Spider Farmer SF-1000 LED Grow Light Review

Growing your own fruits and vegetables has become a more popular endeavor in recent years, especially as people turn their attention toward their carbon footprints. While you can make your own outdoor garden certain cases, lots of people don’t have the room to make that work or live in a city, in which case space is already at a premium. Additionally, growing your own food or flowers outdoors comes with several limitations, including climate, season, and inclement weather (not to mention potential pests!).

But you can easily create your own indoor garden provided that you have an appropriate grow light. Grow lights are artificial lighting solutions that can simulate the energy and nutrient benefits of the sun for indoor gardens. These are usually hung above organized plots that contain several types of flowers or vegetables depending on your needs or preferences. Most quality grow lights are made with LEDs, which provide energy efficiency and excellent lifespans.

Yet all indoor grow lights aren’t the same. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the Spider Farmer SF-1000 LED Grow Light. It’s specifically designed for growing vegetables and flowers indoors and provides LED diodes that can simulate the spectrum of light offered by the sun. Let’s dive deeper into what this grow light offers and see whether it will be right for your future indoor garden.

Design and Assembly

The SF-1000 is extremely easy to set up and get running. No assembly is required, as you can take the grow light straight out of the box; everything is ready to use immediately. Just plug it in and turn it on. It uses high-quality Samsung LED diodes. This might not seem like much of a big deal, but it means you won’t have to replace the LEDs very often since the parts are so well made. In addition, the Samsung diodes create better canopy light penetration and provide 40% higher yields with less energy, even compared to other red and blue light boards.

It’s also designed without a fan, which produces less noise and makes it ideal for indoor gardens. It’s extremely high in terms of energy efficiency, as it only consumes 100 Watts and produces 2.7 umol/J. This allows it to yield light to same degree as other 1000 or 1200 W growing lights.

Each SF-1000 is designed with several durability tests, including tests specifically focused on each individual light. This reduces the likelihood that you’ll have any lights that sputter out individually and ensures relatively perfect operation. As a uniform light level is important for appropriate growing, this added focus on longevity is a big plus.

The grow light board can be situated in several different angles or styles. Its light weight at 2.77 pounds means you’ll be able to combine it with several different types of suspending cables or adhesive tape. In addition, the generous length of the cords means you’ll be able to place the light a significant distance away from a power outlet without compromising the overall design of your interior garden. It’s also not too large for most indoor gardens, measuring 10.5” x 11.8” x 2.3” in total.

We also really like the fact that the SF-1000 comes with three years of after service for local maintenance centers. You do need to contact the maintenance centers yourself and you might be out of luck depending on where you live, but it’s still a nice touch and great value for money given the asking price. It might be particularly useful if the light otherwise works well but has one minor flaw that is preventing it from providing enough coverage, like a wiring problem for a small portion of the board.

Spectrum and Coverage

The SF-1000 Features LED diodes that produce blue, white, red, and infrared light at 665 nm, 3000K, 5000K and 760 nm wavelengths or powers, respectively. In a nutshell, it means that this grow light provides a full spectrum of light to allow you to grow healthy plants and even better yields no matter what you want to grow. Having the full wavelength of light will replicate the experience of being in the sun much more effectively compared to other LED grow lights on the market.

Each color of light provides a specific benefit. The warm white light, for instance, helps to improve plant blooms and make your flowers bigger and more vivid. The blue light increases plant germination and can even speed up the growth rate of several common species. The red light benefits leaves and crops, particularly when it’s combined with the blue light. The infrared light, even if you can’t see the effects with the naked eye, and speed up the conversion of phytochrome, which allows plants to produce greater yields.

Remember that the special Samsung diodes produce 40% higher yields with less energy. This also means that you’ll be able to produce high yields for whatever plants you want to focus on without running your electrical bill as high. The LEDs themselves have a view angle between 90° and 120° depending on where you place the plants and how you setup grow light board as a whole.

Ultimately, the SF-1000 provides enough illumination for a 3 x 3-foot vegetable plot or a 2 x 2-foot flowering plot. You can mix and match different plant species or varieties as well, especially since the power of the LED lights doesn’t diminish near the corners or edges of the board. Granted, the plants near the center of the board will receive the majority of illumination, but the discrepancy between center and edge light projection is much more uniform compared to many other grow lights.

Safety and Ease of Use

When it comes to safety, the SF-1000 doesn’t cut corners. There are several special protective covers for the included cables, which is a great additional feature considering that this grow light will likely spend a considerable amount of time in humid or wet environments. Having the cable covers will lessen the likelihood of you receiving an electrical shock and will help the cables last for just as long as the durable LED diodes.

The SF-1000 is further designed with several large areas with solid aluminum heatsinks. This prevents the grow light from becoming too hot even if you run its various LED diodes for many hours on end. Even without the heatsinks, the board doesn’t produce too much heat for comfort. It won’t negatively affect the health of your plants if they require specific temperature ranges in order to grow properly. As a result, you’ll be able to adjust this grow light as necessary, which is often required when you are starting up a new indoor garden or need to fine-tune the luminosity that a particular plant species receives.

The high safety performance and safety-focused Meanwell Driver is another nice touch. We say that it’s safety-focused because it’s not very susceptible to overheating, starting a small fire, or short-circuiting. Basically, the three-year coverage included within the purchase is more than likely not going to be necessary. When the power supply of your LED grow light is also designed with sustainability and the safety of your garden in mind, you know it’s a high-quality piece of equipment.

Even better, the grow light is designed with a waterproof LED board. It uses a protective coating on the chips to ensure that they aren’t harmed by the humidity or other water droplets they might encounter while shining in your indoor garden.

The SF-1000 also comes with a special dimming function that you can use at the bottom of the Meanwell Driver. You can operate this with a standard screwdriver or similar tool, meaning you can use this grow light for plants that are more sensitive to intense illumination.

Final Verdict

All in all, is the Spider Farmer SF-1000 worth your time and money? We have to give it high marks through and through. When you consider its most basic elements – the high-quality LED diodes – it’s a supreme choice if you want to provide your vegetables, fruits, or flowers with the quality of artificial sunshine they deserve. Too many plants don’t manage to produce good yields or wither under the subpar rays of other grow lights. This simply isn’t the case here; there are four different bulbs to ensure that every wavelength necessary for appropriate growth and big yields is represented.

Furthermore, the SF-1000 is built with safety and durability in mind. Considering that grow lights (and indoor gardens as a whole) are significant monetary and time investments, finding something that’ll last for at least a few years without breaking is a must. That’s why we’re glad to see that the SF-1000 is made with a durable drive, a waterproof board, and LED diodes that will last for a long time and with phenomenal energy efficiency.
Long story short, we’d definitely recommend the SF-1000 if you want a fantastic indoor garden!