Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you follow (or read) my Amazon reviews you can see that I've been running numerous agricultural/botanical science experiments for the last few years. Initially my quest was to find the best indoor LED grow lights for a laboratory that I was building in 2016. I have literally purchased almost every single "LED Grow Light" on Amazon. I continue to purchase them and test them as others request. I have tested all of the 300-600w, all the 36w, 48w, and 60w "LED grow light bulbs", all the way up to to the majority of the 600-2000W LED panels. I have been been running everything in two laboratories with controlled environments. I use an Apogee Quantum Par meter sq520 and several other sensors as testing redundancies. Nutrient delivery is computer controlled and precisely monitored by dual Growlink systems and an AutoGrow Intellidose system (I'm super redundant). Over the last 18 months I ran experiments in DWC hydroponics, STERILE, DWC "Bennie", Aeroponics, Ebb and flow, ebb and drain, Kratky method, and full aquaponic systems. DWC hydro with elevated co2 consistently produces the largest yields with highest quality in the least time for majority of fruits and vegetables. I state all this because when I say "a plant grows well under this light", I want it to have some scientific reasoning. When I say "grows well" I am referring to fat, thick, COSTCO sized fruits and/or vegetables. Some other reviewers show skimpy, thin, stretched out, nutrient deficient plants, and say "this light grows it well". Everyone has different standards. Over the last few weeks I tested the Shengsite 50W UFO LED on several plants: red wheatgrass microgreens, little gem lettuce, and the sweet mint plant that appears in the video. This panel beat out the highly rate "Roleadro 45w panel" in price, power, and efficiency. I frequently use lettuce as the test subject as it is a sensitive but rapid growing plant, meaning it will quickly display signs of stress or deficiencies or positive attributes. The design of the Shengsite 50w UFO panel is identical to many other "UFO LED grow lights" on Amazon, it shares a similar build construction and feels ok. I do think that the power receptor for the plug doesn't feel robust though and this may lead to future problems, however I can't ding for something that hasn't occurred. The Shengsite 50w UFO panel stands out amongst the others due to the slightly higher μmol output. As you'll see below the panel puts out a respectable 400-280 μmols between 4-8" while most others are putting out around 90-120 μmols at this distance. When choosing any LED grow light is important to understand your plant's requirements. The Shengsite 50w UFO panel covers all ranges of typical grow light uses (within reason). It is not a commercial growers light. It can be used for germinating/sprouting, seedlings, microgreens, main lighting or supplemental, assistive in vegetative growth and it is scientifically possible to bloom under these panels however I have not had enough time to test the capability of any fruiting under this panel nor has anyone requested this to be tested. The DLI (daily light integral) it can deliver does mathematically make this very capable. With a laser temperature probe the back side of the panel (which is plastic) registered at 94f in an ambient temp room of 82-84f. This is completely acceptable and is actually one of the cooler operating LED panels I've recently tested. You can safely touch the light on any location even after it has been on for weeks. There is no fan needed, therefore the light panel emits no noise. The Shengsite 50w UFO panel comes with a standard plug, the cord I received is 5ft long. Although this is called the Shengsite "50w" UFO LED, it only pulls 34-35w from the wall. The name "50w" comes from a naming convention meaning it can replace a "50w bulb equivalent". The light has a very low thermal footprint. In other words It will not dump noticeable heat into your grow tent or grow area. You can safely touch your plants foliage to the plastic surrounding the LED (as long as the plant can sustain the max μmols). Leaving this light on a 18hr daily timer schedule, this light cost me $5.89 (electric) a month to run in my parts of the world. With LED panels consuming this little of power I tend to place my cost assumptions on the higher estimations. This may vary on your electric costs. Very reasonable for the power it puts out. Using an Apogee Full spectrum smart Quantum sensor the SQ-520 measured: 480 (usable) micro moles at 2 inches 410 micro moles at 4 inches 283 micro moles at 8 inches 201 micro moles at 12 inches 128 micro moles at 18 inches 90 micro moles at 24 inches 60 micro moles at 36 inches Even at 5 feet you could grow several trays of microgreens. Any gripes or complaints? No. This is a good panel with excellent efficiency and power output. With the proper environment (not for wet environments) the panel should run until the lifespan of the LEDs run out in many years (50,000 hrs). If anything changes I will update this review and let everyone know. You can use the following calculation to determine the hourly PAR. Substitute your actual instantaneous PAR measurement for the '55µmol’' below: Hourly PAR= (55µmol / m^2s) ( 60s / 1min) (60min / 1hr) (1 mol / 1 x 10^6µmol) = 0.36 mol / m^hour In case anyone isn't tracking along, I like to include some horticulture definitions: Humans use Lumens. Don't measure a lights effectiveness by it's luminosity. For example the FEIT 300watt LED $40 bulb is extremely bright and can light up a .25 acre backyard, it's marketed as "stadium lighting replacements" however it doesn't grow anything well. Plants use PAR, PAR stands for photo-synthetically active radiation (PAR). PAR is NOT a measurement or “metric” like feet, inches or kilos. Rather, it defines the type of light needed to support photosynthesis. The three factors anyone (even little ol granny growing Magnolias indoors) should care about when growing under artificial lighting is: PPF - Photosynthetic Photon Flux, PPF measures the total amount of PAR that is produced by a lighting system each second. PPFD - Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD), measures the amount of PAR that actually arrives at the plant, or as a scientist might say: “the number of photosynthetically active photons that fall on a given surface each second”. Photon Efficiency....Photon Efficiency refers to how efficient a horticulture lighting system is at converting electrical energy into photons of PAR. Many horticulture lighting manufacturers use total electrical watts or watts per square foot as a metric to describe light intensity. However, these metrics really don’t tell you anything since watts are a measurement describing electrical input, not light output. Oh and I mention Micromoles quite a bit (looks like this µmol ) – Intensity of a light is measured over a fixed area to understand the ability of a light to cover an area with that intensity (coverage). Micromoles of photons per square meter per second (µmol/m2/s) measures the intensity by taking measurements in a consistent 4 x 4 grid, measures the coverage of that intensity–commonly known as PPFD per 4 x 4 grid. Rather than measuring light intensity by lumens per watt with a lux meter, growers should use a quantum PAR meter to measure the micromoles of photons per square meter per second (µmol/m2/s) at the canopy level. To best calculate PAR light intensity coverage using PAR mapping 4 x 4 grids, be sure and measure at various heights. Spot readings (PPF) metrics are misleading. Growers use PPFD per square meter to accurately measure intensity and coverage of that intensity. If you're like "whoa dood, I'm just trying to grow baby tomatoes for grams and you're going Bill Nye on me", I'm simply saying: This is an efficient and powerful LED panel in the "50w" range. This should be considered a good LED for most applications....sprouting, seedlings, cuttings/clonings, microgreens, main lighting (within reason) or supplemental, vegetative growth, or full bloom (within reason). Thank you for taking the time to read my review, I appreciate it! If you found this helpful please give me a vote or a follow, it is why I make these reviews! Follow on my Amazon profile page: https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AEHSZ3A2L54BPC4ZX6WNPI4JV7MQ?preview=true If you'd like to know which LED grow light is the current "King of the Hill" for a specific power range or have any questions regarding grow lights or related fields, please just ask! If you'd like to browse/shop for plants on Amazon by lighting requirements (Full light, Partial light, Low/No light) check out this cool page: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=18776623011&pf_rd_p=7ac3e749-92e1-4779-8373-7c3d1ea08b9e&pf_rd_r=JN8ZDAHKZ84BFHVEH80F