Full Spectrum LED Grow Lights: The Truth You Need to Know 2021

For decades, indoor growers have relied on artificial light sources such as HID, High-Pressure Sodium, and Fluorescent to mimic the sun’s rays in an indoor environment.  Whether used for soil-grown plants, hydroponics systems or aquaponics systems, these light sources all have varying degrees of effectiveness.

Now there’s a new player in the game, LEDs (Light-emitting Diodes). It’s a technology that’s been around for decades, mostly as instrument panel indicator lights, but only recently are LEDs being applied to higher intensity light uses such as indoor growing.

The primary benefit of LED grow lights over the more established light sources is significantly reduced heat and reduced power consumption.   Because they produce less heat than the more commonly used HIDs, then they are more energy efficient and require significantly less expense to ventilate and cool. Commercial growers and home hobbyists have begun to recognize these benefits and are now equipping greenhouses and indoor spaces with the best LED full spectrum grow lights to cultivate their crops.

As many of us learned in grade school, white light is comprised of a broad spectrum of colors.  So, it might seem logical to use white LEDs to provide the best color range for your plants.  Unfortunately, white LEDs are inefficient light producers as compared to individually colored LEDs, and they provide colors that your plants don’t make use of.

Many so-called “Full Spectrum” lights utilize many white LEDs.  White LEDs are not a bad thing, but too many of them can make for a less efficient grow light.

IR (Infrared) light is also a component of many of the light available today, and it is also considered to be beneficial to plant growth.

Ultimately, most LED grow lights on the market will grow your plants, if you have enough of them for the area you’re trying to light.  But, you’re not here to just grow your plants, you’re here to maximize their growth.  The best LED grow lights offer a wide spectrum of colors including UV light for plants.

LED stands for light-emitting diodes. LED grow lights have rapidly come down in price and home growers everywhere are starting to make the switch to solely using them as their lighting option.

These lighting systems produce extremely low heat, come ready to plug-and-play, and can produce high yields with incredible energy efficiency.

Whereas HIDs require a reflector and ballast for operation, LED lights do not. They can last for decades, whereas HID bulbs will often need to be replaced every couple of years. But, one of the main reasons LED grow lights are regarded as the best is due to the spectrum they produce.

LED grow lights are available in different forms, so let’s look at the pros and cons of each so you can find the right LED light for you:

LED Grow Light Panels

Panels are the most common type of LED grow light and most of our list will consist of LED panels.

They include heatsinks for removing heat, a driver (think of it as a ballast), and often come with a warranty.

When you think of LED grow lights, you are more than likely thinking of an LED panel, as these are the only type of LED really suitable for full state growth.

Pros:

• Full spectrum with switches for both the vegetative and flowering stage - can be combined


• Comes ready to plug right into a standard house outlet


• Incredibly long lifespan - the bulbs typically last for decades.

Cons:

• Most expensive type of LED grow light

If you keep the information written in the article in mind, you can easily go out to market and buy a LED Grow Lights, right? Hell No!.For those who don’t know, Led Grow Lights come with several things you need to consider before you actually spend the hard earned money. They have different other type light as MH (metal halide) light and HPS (high pressure sodium) light.

The primary principle that LEDs operate on is electroluminescence. Discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, this phenomenon has spanned many inventions but it wasn’t produced commercially before the seventies. Hewlett-Packard was the first company that started producing them in large scale and one of their biggest support lay in the researchers from Monsanto.

The color of the lights that LEDs emit is pretty much dependent on the type of material that was used for building a LED: ones with sapphire component would produce blue light, others that had a phosphorus component would shine white light etc. Initially, they were very expensive to produce, but following the Moore’s Law, the cost of producing LEDs was plummeting paired with their increased efficiency.

Well, pretty much everything that has to do with electronics. Groups of LEDs form a LED lamp. That means that if you have a certain number of LEDs in one space they make a lamp together, so it’s understandable why we use them for lighting. Whenever you were stuck on a crossroad, you spend your time staring at one LED lamp nervously waiting for the color switch.

That’s right,  traffic lights are actually LED lamps because of their penetrating power: they can be seen through the thickest of fogs. Why would you waste your money on some 19th-century technology such as incandescent light bulbs if you can have state of the art light system that your government has been using for quite a while?

LEDs also help you browse through channels. They are an integral part of any remote control system. Your remote is equipped with one and it is visible on the tip of your remote. Pretty much most of your home appliances have LEDs in them: digital clocks, oven, and fridge displays etc.

LEDs are essentially semiconductors meaning that they can selectively conduct electricity through a circuit. They consist of a power source and a P-N junction. P-N junction is essentially a small piece of silicone that has a positive(P) and negative(N) side. When electrons flow through a circuit they jump from the negative to the positive side and produce light in that process.

ECO Farm ECOZ 700W Samsung 301H LED Grow Light

PROS

• Wideband with powerful CREE drivers


• Quite and high quality


• Great for small grows

CONS

• Won’t penetrate a thick canopy

• Plants have a different use for a different wavelength. Blue light is mostly associated with plant growth as it helps the plant in springing leaves and growing. On the other hand, red light is the most important light color for flowering and stemming.


• However, photosynthesis is not enough. Many plants need the natural change of light to grow. Natural change doesn’t mean a sudden absence of light. If you ever spent a couple of hours before the sunset in the natural light, you must’ve noticed that a change in light occurs gradually as  the sun sets. So, if you are growing indoors you will need a perfect emulation of sunlight. You can’t just flip the switch and expect your plants to be happy with it. Remember when you were a kid, and your dad comes in and turns the light off? Did you like it? Well, surprise! Your plants hate that too.


• That’s where LEDs come in handy. Since a LED lamp consists of many individual LEDs , you can buy one that has both blue and red light and just change the tone of light as the day goes on. Your plants will be happy and they will reward you accordingly. If you are a cannabis lover, LED lights represent the best solution for your gentle weed.

Grow lights, in particular, are the most important because essentially what they are doing is that they are emulating the natural light and heat that the sun provides to the plants. Plants need light and heat because they use that to create pigments and energy with processes such as photosynthesis. This is what helps them grow stronger and healthier. Furthermore, especially for cannabis plants, grow lights are of another importance – based on the kind of heat and light you provide at different stages you can somewhat alter the chemical composition of the plants getting a stronger or a lighter flavor in the weed that you are going to smoke! Hence, it is essential to know about grow lights and understand their functions. ECO Farm LED grow light deserves for your try!