Best 480W LED Grow Light Reviews 2020
The LED Grow Light must be used properly for optimum growth and yield. The most common mistakes with LEDs are not having enough light and not placing the light at the proper distance. If you do not provide enough light, your plants will not grow to their full potential. Similarly, incorrect light placement will also not allow plants to grow to their full potential. Placing a light too close will stunt growth, too far will cause stretching. Follow the recommended coverage areas listed on the Details Page of each light for optimal light penetration and coverage. Keep in mind that there are many variables to indoor growing with lighting being one of the most critical.
Keeping the proper distance between your LED grow lights and your plants is important for robust photosynthesis and growth. Plants will reach for the much-coveted light source just like they grow towards the sun in outdoor conditions. Increase the distance between the top of the plants’ canopy and the light source as the wattage increases.
How Close Should LED Grow Lights Be to Plants?
Indoor grow lights of different power ratings will perform best at different distances. Which LED grow lights are the best for my space? The 240 Watt LED Grow Light is for 2-4 mature plants, with a distance of 12-24 inches from the top of the canopy. The larger 480 Watt LED Grow Light is for 4-8 mature plants, with a distance of 14-30 inches from the plant canopy. These lights also work well for mother plants and cloning.
Best 480W LED Grow Light Reviews 2020
ECO Farm 480W V3 LM301H Movable Quantum Board
ECO Farm LED Grow Lights utilize the latest in high yielding LEDs technology today-Samsung LM301H chip + Osram Red 660nm + Osram IR 730nm + LG UV 395nm, suitable for all the stages of your plants and delivers powerful light output and uniform canopy penetration to resulting maximum higher yields.
Each ECO Farm QB V3 grow light is designed with knob dimming and UV&IR can be independently controlled.
Adding high quality driver box on it makes it safer for growers to use the quantum board.
Equinox 480W LED Grow Light
The Equinox 1000 utilizes the latest LED technology available from Samsung to deliver an impressive 1057μmol/s. Drawing only 480 watts this light offers a 56% energy reduction when replacing a 1000W HPS light. Trichome production is increased by 15% - 20% and crop cycle is decreased by 7 - 10 days. Cooling costs are reduced by over half.
Expect 90,000 hours (20 years @ 12hrs/day) of use with less than 10% light depreciation. Proudly manufactured in Canada this light is backed by a 5-year full replacement warranty. The rugged workhorse design makes this fixture the obvious choice for growers seeking a high production and low energy lighting solution.
Buying LED Grow Lights: Factors To Consider
Whether you’re new to growing indoors altogether or just new to growing cannabis plants with LED plant lights, you may not be familiar with some of the unique characteristics of LED lighting. Here are the main factors you want to check on when purchasing LED horticultural lights for your cannabis grow.
The factors are listed in no particular order. Only you can know which one is most important to you, given your specific growing situation.
Wattage
You may have noticed that most LED lights have two different wattage figures. One of these is the potential wattage and the other the actual wattage. The potential wattage is the wattage the light could run at if the LED chips were running at full power. For example, a light with two hundred 3w LEDs has a potential wattage of 600.
LED chips are never run at full power, though. Doing so would considerably shorten their life span. Generally, they are run at 50 to 60% of their potential power. This is their real wattage and is the amount of electricity the light will actually consume.
Light Spectrum
Most indoor horticultural LED lights use LEDs in multiple colors. The majority will be various shades of red and blue, with the better lights also using some white LEDs as well as some infrared and ultra-violet ones.
This mix of colors gives you all the light plants, including cannabis, need for every stage of growth: cloning, veg and bloom. It is referred to as full-spectrum light and is generally what you want.
There are a few exceptions. If you are looking for a light to only grow clones or to just veg plants, then you might want to check out one with mostly blue LEDs. If you are looking for a light to supplement your existing setup to give your plants a boost during the flowering stage, you’ll want one with mostly red LEDs.
Light Intensity
For LED lights, the most widely used measure of intensity is PAR (technically, it is PPFD and not PAR, but most still refer to it as PAR). It stands for Photosynthetically Active Radiation and is used to measure the amount of light in the wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. Some brands will list the lumen output, but that isn’t all that useful for grow lights.
Some brands give PAR readings for their indoor plant lights; others do not. Those that do often only give one value, which doesn’t really tell you much about its effectiveness for vegetative growing, much less blooming.
Coverage Area
This refers to the area a grow light can cover while still providing enough light for the plants in that space. For the flowering stage of growth, plants need more light, so you will have to move the light fixtures closer to the canopy. This increases the intensity, but also decreases the coverage area.
This is why LED lights have a smaller coverage area for the flowering stage than they do for vegging. Always make sure the space given by the manufacturer is for blooming, unless you only plan to veg with your light.
Final Thoughts
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.