logo
logo
Sign in

Where to Buy Grow Lights & Buying Guide for Beginners?

avatar
hydroponics led grow lights ECO Farm

With the rise of indoor gardening, no doubt grow lights are becoming more popular every day. But with so many types, quality, misleading wattage, manufacturers, complex terminology & grow space calculations, it’s definitely hard to find & buy the perfect grow light that suits your needs. Even more so if you are a beginner.

If you are wondering where to buy grow lights and which grow lights will be perfect for your needs, this article simplifies everything including true wattage, coverage calculations, type of grow lights, efficiency, warranty, and best place to buy grow lights from.

The goal is to help you choose the right grow light that meets you need. Plus, I have added links from where you can purchase them. 

TYPES OF GROW LIGHTS

In order to best support the stages of growth described above, you need to pick and choose the types of lights that provide the spectral light your plant needs. Before making decisions, be sure to know your vegetative needs through their stages of growth, and also consider your own preferences in choosing your type of light.

HIGH-INTENSITY DISCHARGE (HID)

HID bulbs are lit from the combustion of the type of gas found within the bulb. These require a specific type of hood set up and also a ballast to help regulate the electricity provided to the bulb to keep it from burning out. These types of lights can produce the entire spectral range depending on the type of light you choose.

FLUORESCENT

Fluorescent lighting is for more than just your workspaces and garages. Popular due to their long lifespan, these bulbs produce a more blue range of light and provide great support for early growth and maturity.

LIGHT EMITTING DIODE (LED)

 

LEDs are popular for their small size, cool usage, and ability to customize panels with to provide a more full spectrum for plants to utilize. LEDs are considered very affordable and can be found in many useful household items because of it.

DEFINING A GROW LIGHT FOR PLANTS

Simply put, a grow light is an artificial light that mimics the light’s natural spectrum to encourage the natural production and growth cycle of plants. They plug straight into your electrical outlets like any other plants, and they’re easy to set up. Many of these grow lights for plants have varying brightness switches you can use to cycle through the various light requirements for germination and flowering.

These lights are popular for seasoned horticulturalists and hobby gardeners because they can help you start your seedlings and grow different plants and vegetables all year round. You can choose from a variety of different shapes, styles, and sizes, and this allows you to fit them into your space easily. They also have a broad price range that allows anyone to buy one without breaking their budget. 

HOW TO USE YOUR GROW LIGHT FOR PLANTS

You want your plant to get the most out of growing light when you use it because this gives you the best chance of having a successful crop all year round. If you have an HID light, you want to keep it at least 12 inches from your plants, fluorescent lights should be as close as possible without burning them up to 12 inches, and an LED light can be six inches or more from your plant.

You typically put your grow light above your plants to encourage photosynthesis. As your plants start to sprout and grow, you’ll raise your light. Keep your light at the optimal distance depending on the style, strength, and whatever you want to grow.

Your plants need as close to the full light spectrum as possible because this mimics natural sunlight. You measure the different colors of the light spectrum by the temperatures they emit. High-quality grow lights emit more than one color, and they can cost more to do so. 

Best Grow Lights for Beginners

NextLight Mega Quantum Board LED Grow Light

The NextLight Mega LED Grow Light contains American made, full spectrum bright white LEDs. The spectrum is designed to closer match the sun than even your traditional HPS. Using the best LEDs money can buy, NextLight can ensure longer life and better performance.

LED grow lights went from a 2 band spectrum to 4 band. As time went on, they began to add more bands to try to improve spectrum. What makes NextLight different is the use of full spectrum bright white diodes. No need for LED grow room glasses. The NextLight 650w unit produces a bright white light which makes seeing your canopy much easier. No more looking through the purple haze.

 

Product safety is a cornerstone of NextLight. That is why they are proud to be one of the few grow lights with the Underwriters Laboratories Inc. approval for damp and dry conditions.

PhotonTek X 465W PRO LED

Maximize your yields & profits with ChilLED LED Grow Lights. Switch from HPS to ChilLED and increase your yields & profits 30 - 70+% without adding any additional heat, energy costs or cooling requirements. Market-leading efficiency combined with our tunable Yield Max spectrum equals unmatched performance.

 

Growcraft lights have VERY high light output and unless your plants are already acclimated to high light intensity, it is best to start slow with the light hanging high and possibly also dimmed. Then monitor plant reaction over a few days and slowly adjust as needed.

LEX Grow Mini 300W Commercial LED Grow Light

The Mini covers a 4 ft x 4 ft flower footprint and a 5 ft x 5 ft veg footprint. The Lex Grow Mini produces a high intensity full spectrum light designed to efficiently replace any 600w HPS on the market. Using only 300 watts, this light is perfect for growers looking to cover larger areas using less.

The Lex Grow Mini is designed to meet the needs of home growers. We understand excessive power consumption, bulb replacements and heat are the biggest problems indoor growers face. The Lex Grow line alleviates all of those issues. Coming in at over 2.5 PPF/Watt, the Lex Grow is the most efficient full spectrum LED, period.

Lex Grow Mini Full Spectrum provides the same sun-like qualities plants love without the negatives of high energy requirements and high heat. Using Lex Grow’s Full Spectrum you will see faster growth and most importantly increased production overall.

ECO Farm Waterproof 200W 301B LED GROW LIGHT

ECO Farm WaterProof 200W 301B LED Grow Light no need to add extra ballast with the LED grow light.Grow with Full Spectrum grow light, more yield, more energy saving and less heat. Huge aluminum heat sink with fins, 3D heat design can conduct heat rapidly to keep light source a lower temperature and extend its lifespan.

Despite some downsides that come with it, we found that it can be a solid budget LED light for beginner growers. We can give a buy recommendation for this product.

ECO Farm grow light features a user friendly "Full Spectrum" design, you can easily grow your plants in any growth cycle required like germination, seedling, veg, flower.

Final Words

I have listed both high-quality USA made grow lights and cheaper but decent lights made in China. Whether we like it or not, we all have our budget limitations. So, with the options above you can choose wisely depending on your budget and needs.

I hope your search for where to buy grow lights has met a successful end.

To finish off this little guide, I'd like to urge you all to think critically and not take any claims made online as facts unless you can verify it. Sometimes an email to the manufacturer asking how they did their test and provide any kind of evidence is enough. Best way is obviously to see indisputable evidence in the form of video test reports that cannot be faked or modified.

Understanding the basics of how lights work and knowing what numbers to look for is necessary for you to make a smart purchase decision.

collect
0
avatar
hydroponics led grow lights ECO Farm
guide
Zupyak is the world’s largest content marketing community, with over 400 000 members and 3 million articles. Explore and get your content discovered.
Read more