LED grow light project

There has been interests about using LED light to grow plants indoor. There are also question about whether our light spectrum is suitable to grow plant. To put these arguments to stop, I have conduct a test to find out all the answers. I put two strawberry plants inside a closure space of Old TV cabinet. When door closed, there is absolutely no other light can get into this cabinet, the only light source is one of our Easy LED module running at 15 Watt.

 I have a timer set to light up this cabinet 12 hours a day to simulate real sunlight also.

I did some reading about general grow light, there are article saying the light need to be above certain strength to enable plant for photosynthesis instead of respiration. Our LED module emits a lot of light for illumination, for people to see things. But there is no comparison to strength of sunlight, which some time can burn your skin, and we generally don't want that kind of light strength in our house either.

But the purpose here is to grow plant, we we can shorten the length between light source and plants. I initially set the LED module fixed at top of cabinet, which is 25" away from the plants. I use a Lux meter and got 800 lux reading. Then I use two thin strings to lower the module to 16" above the leaves, my Lux meter read 2500 lux.  Since our module is so light weight, about 2 oz, it can be easily hang at desired height.

A TV studio only need requires 1000 lux of light intensity.  2500 lux is compare-able to sunlight of a overcast day.

At shorter distance, the light is much intense, too bright for viewing with general indoor ambient light; but it's perfect for growing plant.


The project is still on going, those two strawberry have been inside the closed cabinet for over 10 days by now. By compare photos from beginning and now, I sense that both strawberry have been grow bigger, healthier, with just LED light.

10 days after project started.

19 days after project started

Above photos shows 10 days/18 days after project started, the two strawberry looks bigger/taller and healthy; if the light doesn't work, these plant should be withered already.



You can order Easy LED kit at easyledlighting.com and specify LED modules to be unbent.