Ikea Vaxer LED plant light

[reptilegrrl]

An update on this: I've been using the light since the beginning of October or the end of September. It runs from 6:20 am to 8:30pm. It is set up in an Ikea Tertial lamp, and the lamp is positioned directly over my largest orchid, which is the only one in the living room that really needs bright light, oncostele Masai Red. It is about 7 inches above the tip of the tallest leaf, aimed down at an angle toward the center of the plant.

Another orchid, a phal, is next to the oncostele. It's a bit shorter so it is about 24 inches from the lamp. It gets some indirect light. These are the only orchids in the path of the light.

Both of these orchids are doing better and growing more aggressively than the other orchids in the room. The phal (which I had for about a month before I got this light) has a new leaf hustling along and new roots growing visibly. Like, every day I can see that they are larger. The oncostele has some new roots, 6 new growths, two spikes in bloom (one just grew into bloom over the last month) and a third spike maturing. Also possibly another spike budding.

On some days I have been opening the blinds in the afternoon when the neighbors aren't outside. And on days when I am not using my Ott floor lamp, I roll it over to the plants and position it over them. But most days they just have the Vaxer and indirect light from the high windows, then a few hours of almost-direct sunlight in the evening before sunset.

So I am pretty happy with the Vaxer, I will probably find a way to keep using it after the fence is rebuilt. I don't necessarily want to keep it in my living room, but maybe on a plant stand in another room or something.

[Manu]

Im a bit late replying here... I use strictly the Vaxer E26 bulbs for lighting since the last few months.

I meant to write a full review here but I lack time with my young kids.

These lights are extremely powerful. I've completed a growing and flowering cycle on every single plant I own under these lights. Sure, most my plants have lower light needs, but even at 2 feet distance from the bulb something like an equestris shows a lot of leaf coloration. Oncidiums have pushed out record number of spikes. Everything is growing amazingly well... I'll take time to do a full review of these bulbs. I took pictures from before and after and you can clearly see the results. Plants show signs of high light input and growing and flowering at records rates for me, I couldn't be happier. As an example, my equestris used to be 8 inches under my 14W CFL bulb, under the Vaxer E26 10W light it's about 2 feet above and still showing signs of much higher light input. Some plants are actually getting too much light even though I'm trying to keep them in "shaded" areas of my compact setup, such as my P lindenii, but it's still doing well, just growing more compact leaves as it doesn't need as much leaf surface...

[Dollythehun]

Please keep us updated with pictures too.

[Manu]

Originally Posted by Dollythehun

Please keep us updated with pictures too.

I will, I will. It's a good thing I waited, a few months is a better sample to draw conclusions then a few weeks. And I got to ducument it with pictures. I'll create a new thread sometime this week.

[camille1585]

Great to have so much feedback on the Vaxer lights! I'd like to upgrade my lights from power compacts to leds (I can't get replacement bulbs anymore), and these look like a great option.

[reptilegrrl]

I'm surprised by how well it's working! Eventually I plan to have LED bar lights (I'm planning to add built-in shelving next year and it will be a bit far from the windows) but I will find a way to keep using the Vaxer.

One thing I like about the Vaxer is that it's 4000k, and overall it looks white (when it's the only light, it looks a little bit pinkish, but not too noticeable.) I really don't like the look of the pink-tinted lights, and from my reading and the experiments of others, it appears that they aren't necessary.

It's also economical in terms of watts to luminosity. It's listed as 800 lumens (and my light meter confirms that) but uses only 10w. A scan of grow lights on Amazon reveals that most of them use more electricity to produce the same amount, or less, luminous flux.

[reptilegrrl]

As I mentioned above, I've been surprised by how well my plants are doing with this light. It's only 800lm, and everything I had read before on orchids said that 800lm was just too low for any of my orchids to thrive.

But then I started learning more about plant lights and needs and that's when I learned about "Daily light integral", DLI. DLI is how much light your plant receives total during the day. Unfortunately I could not find many sources which had conversion rates for leds.

This page DLI Archives - LED Grow Lighting offered a conversion rate that measured the DLI of the light at 4.8.

The conversion ratios here https://www.apogeeinstruments.com/co...tegrated-ppfd/ gave me a DLI of 5.

This one gave me a DLI of 4.8 Understanding Daily Light Integral (DLI) - LED Gardener

From my reading this range is a sweet spot for phals and some oncs. They also get some little natural light, which I did not measure.

I find this very interesting and suspect that this, along with the ratios of RGB and white, is why the light has been so successful.

Ikea makes a Vaxer light bar but they only sell it in Europe Too bad, I would snap it up if they sold it in the USA.

[Manu]

My review is going up shortly in this section, for whoever was interested!