OK, Let's talk Lights.
First, let's address anyone still yawing on about how LED will never be as good as high intensity incandescent. While there is some argument for the penetrating ability of HID vs LED, the truth is that the efficiency and additional micromoles (measure of light photons) makes that an irrelevant reason to stay with inefficient lamps, unless you want the heat.
Second, BRAND MATTERS. There are some real crappo LEDs out there, and some top-notch-"holly crikeys I can't believe a plant can grow this much"-lights
So where do Spider Farmer (SF) and Vivosun (VS) LED grow lights compare? Rather than subjective "woah-bro" comparison, we'll look at facts: efficiency, output in PARs, and spectrum. I honestly don't think much else (besides cost) matters.
We're comparing both brands 4000 models, using 400 Watts of electricity.
LED Grow Light Efficiency
Disclaimer, electricity is advanced stuff, light is complex. Keeping in mind that plants need more than just visible light, we don't use Lumens/Watts (which is how me measure most traditional lightbulbs). Grow light manufactures play lots of games here and it's easy to get lost, but stay focused! We measure how efficiently the of electrical energy (measured as electrons) is converted to light energy, including non visible light (measured as photons).
MOST brands will include 2 key measures:
- μmol/J: micromoles per joule, duh..
Ok let's break it down. Joule is part of SI (international system of measures that we often call "metric") and is actually a general measure of energy, but as it applies to electricity is the amount of energy to make 1 watt for 1 second.
Micromoles (μmol) is one-millionth of a mole, which again part of SI is the measure of light, specifically photons in or passing through a space.
So putting these together we're simply asking how efficiently the LED system can convert electrons flowing in our electricity to photons that are emitted out for the plants.
- Power Factor This is the lay-person's bottomline for how much of our electricity is USED for producing light. It does a good just of gauging overhead of ballasts, etc. but is not a measure of actual output! Read this awesome comparison to foam on your beer
Vivosun vs SpiderFarmer - Light Efficiency
| umols/J | P.R. |
|---|
| Vivosun | 2.9 | >92% |
| SpiderFarmer | 2.7 | 63% ** |
** SpiderFarmer does not publish PowerFactor, this came from user calculations
Want to know more? fancy words with heavy terminology and a vendor's note on LED progress
Winner: Vivosun
Both in terms of photon generation and available information on power factor Vivosun is a clear leader in LED efficiency for grow lights.
LED Grow Light Output
Efficiency is one thing, but how much of that light makes it to the plants? And how much of those photons are actually useful to the plants?
To measure how usable light actually reaches the plants, we use another measure called -- oh wait first another key term: Photosynthetically Active Radiation, or PAR. - the part of light spectrum plants can use.
- PPFD - Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density.
How many useable photons reach a specific area per second. How do we measure the amount of photons again? ... 🥁 Yeah μmol!!
Vivosun vs Spider Farmer LED Grow Light Output
How much useful light in a square area of canopy at a given height/distance. These are usually shown as heat maps of squares with numbers. The numbers are... come one...you got this...photons in a space... yeah! μmol! So we see μmol/second of some space (i.e. 4x4, 5x5).
| PPFD | Coverage | Watts |
|---|
| Vivosun | 2,486 μmol/s | 5x5 | 400 |
| SpiderFarmer | 1,912 μmol/s | 4x4 | 450 |
Winner: Vivosun
With almost 30% more photons reaching your canopy every second and using less power to do so, their lights are, again, a clear winner here.
LED Light Spectrum
As mentioned plants use a wide spectrum of light, and LEDs use to struggle to meet the wide variety of natural light.
Today they can often optimize the mix to perfection!
Vivosun vs Spider Farmer: LED Grow Light Spectrum
Since both vendors use top-bin Samsung LED chips in very close numbers, the spectrum is pretty close.
Winner: Toss-up
A slight edge is given to Spider Farmer for a bit more emphasis on some upper reds, but Vivosun punches back purely by the higher output across the board (and therefore across the spectrum), but as far as the balance across, I'd say it's a tie.
What about the cool Commercial LED Bar style grow lights?
I'm not including this in my summary, and I did not compare across the board -- but their higher end models are similar story. It looks like you can get away with a Vivosun VS6450 outputting 1800μmol/s to do the work of a [Spider Farms SF7000 outputting 1600μmol/s]!(https://adk.green/spider7000).
Final Decision
Honestly this isn't even close. While Spider Farmer has a cute brand and do a ton of influencer giveaways, their products are not that good. We didn't mention costs above, but Vivosun commonly retails for $50-$70 less!.
Total Knock out, Vivosun VS series are clear winner across every category and save money upfront and ongoing electric costs.
If you find a better value (using the facts!) please let me know, I'm happy to correct the record. But for me and my money, there is a clear winner.
https://adk.green/aff15 << Vivosun 15% coupon
https://www.spider-farmer.com/products/sf-4000-led-grow-light/
Feedback? Disagree? Looking for more like this?
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