the optimal growth during plants’ different stage.

(3) LED plant growth lamp is a cold light source that will not burn plants

LED plant lights are cold light sources, which are relative to other plant growth lights. All products related to electricity will generate heat. At present, there is no photoelectric conversion source that can achieve 100% photoelectric conversion, more or less a part of electricity will be converted into heat, it is same for LED plant lights too.
A low power LED plant growth lamp can illuminate the plant at a very close distance, especially for the stage of germination. However, if the LED plant growing lamp is attached to the plant, the heat of the LED plant growth lamp radiated to the plant for a long time will also burn the plant, needless to say the high power LED plant lights, just look at the cooling fan behind the high power LED plant lights, you will understand.

Therefore, the first thing we need to do when purchasing LED plant growth lamps is from the perspective of plant growth needs, and determine a plant lamp that is really suitable for the growth of your own plants. When using the lamp, pay attention to the illumination distance, the interval between the lamps, and the lamp working hours etc.

Full spectrum LED plant growing light function and advantages

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What is a full spectrum LED plant growing light ?

The full spectrum LED plant growing lamp is a complementary light source for plant growth developed by simulating the solar spectrum. The visible light in the spectrum with reasonable portion from the 385NM blue light to the 780NM red light, and the light curve simulates the shape of the solar spectrum. The color temperature similar with daylight color at 10:00 in the morning, with strong color rendering ability and small color temperature drift, high light efficiency, high luminious flux, can fully meet the requirements of greenhouse plant lighting.

Full spectrum LED plant growing light function

The full spectrum LED plant growth lamp was artificial light source with full spectrum developed based on the principle of plant growth and simulating the ratio of solar spectrum, with wide radiation range and brightness of more than 100 lumen per watt, which truly meets the requirements of green and energy-save lighting.
It can used as a supplemental light for agricultural greenhouses, light can be enhanced at any time of the day to help plants with photosynthesis. Especially in the winter months, you can extend the effective lighting time. Whether at dusk or at night, the illumination required by plants can be effectively extended and scientifically controlled without affected by any environmental changes.

Full spectrum LED plant growth light advantages

The full spectrum LED plant growth light was developed according to the wavelength range of sunlight required for plant growth and the required illumination. The rational usage of this light can not only help breeding and growing under conditions that are not suitable for plant growth, but also accelerate crops breeding and shortening the growth cycle of crops, eliminating the occurrence of pests and diseases.

How to choose good LED plant growing lamp manufacturer in China?

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Relatively speaking, the LED plant growing lamp industry is still a blue ocean industry, but with the rapid development of the LED plant growing lamp industry in recent years, there are more and more LED plant manufacturers appeared.
Due to the high technical requirements, most LED plant lamp manufacturers can be regarded as regular manufacturers, but there are still some bad companies in this industry, please be careful when purchasing LED plant lights, otherwise you can not get what you have paid for.
Regarding the choice of LED plant lamp manufacturers, here are a few suggestions:
(1) Look at the operating years of LED plant lights manufacturers, you can ask the supplier to provide you the business license copy, they should operating for at least three years; or you can ask your ship agent or friend in China to call them, and you can judge depends on their communication feeback.
(2) See if the manufacturers has their own workshops, many LED plant lamp traders are playing the game of factory direct sales, actually they even don’t know what are their products like. Actually regular manufacturers usually have their own official website, the corresponding sales channel on B2B platform such as alibaba.com, made-in-china.com, globalsources.com; then just ask customer service some question related to the products, regular manufacturers are generally given more professional answer.
(3) See if the LED plant lamp manufacturer has at least one relevant certification (such as CCC certification, CE certification, FCC certification, ROHS certification, SAA certification, UL certification, ETL certification etc) to ensure product quality is qualified;
(4) You should know some related knowledge about LED plant growing lamp, such as LED chip, structure, power supply, lens, reflector, cob, SMD … so as to make better judgments when encountering problems;
(5) Defining the specified demand for LED plant lights, and requesting LED plant lamp manufacturers to customize related products according to your requirements.
Based on the above five points to analyze a LED plant growing lamp manufacturer, if they can pass it, then at least it can be proved that this is a regular LED plant lamp manufacturer, and the rest is the connection between the LED plant lamp manufacturer’s products and your needs!

Main components inside a complete LED plant growing light

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LED plant growing lamp as a special light source for plant lighting, although its production process has been relatively mature, but its price is still high, there are home usage LED plant lights cost below 30$, the price is not too high; there are also a few high power commercial LED plant lights which cost several hundred dollars, what are the hidden parts inside the lamp? Let’s take a look at what components are included in a complete LED plant growing light in this article.

(1) LED plant light lighting source (LED chip)
It is the most core components of LED plant growing lamp which emit spectrum for plants. The quality of LED chip also determines the quality of LED plant growth lamps. At present, LED plant lamp chips used in China are mainly imported from abroad.

(2) LED plant light power supply (adapter)
LED plant light chip needs low-voltage direct current to emit light, and whether it is commercial electricity or household electricity, it is AC. The plant growth lamp power supply is a device which reduces the high voltage and converts AC power into DC power, then the DC power will be assigned to each LED chip.

(3) LED plant light cooling device (fan, heat sink etc)
The luminous efficiency of LED plant lamp chip is related to temperature. It decreases with the increase of temperature in the normal temperature range, and temperature also has an effect on the light decay and life span of the lamp. The function of the cooling device is to ensure the efficient and long-lasting operation of the LED plant growing lamp.

(4) LED plant light cover (glass cover, acrylic cover etc)
The main function of the LED plant light cover is dustproof and protecting the light. The glass cover and the acrylic cover are common covers used for LED plant light in the market. The glass cover has good light transmission, is not easy to be deformed, is heavy and fragile, and the acrylic cover is light in weight, non-fragile, variability and unfavorable to environmental protection.

(5) LED plant light lens / reflector cup
The role of the lens and the reflector cup is to use the physics theory of light to change the trajectory of the light to achieve the concentrating effect, and to ensure the efficient usage of light emitted by the LED plant lamp. The lens changes its propagation trajectory by the refraction of light, and the reflector changes the trajectory of the light by the reflection of the light.

(6) LED plant light housing (plastic housing, metal housing etc)
The main function of the plant growth light housing is to protect the LED plant lamp from damage during transportation, installation and usage, or protect the operation staff from electric shock, and also increase the additional value of the lamp, there are mainly metal (stainless steel, aluminum, aluminum alloy etc) housing and plastic housing in the market, in which the metal housing is used at a high rate.

(7) LED plant light internal plastic link device
Covering bare wires, mainly for insulation purpose, preventing electricity leakage from affecting the safety of users, and secondly, fixing the components inside the lamps.

(8) LED plant light aluminum pcb board
The LED plant lamp chip is directly connected to the aluminum pcb board, and the main purpose of the aluminum PCB board is fix the LED chips and dissipates heat.

(9) LED plant light smart control device
Some LED plant growth lights need intelligent control. For example, they are used in LED plant light tents, LED plant lamp factories where need timer, or simulate the phenomenon of natural sunrise and sunset light. It is necessary to add smart control devices inside the lamps to achieve remote control.

Does luminous flux a important factor for LED plant growing lights ?

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All visible light sources have an important parameter called luminous flux, and plant lights are no exception. Luminous flux is of great significance to human visual perception. On the one hand, depending on the luminous flux, the visual response of the naked eye is different. On the other hand, depending on the human visual acuity, the visual perception of the same luminous flux in the same band is not same.

Understand the relationship between the naked eye and the luminous flux, then what is the relationship between LED plant light luminous flux and plants? Let’s first look at the concept of luminous flux.

Luminous flux concept

Luminous flux is the radiant power that can be felt by the human eyes. It is the product of the radiant energy of a certain band per unit time and the relative visibility of the band, it is measured by lumens (lm). Because the human eye has different relative viewing rates for different wavelengths, even if the radiant power of different wavelengths is the same, the luminous flux is not equal. Conversely, even if the luminous flux is the same, if it is light of different wavelengths, its radiation power is not the same too.

LED plant light flux and plant growth

Luminous flux can be simply understood as the amount of light passing through given time. Just like a stream of water, it flows out, flows or flows in how much water in one second, and the luminous flux flows out, flows or flows in how much light in one second. That is to say, red light having a wavelength of 680 can reach 1000 (lm) under certain conditions, and green light having a wavelength of 520 can also reach 1000 (lm) under another condition too.

LED plant lights for plants, the most important thing is to emit the red and blue light needed by plants, or the full-spectrum plant light that simulates sunlight, to help grow high quality plants. The main factors to influence the lighting effect of LED plant lights include light quality, light intensity, and illumination time. Therefore, the same 1000 (lm) luminous flux of red and green light, one plant absorbs a lot and the other plant absorbs almost nothing. Therefore, the luminous flux cannot be completely used as an factor which may affect the light-filling effect of plants.

However, if the same wavelength red light required by plants, the greater the luminous flux, indirectly indicates that the LED plant lamp red LED chip have a large amount of light, plants can get more light, and the growth effect will be better.

In summary, for the field of planting plants with LED plant lights, the luminous flux is not the main parameter for measuring the value of LED plant growing lamps, but it can be used as a reference. If the wavelength is determined, the luminous flux is larger, the stronger light it can be provided.

Why power supply is important for LED plant growing lights ?

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When we buy LED plant lights, the most concerned is always the quality of the LED chips, the ratio of the LED chips, the wattage of the LED chips etc., but ignores the power supply, however, the LED plant light power supply as a participants of the complete LED plant light have an extremely important existence.

LED plant light power supply is an electronic component that uses electric resistance and circuit connection to control voltage and current to achieve stable lamp power, it is also called LED plant light adapter. LED plant light power supply has two core functions, transformer and rectification.

Transformer feature of LED plant light power supply

We know that each LED plant lamp LED chip can withstand a small voltage, has its rated voltage, 1W LED chip voltage is 2.9 to 3.5V, 3W LED chip working voltage is 3.1 to 4.5V, household voltage is generally about 110V/220V, if the AC directly connect to the LED plant lamp LED chips, will inevitably burn out the LED chips, we need to use power supply for voltage transformation, so that the voltage acting on a single LED chip in the range of the rated voltage.

Transformer is not a simple series connection, because we all know the principle of series voltage division, but in the process of actual use, it is inevitable that individual LED plant light chips have the shortest service life, and one has the longest service life, if it is simple connect the LED chips in series, after one LED chip is damaged, all other LED chips will not be used, so the role of the power supply is to ensure that each LED plant lamp LED chips can reach the rated voltage range, each LED chips can operate independently, and the rated voltage of the red and blue LED chip is different too, so it also needs to be separately controlled by the power supply, and each LED plant light chip can work normally.

Rectification feature of LED plant light power supply

Generally, whether it is household electricity or commercial electricity, three-phase alternating current is used, and LED plant light chips and even all LED products can only use direct current, so it is necessary to use LED plant light power supply to convert alternating current into direct current, then the current can be used for LED plant lamp chips.

As with the control voltage, each lamp chip needs to be controlled separately to ensure the stability of the growing lamp when it is used.

Each LED chip has to reach its rated power to fully illuminate, to efficiently provide light for the plants, according to power (P) = voltage (U) * current (I), the power is determined by voltage and current, it is necessary to control the voltage and current to maximize the efficacy of the LED plant lamp chip to ensure the maximum efficiency of the LED plant growing lights.

LVT LED plant growing lights always equipped with high quality certfied power supply, if you are familiar with LED industry, you can also specify your favorite power supply brand before you placing an new order.

Advantages and disadvantages of LED plant growing lights

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Lvt LED plant growing lights with features of waterproof and moisture-proof, and can be used freely for indoor and outdoor palnts to help and speed up the growth. Low labor intensity need, easy to operate, suitable for many vegetables, fruits, flowers. Today we would like to share its common advantages and disadvantages.
LED plant growing light advantages:
(1) Unlike fluorescent lamps, LED plant lights do not contain heavy metals. They use a green light source and are ideal for green production.
(2) LED plant lights are not fragile and will not be a problem when colliding, making them ideal for use on farms.
(3) LED plant lights have low energy consumption and can save the cost of light compensation.
(4) LED plant lights have a long service life. In theory, ordinary LED plant lights can last up to 100,000 hours.
Also, LVT LED plant growing lights with below features:
Power factor: > 97%
Total harmonic distortion: < 15%
Junction temperature: <90 °C
Wavelength: blue light 470nm; red light 630nm
(Note: any wavelength LED plant lights can be customized according to specific needs)

Of course, all things have advantages and disadvantages, LED plant light has it disadvantages too:
(1) Luminous angle: Traditional plant lighting can emit 360 degrees, while LED plant lights can’t do it, LVT LED grow light with beam angle of 45 degrees, 90 degrees and 120 degrees.
(2) Heat dissipation: Because the power of LED plant lights is relatively large, the heat generated during work is relatively large. If the heat is not discharged in time, the service life of the LED will be reduced, so the lamps need to be equipped with a fan to dissipate heat.
(3) Volume: high power LED plant lights have more built-in components, larger than traditional lamps.
(4) The market: LED plant lights as a new environmentally friendly products, the cost is still relatively high, can not be quickly accepted by the market, but also requires a certain running-in period. However, more and more farmers, gardeners are turning to LED plant growing lights as LED growing lights represent the market trends.

How many LED growing lights do you need and how long should they lighting every day ?

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The most important device in your planting room is the light, why? Light is the food of your plant, you need to feed your plants with high quality food to produce high quality yields. Due to its energy efficiency, durability and full spectrum, LED plant growing lights are now considered by most growers to be the best lighting choice. However, finding the right LED plant light for your plants is not an easy thing with only the options and technical parameters provided by the seller or manufacturer.
Today, we will answer two questions that we are often being asked about.

The first question: What size LED growing light do I need?

To calculate the required LED growing lamp size, you first need to calculate the exact size of the growth space.
A good experience when growing plants with LED growth light is to use at least 40 watts of light per square foot of growth space. We want to flood our plants with light so that they have a lot of energy to germinate, grow, and bloom. Therefore, we need to calculate the total square feet (length x width) of the growth space. Then we multiply this number by 40 watts to give us the approximate wattage of the light we need.
For Example: I have a 4 foot long, 3 foot wide growth space. This gave me a 12 square foot (4 feet x 3 feet) growth space. Then I multiplied this number by 40 watts, which gave me 480 watts. So, in this example, I need (an) LED growth light(s) of at least 480 watts.

How many plants can I grow?

Most LED growth lamps are typically capable of covering about 1-6 plants, in a number such that the plant does not hinder the growth of other plants, and you can also search the internet for the specific plant spacing required for plant growth. If you want to plant a larger number of plants, buy multiple LED plant growing lights, installed them side by side or a high power LED plant light to ensure that each plant gets enough light.
Important Note: 1 square foot of growth space = minimum 40 watts of LED growth light
Please note that,lighting intensity needed for different planting period is totally different. Below is a typical lighting intensity ( it is being called by PAR,it is part of the spectrum that plants use for photosynthesis, measured by μmol/m2/s; the higher the PAR output of light is, the more light the plant receives.) needed for general plant growing in different period.

Different Period Of PlantReference PAR Output Needed
Seedling200-400 (μmol/m2/s)
Veg400-600 (μmol/m2/s)
Flowering600-900 (μmol/m2/s)

Keep in mind that these are the best levels of PAR. Using a PAR output below these ranges of growth lights will not be a disaster and you will not maximize the potential of the plant. In this case, the customer should manually adjust the illumination height of the LED plant growth lamp (the lower the height of the plant lamp is, the larger the PAR output will be), so that the plant can grow better. For business users, we recommend you to buy high-power LED plant lights.

Second question: How many hours should the plant growing lights be illuminated each day?

LED plant growth lamp for indoor gardening

Seedlings and high light needed plants
For optimal growth, seedlings and high light needed plants were placed approximately 6 inches below the LED plant light which containing the full spectrum light, which required approximately 16 to 18 hours of artificial light per day. By placing reflectors around the LEDs to ensure they achieve uniform illumination and maximum light intensity, this will reflect all light to the top and sides of the plant. You can also light up 24 hours every day if you like.
Low light and medium light need plants
Most common indoor plants can grow well under artificial light for 12 to 14 hours without any sun exposure. Medium light needed plants require approximately 6 hours of sunshine per day, so they can benefit from higher light intensities and work best when they are no more than 1 foot away from LED plant lights. Low light needed plants usually grow well in shade or in direct sunlight of less than four hours, so you can set them 2 to 3 feet away from the fixture. Although these plants have different light requirements, at least 6 hours of artificial lighting should be guaranteed when provided by artificial lighting. If your plants receive some daylight, but do not meet their needs, such as from nearby windows, then you should provide them with an additional 2 to 6 hours of artificial light at night.

LED plant growth lamp for outdoor gardening

The function of LED growing lamp is to supplement light. Firstly it can strengthen the light intensity of the blue and red areas in the case of sunshine during the day, and promote the photosynthesis of plants, secondly to compensate and promote the plants when there is no sunshine at night and speed up the growth process;

The lighting time of the LED plant lights needs to be considered which growth stage the plant is in, such as the nursery period or the flowering period. This can greatly reduce the unnecessary consumption of energy, and at the same time effectively increase the yield of fruits and vegetables.