Author Topic: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?  (Read 594 times)

Midwestfruitjungle

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Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« on: February 21, 2024, 07:02:16 PM »
Currently moving into an apartment and, there aren’t exactly floor to ceiling south facing windows. Anyone have any suggestions for discrete indoor grow lights that would give my trees a little help during winter without looking like an industrial grower.

I had some cheap Amazon strip lights but almost all of my plants in the grow tent stopped growing And even started dropping leaves so I took them out. Any recommendations are appreciated!

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2024, 07:06:09 PM »
I've bought some really bright ones off amazon for around $30 a few years ago and they are pretty good.
Now I don't think brightness and plant happiness are correlated...but it worked pretty good!

One of my friends sells some of the high tech stuff and wow one panel is around $500+

Thefatcuban

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2024, 07:36:41 PM »
I'd go with HLG grow lights. Brand new they're pretty expensive so when I was getting my setup started again a few years ago I just bought a bunch used on Ebay. I probably have 10,000 - 12,000 hours on the lights since I bought them and no issues.

Spider Farmer is also a decent cheaper option but not as good as HLG's lights.
Josh

Giant Gecko

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2024, 08:58:03 AM »
I need to get some clarification, are these grow lights for a grow tent or do you want it to illuminate a corner of a room? I’m also assuming you just want to keep the plants healthy during the cold seasons and bring outdoors in frost free conditions.

For my grow tents I bought Atreum led grow boards for a very good deal, they are basically a knock off HLG Quantum boards 4K spectrum with Samsung 301B high quality led diodes. Each panel does best at 60W which will illuminate roughly a 2x2ft grow tent. I built 2 together riveted on aluminum angle and connected to a 120W led driver. It comes out cheaper to buy a bigger driver than separate drivers for each board.These are very energy efficient for how much lumens they produce.

For bigger tents or larger room areas the best bang for the $ would be the 315w LEC ceramic metal halide. They are still quite energy efficient but do put off more heat than led which during Winter wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’d go with a 4K spectrum bulb too. One of these lights up a 3x3 tent brightly up to a 4x4. In a room with 8 ft ceiling, 6x6 to maybe an 8x8 area max. As for discrete they are bright aluminum color but could be painted on the outside with high temperature resistant paint to help blend in with your walls or ceiling.

Julian R

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2024, 10:37:25 AM »
I'm not sure what you would consider inexpensive, but I have a couple of the 2x2 spider farmer SF1000's.  You can get them on sale for under $100 on amazon sometimes if you keep an eye out (got my 2nd one last nov for $95).  I use them to start seedlings inside 24x7 at the lowest light setting.  I've used them for anything from super hot pepper seedlings to rare Eugenia's.  I will say after a certain point the plants will reallllly want that natural light but I've had a couple of my more rare or plants that are special to me hang out around the peripheral of the lights throughout the winter this year and they seem to be doing just fine.  Here's what my little winter huddle corner looks like today:




Giant Gecko

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2024, 11:36:30 AM »










Here are the led Quantum board style lights in my 39”x39” grow tent. 4 boards at 60w and one 240w driver. I could have made all 4 on together on 1 frame but wanted to be able to have one side higher if needed for taller plants. This light is bright which is needed for many of the Cerrado species I grow. For plants that are used to shadier environments 2 of these 60w boards would be enough in here. Spent around $150 to build this setup.






This is my seedling tent which is a tent laid on its side so now it’s over 6ft in length and only 2.5ft tall. This I used 2 120w drivers and they are very bright so I dim them to about 75% output. This gives a very even coverage of light. The boards are very versatile to whatever space you have and light intensity needed. Spent around $180 on this 4 board setup due to separate drivers but it was easier to build, install and more flexibility in this situation.

bryan

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2024, 12:37:38 PM »
For small setups I have bought those cheap aluminum clamp on lights and put in a grow light bulb from lowes or homedepot.

K-Rimes

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #7 on: February 22, 2024, 02:09:57 PM »
I purchased HLG lights for a grow tent, and after a lot of research decided to go for quantum board style LED lights from Alibaba, specifically from Meiju. They both have 10s of thousands of hours on them by now.

I've found absolutely no difference in effectiveness between the two boards. I tried pulling the HLG out and ran 2x 240w Meijus for a run. Identical results. I have 2x Meiju, 1x HLG. I wouldn't bother spending triple on the HLG again.

https://meijiuled.en.alibaba.com/productgrouplist-916214891/QB_LED_Grow_Lights.html?spm=a2700.shop_cp.88.55

Arrived at my house for about $170 delivered.

sc4001992

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #8 on: February 22, 2024, 02:40:41 PM »
Can you just use  the LED lights / panel that is sold at the local hardware store like Home Depot and
Lowe's ?

I don't use any for indoor growing but I did buy many (8) for dirt cheap last November) when Home Depot had their clearance sale for the year to get rid of old inventory for the year. I paid about $8-$15 each for LED lights that normally sell for $29-$59 each, the best deal was a $69 20" circular LED ceilling light (panel inside) for 1 cent. I thought it was an error so I bought the second one and it scanned in at 1 cent, best deal I have found..

« Last Edit: March 10, 2024, 10:04:49 AM by sc4001992 »

Midwestfruitjungle

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #9 on: February 23, 2024, 04:46:50 PM »
Awesome. Thanks for all of the recommendations! I have some time before I need them but I wanted a heads start.

Seanny

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #10 on: February 23, 2024, 06:14:21 PM »
Use an app on your phone to measure sun light intensity.
Measure your light set up.
Intensity above 1/2 of sun is starting point.

foresight

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #11 on: February 23, 2024, 08:42:00 PM »
If you're looking to grow plants to maturity, the ideal lighting range is probably in the range of 25-50 watts per square foot of tent. With that said, most plants will grow fine in less light. If you're just looking to keep stuff alive in the winter then you can get away with very little. I moved last year and I don't have anywhere near enough winter tent space, so I've got probably a hundred plants or so that have been just sitting in 24/7 darkness for all of this past winter and the majority are staying alive just fine. I've got a 100W 2x2, 34W 2x2, 430W 5x5, and 100W 4x4 currently and I just try to orient the plants based on how much light they want. I like the SpiderFarmer bar LEDs as the prices aren't too bad, though I also have some HLG QBs and a cheap 34W GE LED bulb from Amazon that seems to perform just as well as the 100W HLG board in a 2x2. I was originally looking at Kingbrite since it's supposed to be the best in terms of price-to-performance, but the time and extra cost of shipping from China kind of ruins the value unless you're ordering in bulk or are fine with a potentially long wait.

Avofan

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #12 on: February 25, 2024, 12:43:57 AM »
Really depends what you’re growing
Rooting cuttings like fig or mulberry I’ve found a single grow bulb works fine - they don’t have much roots so don’t want intense light
The spider farmer type are made for growing weed or tomatoes and is overkill for most other things. Where I live they cost a couple dollars a day to run.
Not mentioned yet is shop lights - if you can find some used shop lights that take the fluorescent tubes, most can be retrofitted with grow bulbs and it’s cheap! Especially if you can get the shop lights for free. You can add or take away tubes as needed to adjust light intensity

markydan

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2024, 02:53:52 PM »
I purchased Atreum led grow boards for my grow tents at a very reasonable price; they are essentially 4K spectrum knockoffs of HLG Quantum boards using Samsung 301B premium led diodes. Each panel performs best at 60W, which can light a 2x2ft grow tent. I put two together, riveted on metal angles, and linked them to a 120W LED driver. It is cheaper to purchase a larger driver than individual drivers for each board. These are quite energy efficient for the amount of lumens they generate.

Darenext, would you recommend a particular brand? The cheapest I see is $180 (designed for 2X2 ft grow areas).
I need at least three of these. Atreum Lightning has them for $140, but they've been out of stock since January.

1rainman

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2024, 04:22:15 PM »
What are you growing? I used a cheap full spectrum fluorescent bulb just a regular light bulb but fluorescent. Has to be full spectrum and look bright white. The orange ones are not good for plants other than trying to induce flowering in fall but they can’t feed on them. Then I mix that with a full spectrum bright white reptile fluorescent with uv. And put them near a window to get any sun that comes in. A fluorescent bulb alone has a very narrow spectrum that the plant uses so it works better with the reptile bulb which has a narrow spectrum that is slightly different from the regular then the tiny amount of sun they get kept my Meyer lemon doing ok during winter. Did not work on bananas. As mentioned above something like weed or tomatoes needs really bright light fluorescents can be used if the plant is almost touching the bulb but it will burn if it touches it because fluorescents alone you can grow plants with but they put out the spectrum and intensity of some more expensive bulbs. But those sunlight reptile bulbs do look like real sunlight. I like those for myself in the winter up north when the lack of sun is depressing so it’s like a dual use the light is beautiful and cheap. I think a reptile flourescent bulb is like $30 and the regular fluorescent is a few bucks. The plants don’t use the uv but it puts out a really nice spectrum similar to sunlight.

My stuff did better outside in summer but those bulbs would keep them going through winter. The regular fluorescent you can put about an inch from the plant. The uv sunlight bulb has to be a distance or plants can lose leaves. And only the sun bulb can sometimes cause leaf loss sometimes not. But the sun bulb and regular full spectrum together or alternating works best. I don’t know why maybe the uv burns it but it does improve the plant mixed with the other.

If you get a fluorescent uv bulb that is purple it can be used at a distance but they don’t use much of that spectrum. Those are the desert uv. Or an orange house bulb I don’t think they use any of that. As long as it looks bright white it’s good to use but if it’s uv don’t put it close to the plant. The main one they like is actually the cheap White House bulb. I used it on seedlings and they grew towards the bulb not the window.

pineislander

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Re: Any good inexpensive but effective grow lights?
« Reply #15 on: February 29, 2024, 06:05:56 AM »
These are professional quality and price was $50. They worked well for microgreens.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXVQLBX?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details