Black Dog LED PhytoMax LED GrowLight Text & Review

Hey everyone Nate from GrowersHouse and its been a long day over here. The monsoons came in thru Tucson and we only lost power twice today. It was a good day.  And then these came in.



So this is what showed up at our door. The new prototypes for the black dog led PhytoMax LEDs and these are the new four models that are going to replace (potentially) the models that Black Dog LED currently has the Universal Series.



This is the 800 watt unit, the 600 watt unit, the 400 and 200 watt unit. So essentially Black Dog LED has come out with their third iteration of the Phyto-Genesis spectrum that they originally created. They had the Universal Series now they are at the PhytoMax Series and these have just come out. It put a smile on my face when these came in because now I get to test them. So I asked black dog as soon as they came in "Why did you guys make a new light? What's different about it?" what they told me was they actually redesigned this light to be lighter than the last series.



Black Dog LED made minor iterations to their spectrum to make it improved over the last model. Which still include a lot of UV/IR infrared spectrum (365<>750NM) which a lot of LEDs don't. We are going to put these under our spectrometer and see some of that but it is important to note that if you are putting a PAR meter under these lights that the UV/IR is in part of the spectrums that PAR meters can't read. This part of the spectra for UV/IR won't be seen because it isn't within the standard 400-700 nanometer range for visible light. But what UV/IR does for plants is increase your plants overall potency and compactness and quality. So a lot of people are demanding that their led lights have UV spectrum in them. As this industry is progressing and maturing, it really comes down to who can grow the best quality plants. And that is what these spectrums outside of your standard general reds, whites, and blues do.



We are excited to get these in to test and see how they stack up to other LEDs in the market since the last time we their new universal series probably about two years ago.







So one last thing to go over before we jump into, is it when comparing these lights to other ones, it's important to note there is a difference between what some LED companies call, they'll call themselves a "1000" or a "500" but sometimes their actual draw at the wall for maybe their 1000 is 682 watts at the wall it's important that when you think of LEDs and you are referencing a number that the led company gives you, you are thinking about it in terms of what is it actually drawing from the wall. That is truly how many watts you are going to be paying for. With your kilowatt hour and your electricity bill. But at the same time really that is the best indicator of how much light you are going to get out of that unit.  So what Black Dog LED does is their 800 unit draws 800 watts at the wall, and the 600, 400, and 200 going down the line. Some companies you'll note even California Light Works, their 880 is a little lower than 880 watts so they are actually doing the multiples of how many led diodes there are times the wattage. But keep in mind, not all 5 watt diodes actually operate at 5 watts, they operate at less than. so always think of units in terms of their actual draw at the wall  I think its very important for all growers, especially those looking into purchasing an LED, so you can compare what I call "apples to apples" so other than that were excited to test these, so let's check it out.







So here is the Black Dog LED PhytoMax-2 800 spectrum and you can see its peaks around chlorophyll a and b the blues and the reds a little more intensity in the reds. Make sure you've got a little bit more penetration and spectrum for the flowering plants. Another thing that we noticed with this spectral graph is that there is the UV a bump that you can all the way to the left and now I want to going over to these PAR charts now at 12, 24, and 36 inches above the canopy.







That UV and IR intensity of spectrum is not going to show up in these par numbers here essentially because it is outside the wavelength range that the par meter measures, so there is some intensity out of this light that is not accounted for in the par chart you see here. You can see how it maps out the PAR intensity over the 5 x 5footprint. I think that for flowering you're going to have the light probably hung closer than 24 inches above your plants were when you are veg-ing you be at 36 inches above your plants. Seeing the UV bump in this light really prompted us to really do a test on all our lights in the industry that have UV/IR or claim that they have UV. So keep your eyes peeled for that coming out soon and I hope that this information helps you, you know map out your grow room and choose the best light for your particular grow space.



This is Nate from Growers House and Happy Growing!