The Ultimate Guide to Selecting the Best LED Lights

If you are just starting out, it can be rather challenging trying to select the best lights for your grow room. There are a multitude of factors to consider, so we thought we would take the hassle and stress out of choosing suitable lights by guiding you through the points to consider, so you don’t waste money and buy grow lights that maximize your first harvest.

How to choose the best grow light

Here is what you need to keep in mind when you are looking to select the best LED grow light for your area.

The area of coverage required: This is central to the success of your grow. It is important to identify the number of LED lights that you will need. Not only this, you will need to consider which LED lights will be able to offer the best coverage. We would recommend that to cover as much space as possible, the grow lights should be positioned adjacent to each other.
The phases of the plant growth: If you believe you will require a full growth cycle, you will most likely need to consider buying full-spectrum LED grow lights, otherwise, your grow will be unsuccessful.
Angle of the lens of the LED: It is also important to consider the dispersion angle of the LED bulbs that you are looking to buy. Bulbs which have larger angles can offer more coverage to your growing area, with smaller angles having less coverage.
Your budget: As with everything, we’d all like to buy the best LED bulbs available, but often our budgets aren’t able to extend to that expenditure. We would recommend considering which factors of a grow light are most important to you, and focus on lights that are strong in your chosen area that fall within your budget.

best spectrum lights

Why we believe that you should select full-spectrum LED grow lights

Full spectrum LED grow lights have only recently in the last few years come onto the market, meaning knowledge within the growing community isn’t very strong for these grow lights. Many growers stick to what they know with their large fluorescent grow lights. So why are these full spectrum LED grow lights better than conventional fluorescent grow lights? Well, in short, these bulbs act like real sunlight. This in turn leads to:

Higher yields
Less running costs compared to fluorescent bulbs.
Less heat is generated from Full Spectrum LED grow lights, and this means less fans are required to cool the grow area down.
The Full Spectrum grow lights don’t seem to flicker, or need ballast.
Last longer. It is not uncommon for a Full Spectrum LED grow light to last for approximately 50,000 hours. This is far longer than fluorescent bulbs.

Which Full Spectrum LED Grow Lights Would We Recommend?

Here are two Full Spectrum grow lights that we would recommend.

Advanced Platinum Series P900

platinum LED lights

All of the Advanced Platinum Series grow lights make use of the full spectrum technology we spoke about above, whilst keeping the temperature of your growing environment cool, without compromising the quality of the light given off. The P900 grow light is fitted with what the manufacturers call “3x intensity” power, where the lights fitted within the P900 are three times brighter than other competing LED grow lights.

The P900 makes use of twelve bands of light wavelength, including infrared and UV. These are wavelengths of light that cannot be seen by the human eye. This is why the P900 can mimic the sun so well, as it can offer wavelengths of light that standard grow lights wouldn’t be able to offer.

It is possible to easily control the settings of your P900 grow light. You can keep it on a low setting by using the unique “Veg” switch that the light comes with, which is ideal for when you reach the sprouting stage. For periods when you need that little bit more power, you can then hit the “Bloom” switch. The growth of the plants is maximized thanks to the 90-degree angle that the lenses of the LEDs are positioned at. This means that light can be sent down into the canopy of your plants.

We feel that the P900 can readily take the place of a 1000-watt HPS light at full power. We have taken an average price of 12c per KW hour for running a 1000-watt HPS, and the P900 can provide better quality light with improved intensity at 50% of the price – not to mention the savings on cooling your growing environment.

While this isn’t a budget system, we would recommend that you invest in LED grow lights of this quality to maximize the success of your grow. The lights are suitable for use worldwide, as they will accept 110 V and 220 V inputs. The warranty is also excellent. There is a 90-day money back guarantee, so you can try the lights out to see if they are suitable for your needs and return them if they don’t fit the bill – no questions asked. Coupled with this is the comprehensive 5-year complete warranty, meaning that these lights are really worth investing in.

G8LED 600 Watt MEGA LED Grow Light

600 megawat led lights

If you would like to try another LED grow light that doesn’t come from the Advanced Platinum Series, the G8LED 600 Watt MEGA LED Grow Light is well worth considering. This particular model of LED grow light was voted the “Best LED Grow Light” from High Times Magazine in 2016.

The G8LED lights make use of 8-bands of wavelength, with IR and UV included. This ensures the light system is able to cover the entire growth cycle of your cannabis. We noticed when we used these lights that they were still cool, even after 24 hours of continuous operation. The 2-year warranty, while not as good as the 5-Year warranty offered by the P900, is still a nice thing to have for peace of mind. The build quality is also very good for these lights, since they are made right here in the USA. There are no cheap parts, and these lights will last for many years.

For more LED lights for sale, we recommend that you check out http://www.420growing.com/, who have a full and comprehensive range of LED lights for sale, as well as other growing accessories.