If you are growing a small amount of marijuana or cooking herbs on a budget, and are looking for an indoor grow light that doesn’t empty your wallet, then you are in the right place. The Sansi 15W full spectrum LED vegetative grow light might be smaller and slightly less powerful than the average indoor grow light, but it is still effective and incredibly good value for money.
First of all, it is important to note that this is a vegetative grow light, so it doesn’t have a balance of different colored LEDs to support both the vegetative and the flowering stages that you would find on a full cycle grow light. This means that using this grow light on marijuana won’t yield as many flowers as using a bulb with more red LEDs, but it would be perfect for growing garden herbs such as basil.
All of the LEDs in the Sansi 15W lamp emit full spectrum light of wavelengths between 480nm to 700nm. This includes green, red, blue and infrared light, which really helps your plants to grow indoors as it effectively mimics real sunlight. The high quality of light is great for such a small bulb, and its low wattage makes it very energy efficient and cheap to run.
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Specifications
The Sansi 15W bulb has 16 LEDs that emit a full spectrum of light wavelengths and has a lifespan of up to 30,000 hours. The bulb can operate on a wide variety of voltages, from 90V to 246V, and fits a standard E26 light socket. The bulb operates at temperatures between -20°C and +40°C, and in a humidity of 10% to 95% relative humidity (RH). There are no cooling fans built into the bulb, but the LEDs are mounted on ceramic which helps to dissipate the heat and is more effective than aluminum. The ceramic however makes the bulb quite heavy, weighing in at more than half a pound. It comes with installation instructions and a 5-year warranty from Sansi.
Light Spectrum
The amount of each kind of light emitted by the Sansi 15W LED vegetative grow light is as follows: 20.12% blue, 4.44% green, 61.30% red, and 14.14% infrared. This is slightly different from the Sansi Full Cycle Grow Light, where the percentages are: 19.46% blue, 37.70% green, 36.23% red, and 6.61% infrared. This means that the Full Cycle grow light is better equipped to deal with the flowering stage as well as the vegetative stage of your marijuana plants, whereas the Vegetative grow light works well for the initial stages of plant growth.
Another option would be to get the Sansi LED Flowering Grow Light to accompany the Vegetative grow light, as the flowering grow light emits far more red light (65.35% red and 15.25% infrared, and 14.98% blue and 4.43% green), which unsurprisingly supports the flowering stage of your marijuana plants. You could use the three Sansi LED grow lights together by using the Vegetative grow light for sprouting your seeds and shoots, then the Full Cycle grow light as the plants mature, and finally add the Flowering grow light to the mix to produce a maximum harvest for your marijuana buds. This could be a cheaper alternative to buying a larger, more expensive grow light that covers all the stages of plant growth, but it does mean that you have to be responsible for remembering when to swap or add each grow light bulb.
Coverage
Unfortunately, the main problem with the Sansi 15W LED grow light is its coverage. Sansi say that when hung between 12 and 20 inches from the tops of your plants, it can provide light for an area of up to 2.8 square feet in size. However, when the grow light was tested by customers, it was found that the bulb only covered a circular area 8 inches in diameter. This would be perfectly adequate for growing plants such as lettuce, but marijuana plants require much more light (especially when they flower) as they can grow to be quite large in adulthood. The Sansi 15W LED vegetative grow light could work for sprouting seeds or nurturing seedlings, but you would need to purchase other, stronger grow lights as your plants reach maturity and enter the flowering stage to obtain the largest, healthiest and highest yielding plants possible.
One option could be to buy lots of these bulbs and mount them in your growing area. They are cheap and do not require much energy to run, so you would save on your energy bills in the long run. However, in order to get an even coverage of light you would have to mount the bulbs very close together to overlap their light reach, which would create a lot of heat. These bulbs don’t have cooling fans, so placing lots of them close together could create a potentially dangerous fire hazard that could destroy your plants and grow area too.
Conclusion
The Sansi 15W LED Vegetative Grow Light is a cheap little bulb perfect for growing garden herbs like basil and for your marijuana seedlings. With its small coverage area and full light spectrum, it is capable of growing small plants indoors without breaking the bank or taking up too much space in your home. However, if you are a keen marijuana grower, you might run into problems. When your marijuana plants mature into adulthood and begin to flower, you will most likely need to buy a stronger grow light that covers a larger area in order to support both the vegetative growth of your plants as well as the flowering stage to get the best yield – and biggest buds – from your marijuana plants.