Led recommendation (Europe)

[isa86]

Hello everyone!
I've been looking for led grow lights for my shelves and/or to hang above my shelves, but that won't break my diminutive bank account. There's lot of recommendations online for lights like mars hydro and spider farmer, but those are too big (In size, price and intensity too, I believe). Recently I've seen a lot of people talk about lights from The Orchid Hobbyist, or from Amazon like Barrina and Monios, and they seem great, but I can't get them here in Europe. So I'm at a loss. I currently have some cheap led kitchen lights but I'd like to upgrade them.
Thanks in advance!

[camille1585]

Are the lights for supplemental lighting, or the main light source for the plants? What sort of orchids do you grow under them.

I have a collection of mostly Phals, and have LED grow lights that I use as supplemental light from late fall to early spring.

The first ones I got were Secret Jardin TLEDs (TLED Archives - Secret Jardin) which were for my Neofinetia in the winter. I have a 'bloom' and 'grow' and honestly don't see a difference and now use both on the same shelf. The advantage of these is that they are plug and play.

Last year I bought some Sanlight Flex strips SANlight FLEX-Series - flexible LED grow light ~ SANlight) and I'm really happy with how the Phals grew over the winter. I saw lots of roots, and good leaf growth. I had one light per shelf, approximately 15cm above plant canopy. For higher light plants perhaps 2 lights per shelf are necessary. Note that the power supply and cords to daisy chain them together are sold separately. One power supply is good for 60W of lights (so 3 flex20 or 6 flex10).

Cost wise, the large versions (90-95cm suitable for most standard shelves) cost 75-90€, and for the Sanlight you need to add the power supply to that.

[Shadeflower]

Hi,
the Mars unit does not deliver very good results for the energy consumption.
They are cheap units so people buy them I suppose but their led's are less efficient than the spider farmer and will burn out faster. So essentially you will buy two of them in the long run and still not get as good results.
Don't go that route. You should not be thinking how cheap can I go. You should be thinking what will be most energy efficient to cost me least amount of electricity in a year and provide the best results.

So for orchids that would include the Arcadia Jungle Dawn LED.

I do not live in Portugal so have no idea where you would source it but I'm sure some reptile suppliers around you will have them.

All I can offer is a link through amazon.de which will probably be more expensive than you should be able to find.

If you think it is expensive, realize you will get 50% more growth than from an inefficient unit and the unit will run twice as long before it needs replacing so is it expensive or is it a good investment that works out cheaper in the long run.

Arcadia Jungle Dawn LED Bar (15 W - 290 mm): Amazon.de: Haustier