Spent $120 on a fancy grow light that turned out to be useless for my seedlings

I bought this "full spectrum" LED panel off Amazon from some brand called GrowMax, spent 120 bucks on it. Turns out it barely puts out any PAR light, my tomato seedlings stretched like crazy and fell over after 3 weeks. Has anyone else gotten burned by those cheap grow lights with fake specs?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_clark13d ago

Your light wasn't close enough, user error not the product.

wilson.sam20d ago

Oh boy, you got taken for a ride just like a lot of us have. I hate to say it but those cheap Amazon lights are almost never what they claim to be. Those "full spectrum" claims are mostly marketing fluff. The real measure is PAR value at a certain distance, and most of those cheap panels can't even hit 200 umol/m2/s at 18 inches. I've seen people get good results with them for houseplants or starting seeds if you keep them super close, like 4 to 6 inches away. But for actual vegetable seedlings, you really need something that puts out at least 300 PAR, and you're not going to get that for 120 bucks. You probably should have spent that money on a couple of standard 4-foot T5 shop lights, they work way better and cost less.

mia74820d ago

Yeah, I feel you on this one. @wilson.sam is right, I've been there too with a knockoff light that claimed 1000 watts but probably put out like 50 real ones. My basil seedlings turned into sad little string beans before I even got them potted up. It's honestly infuriating because you think you're getting a deal and then you just wasted time and money. I wish Amazon would crack down on those fake specs but they never seem to.