The Mistakes to Avoid When Using: How to Protect Your LED Grow Light Setups

You can grow all year round if you want, but using LED grow lights for indoor plants does have its challenges. How do you protect your LED grow light setup? 

Avoid Mistakes When Using Grow Light Lamps

So much can grow wrong as you set up each grow light for indoor plants in its spot. Distance from plants and temperature of LED lights for growing plants that you’re using matters.

The number of LED grow lights you use in an area is another factor to consider. Avoid the following mistakes when using LED grow lights for indoor plants. 

Placing grow lights too close or too far away

When using grow lights for indoor plants, don’t them too far away from your crops. They won’t produce any useful harvest if you do.

Placing lights too close could dry out your plants or burn out the leaves. This could cause premature aging or death before any budding or flowering has the chance to occur. There’s no point in using a grow light for indoor plants if you place them too close. 

The ideal distance of LED grow light placement is about one to two feet away from your plants. You can place them above, below or to the side of your crops if you want – just not too close or too far away. 

Note, however, it depends on how bright your lights are too. Sometimes, you may need to place LED grow lights up to four feet away from your plants. 

Running too hot of lights near plants

If you run your lights at too high of a wattage, they may end up burning your plants. That’s because a higher wattage usually means a brighter light. Aim for about 250–1000 lumens per square foot, depending on how much light your plants need. 

Putting lights too close to where you water

It won’t matter if you have all the perfect specifications of growing light. To protect LED grow light setups, don’t place them too close to where you plan to spray your plants with water. You don’t want to accidentally short out your grow lights by “watering” them along with your crops. 

Providing too much light to plants

Did you think that maybe adding extra lights to your grow room would make your plants grow faster? It doesn’t work that way. Don’t add more than the required amount for your crops. 

Keep in mind some vegetables, strains of cannabis and fruits or herbs require only partial light. Others need direct light. That will determine how many LED lamps you should use for your indoor plants. 

Using “dull” lights 

It’s possible to even use standard household lights (incandescent bulbs) to grow plants. This won’t damage them, and you won’t destroy your lamps either as long as you set them up right. 

The problem with some lights is they may run at too low of a wattage to make a difference. They’re too “dull” or “dim” and won’t provide the illumination required to mimic the daylight your crops need. 

By the way, using standard household bulbs is a waste of energy. Unlike LED lamps, the incandescent lamps only have a 10% efficiency rate. LEDs are often almost 100% efficient.

It’s not that any damage would occur using “dull” lights, but you will spend more money on electricity — such a waste for the amount of crop you would yield. 

Spending too much time around lights 

Some precautions you take have nothing to do with your lights but is meant to protect you. When using grow lights for growing indoors, don’t look at them too much. You may also want to turn them off and just use regular lights when in the room for longer than about 30 minutes for maintenance. 

How to Protect Grow Light Setups (and Your Investment, and You!)

Use a power strip

Power strips help you handle large grow lamp power loads. It will also prevent fires that could happen if you accidentally overload your power lines. Power strips usually “trip off” if overloaded. When this happens, you have to reset them. 

Limit number of lamps plugged into a power strip 

Even if you use power strips (surge protectors), you still can’t plug in unlimited numbers of grow lamps into one outlet. Prevent blowouts by paying attention to the number of watts you’re plugging into one electrical line. 

Keep in mind also that using a second outlet doesn’t always mean it’s a separate electrical line. If you have ever seen more than one lamp in different sections blow out at the same time, this is why.  

Examine your electrical circuits (lines) before use

This will require a little bit of time and though. Open your circuit breaker box if you know where it is. Look for any instructions you see along with any available electrical line maps that affect your growing area. 

This will determine what outlets are on the same circuit (line) and which ones are not. Knowing your entire electrical line layout before you get started will protect you, your grow lights, and your investment. 

Program your lights using a timer 

Programming your LED grow lights with a timer will lower your energy bill. It also prevents them from running so long they overheat — which could take quite a few weeks or months, but still it is something to consider. 

Programming your lights using timer also gives your plants a break. You can let your plants be while sleeping or away from home, and your plants will have their nighttime “rest” too. 

Plan grow room setup for watering around outlets

We mentioned this a little bit already. Be mindful of where the outlets in your grow room are in the first place. Try to set up your plants in relation to where you would plug in your spray hose, which hopefully is aimed toward your plants away from power outlets. 

Take pre- and post-watering precautions 

You can take additional precautions before and after you water your plants. For instance, you could protect your grow lamps, outlets and cord connectors with a waterproof cover. 

Perhaps you will want to place devices in the room that take out some of the excess post-watering moisture. Running a dehumidifier for a while after watering may also help as long as you don’t dry out your plants by setting it too high. 

Measure grow rooms for proper plant placement

You might feel tempted to “cram” as many plants into your growing environment as you can. This could be bad. When using LED lights for growing plants indoors, make sure you measure your grow room. This will help you make at least a foot or two of space between plants and between your plants and your grow lights and the outlets where they’re plugged in. 

Set up your grow lights to avoid tripping hazards

Tape power cords to the floor or run them along the walls or ceiling if you have to. Keep all wiring out of your traffic areas to avoid tripping and hurting yourself and damaging your grow lights. 

About Using Grow Lights Plants Can “Process”

The ideal grow light spectrum for plants is between 400-700 nanometers of light. That’s about 400-450 nanometers of blue light and about 650-700 (or even up to 750 nm) of red light. One way to achieve this is to use full-spectrum lighting as long as the blue and red is in this range. 

Keep in mind that the brightness of your lights matters. Aim for about 15 watts per square foot for most plants as long as they can make it in medium light.