Cheap Grow Lights For Weed For 2024
Brandon Forder May 8, 2024 1:11 PM
Indoor cannabis growing can be expensive. Everything from seeds and nutrition to lighting and ventilation must be purchased, as well as more modern equipment like CO2 regulators, temperature controllers, and more. In both soil and hydroponics systems, the expenditures can quickly mount.
You can make your money back in a few months by growing the correct amount of plants, but not everyone has the start-up capital to start cultivating for a significant harvest immediately. The good news is that saving money on grow equipment is possible, even at a small scale.
It is our goal to present you with a list of the most cost-effective lights for marijuana farmers in 2018. It is possible to acquire a number of various types of grow lights, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
A complete package of HID or HPS lighting, including the ballast, bulbs, and reflector hood, often costs less than $200 to install. Using this method has the disadvantage of requiring yearly bulb replacement and requiring separate vegetative and blooming bulbs.
Moreover, HPS uses a lot of electricity, which will raise your monthly electric cost. Only vegetative growth can benefit from CFL or fluorescent illumination. If you are cloning or germinating seedlings, you can use them in conjunction with HPS.
The most recent development in grow light technology is LED, or Light Emitting Diode. Smaller LED grow lights can be found for a fraction of the price of the larger lights, which can cost up to $500 each, if you only have a few plants.
As your operation grows, you don't have to buy new, larger lights because LEDs use less energy and cost less money in the long term. You may even combine LEDs to save even more money. We'll go through how to make your own LED lights in the section that follows.
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Types
HID Lights
Combustion of the gas inside the High-Intensity Discharge bulb produces light in this type of bulb. Using these bulbs necessitates the use of special hoods and ballasts to ensure that they don't overheat.
Depending on the model, high-intensity discharge (HID) grow lights can produce light across the full visible spectrum. They are extremely potent and can be used in both the blooming and vegetative stages of the growing process.
The price of HID grow lights is very reasonable. There are complete kits for less than $200 that include ballast, lights, and a reflective cowl. There are less expensive LED grow lights that are just as effective for large-scale cultivation.
Two downsides of HID grow lights are mentioned. Because they wear out so quickly, you'll have to replace them every year. As for the second, they may become rather hot, so you'll need cooling fans if you plan on using them.
Fluorescent Lights
Fluorescent lights aren't limited to office and garage lighting. In the early stages of growth and maturation, these lights are perfect.
Those growers who don't want to deal with intricate ventilation systems or who don't want to have their grow space filled with distractingly loud cooling fans choose these systems. Fluorescent grow lights, on the other hand, are less expensive and require less electricity than HID bulbs.
They have a few drawbacks, however. This implies you'll need at least a dozen or more lights in the reflective hood if you want any success with them.
If you're looking for a plant's early and late stages of growth in particular, you'll want to go elsewhere. If you want to keep the cost down, you'll have to utilize a different sort of grow light during the flowering period.
LED Lights
In terms of grow lights, LEDs are the latest and greatest. While a single device can cost up to $500, there are several variants that give the same functionality at a much lower price.
Their cost increases as they grow in size. If you're using a compact grow tent like CoolGrows, you won't go wrong with a small LED grow light unit.
Due to their high efficiency, LEDs won't raise your electric bill significantly.
As your business grows, you may even combine red and blue LEDs into a single device. This means you don't need many grow lights to keep your plants well-illuminated over their whole life spans, and you can simply set up one of these puppies in your grow tent (or area).
Light intensity
It's possible to grow your plant from seedling to harvest with the best affordable LED grow lights. 20 to 40 moles of light are emitted per day.
PPFD light levels between 600 and 925 uMols (for 18-hour veg) or uMols (for 12-hour flower) are needed to reach the 40-mole yield threshold.
For grow lights, you don't need to be concerned about watts as long as you have enough light intensity. Wattage isn't a reliable measure of performance. You may find out more about this subject here.
Good Spectrum
Cheap LED grow lights with a well-balanced spectrum are the best for growing plants. Too much blue or too much red can leave you in the dark when it comes to the vegetative and flowering stages of growth.
It's still a work in progress, so certain grow lights will have a slightly different spectrum. However, in general, you should utilize a white spectrum or a balance of blue and red in your LED grow light (purple looking). You may see this information by looking at the light's spectrum.
Coverage Area
The best low-cost LED grow lights will adequately illuminate your growing space without breaking the bank. Be skeptical of promises about the light's coverage area made by lower-priced lamps.
Over a 2x2 foot area, most "best cheap" lights fall short. Check read my article on the best LED grow lights for 4x4 grow tents to find lights that cover a wider area if you need more light.
Power and Kelvin Scale
It is important to acquire the most wattage (W) possible for your growth space when purchasing cheap LED lighting. When it comes to power generation, a higher wattage equals more light, which in turn means more food for plants to eat. You'll need to be familiar with lumens (lm) and how they work in order to accomplish this.
A minimum of 10,000 lumens should be provided to each plant. For example, to reach 2,500 lumens, at least four conventional, low-cost LED bulbs will be required. Although larger variants are available, low-cost LEDs come in sizes ranging from 15, 26, 42, 65, 68, 85, and 105W.
More or less, a 42W LED light emits 2700 lumens. Four low-cost 42W LEDs require 168W and produce 10,800 lumens.......... The more powerful low-cost LED lamps maintain a similar wattage-to-lumens ratio, so you get a sense of how to choose between the bulbs on the market..
Cheap LEDs should be used until their power output reaches 250W, after which they should be replaced with a more expensive LED or an other lighting type like LEC or HPS, if possible.
Not only that, but the Kelvin scale is also a factor. Using this scale, you can determine the light's color temperature, which in turn determines the range of colors available.
To grow marijuana, you'll want to use bulbs that provide light that is as close to the red and blue spectrum as feasible. HPS lamps produce light that is primarily yellow in color, which means that a significant amount of light is lost.
Cheap LED lighting shine in this situation. Despite the fact that they are substantially more efficient than HPS lights, they waste a lot less light. The Kelvin spectrum is mentioned on each packet, so be sure to choose the right one for your child's stage of growth.
Low-cost LEDs are available in a range of colors, including 2700K, 3000K, 4100K, 5100K, and 6500K. Figures at the lower end of the Kelvin scale, such as 2700K, are the type of cheap LED lamps best suited to the later stages of plant growth, while 6500K is best for vegetative growth.
LED bulbs that resemble sunshine are available for a low price. During spring and summer, the light produces distinct rays (blue, greenery) and rays in autumn (orange, autumn leaves) (red, flowering). Cannabis plants do not benefit from the sun's green and orange light, which is likewise produced by the planet's sun. Thus:
The red-yellow light spectrum provided by warm white bulbs is ideal for flowering plants. The Kelvin temperature of 5000K / 6500K is ideal for vegetative growth in low-cost, bluer LED lights.
Spectrum
You need the right light wavelength for your plants to develop and thrive, as I said earlier.
As a result, how should we categorize the various wavelengths of light that we see?
The temperature wavelengths released by the colors of the spectrum produced by sunshine can be used to describe the light spectrum. Plants' preferred wavelength ranges change with their developmental stage. Fortunately, you can get a grow light that covers all of these wavelengths at a cheap price. All you have to do is keep in mind the requirements of your plant and the capabilities of the bulb/LED/tube you're using.
Let's take a look at the many stages of plant development and see which wavelengths are needed at each one. Don't worry, it's not rocket science.
Plants in the vegetative phase (seedlings and adult plants) prefer light with short wavelengths. The blue end of the spectrum is where you'll find these. When ganja is in its vegetative state, it needs plenty of blue and ultraviolet light to grow properly. When it comes to growing plants, you'll need a grow light capable of emitting both blue light (about 400 to 500nm) and a little amount of UV radiation (between 180 and 400nm).
While in flowering stage, on the other hand, your ganja needs more red light than infrared light. Ideally, your grow light should be able to produce light with an emission range of 620–780nm, but you can also use a light with an output range somewhat higher.
Grow lights that are both inexpensive and cover the entire spectrum are ideal. It's a little tough, but it's not insurmountable. Separate lights can be used for different phases of growth, and some full-spectrum grow lights are even more economical than they appear to be.
Are cheap LED grow lights good?
If you're looking to buy grow lights, remember that you get what you pay for. But there are a few low-cost grow lights that deliver excellent performance for the money. The Viparspectra V600, the Bestva 1200w Reflector, the Phlizon 1000 watt COB, or the Parfactworks 1000w COB are all excellent choices.
How much do grow lights cost to operate?
Grow light operation costs are affected by a wide range of variables. To find out, use my grow light cost calculator.
How much coverage can I get from a cheap LED grow light?
You get what you pay for when it comes to low-cost LED grow lights. The greatest models I've listed here will cover between 2 and 3 square feet.
In Which Cases Should I Use Cheap LEDs for Marijuana?
Anyone using cheap LEDs to cultivate marijuana fits the typical profile of someone who wants to produce one or two plants for personal use. That's a really popular application for this particular bulb.
LED lighting on the cheap are perfect for the do-it-yourselfer. As an example of this, there are people who have repurposed everyday materials into modest but unique grow rooms. It's not uncommon to see folks cultivate marijuana in their grandmother's old toilet.
Cheap LED lamps are a good solution for novice growers who wish to experiment without putting their plants at risk. In addition, for those who want to give plant cultivation a try but do not wish to invest a lot of money.
High-yielding growers should stay away from low-cost LEDs in favor of a more automated system. As a general rule of thumb, you should use another type of light when you require more power than 250W. To help you choose the perfect cannabis lighting, we've created an entire section just for you.
How do you choose the best economical grow light after looking at all these goods I've listed above?
A difficult decision to make, as each of these gadgets offers a unique set of capabilities.
The Growstar Reflector Series 600W LED is the only product I've reviewed for this post that allows you to choose between light settings and can be daisy-chained, therefore after much consideration, I've chosen to give it my vote.
Having the ability to daisy-chain many units provides appropriate scaling, which is crucial to me because I don't want to expose my plants to unneeded light.
In the comments section below, please post any queries you may have. Any low-cost grow lights that you know of? I'll see you then!
