Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. After we design and test our lights in operational grows, we send them off to CSA Labs, a lighting industry standard testing service. We have a full spectral analysis performed and lighting distribution map created. The resulting report and *.ies files that are created allow us to plug the results into lighting software in order to run power, distribution and intensity calculations for any indoor or outdoor grow operation. We provide results to you that assist with best use of lighting, power and thermal management / HVAC requirements.

Here is the cover page for our test:

Here is the spectral response analysis for all of our lighting:

We often are asked why the spike at 660nm is so high. We built it this way because it is a proven fact (Dr. David M. Gates) that it takes only 1-2 blue photons to process a CO2 molecule, but it can take from 8-10 red photons to accomplish the same task. Here is this graph superimposed over the McCree Curve (Dr. Keith McCree), which is a scientifically proven representation of the photon usage during photosynthesis for a cross-section of 22 different crop plants.

If you plug “LED grow lights” into any search engine, you will no doubt get thousands of “hits” from dozens of lighting vendors. If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that, except for paint, graphics and maybe some differently placed air holes, many of the lights look alike. This is because they are. We estimate that up to 90-95% of the LED grow lights you see on the Internet are manufactured in a single location in China, and are represented by only a few companies, also in China. Take a look and verify for yourself:

• www.ledgrowlightsdepot.com
• www.cidly.com
• www.bsled.com
• www.growlight.cn
• www.topledgrowlight.com

We are solid state (LED) lighting designers, since 2002, and we understand the precision thermal management necessary to insure consistent spectral delivery and LED longevity. This is why we confidently offer a 5 year warranty (which almost nobody else in the industry offers). In addition, this is all we do. We have designed and sold effective LED grow lighting for over 8 years. We don’t sell other lines, nor do we run hydro stores or ancillary shops in the background. Our only focus is LED grow lights, and this is reflected in our products.

No. We manufacture in a medium-sized specialty lighting shop in China, separate from the manufacturing plant that makes most of the other lights you can find on the Internet. We have a partner on the ground – a trained optoelectronics engineer that has been our partner for almost 12 years – that oversees logistics, manufacturing and quality control.

Beware companies claiming their products are “Made in USA”. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) outlines and enforces very strict guidelines concerning claims of “Made in USA”. As almost no high-end LEDs are made in the USA any longer, and most aluminum products cost a fraction offshore vs Made in USA aluminum, the result is that virtually all of the claims you see are likely false. Read about it here: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/complying-made-usa-standard. You may also download the PDF from the FTC here: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard.pdf.

The full spectrum LEDs we use belong to us, and us alone. We build these using name-brand high power blue LEDs and a phosphor that is unique to our lighting. This phosphor/blue LED combination provides true full spectrum that almost perfectly matches the McCree Curve for light use by crop plants for photosynthesis. We add supplemental red LEDs to compensate for the lower power at the red end of the spectrum.

The scientific studies we use to create our spectrum are recent (see FAQ on “Have Your Lights Been Tested?”), not the 100-year-old reports that are constantly regurgitated by many companies that don’t know any better. Do not think that because it’s been around for 100 years that it must be true! Photobiologists are the first to admit that we are far from understanding photosynthesis in its entirety. As recently as 2012, important Chlorophyll “F” antenna pigments were discovered – outside our range of vision in the near-infrared!

Lighting a crop is a two-step process:

• Acquire enough lights to cover your crop, and,
• Add lights to reach your desired yield.
• Using the Tree Master Pro for example, at the recommended mounting height of 12” above the canopy, you can count on a coverage area of 38”x46”. If your crop area is bigger than that, you’ll need to add lights.

If you know the potential yield of a given light, usually expressed in grams per Watt (gm/W) you can calculate what you could potentially yield for a given light. Again using the Tree Master Pro, most of our customers achieve 1gm/W within the first few grows. The draw of the TMPro is 250W, so each light provides the possibility for 250gms of dried product.

The number of lights you need depends upon how much yield you would like from your grow area. We advertise that our lights achieve 1 gram per Watt (1gm/W) of dried product, so about 25 grams per “Mini”, 250 grams per “Pro” and over a pound per “Harvest Ultra”. Our more experienced users regularly yield more, using the correct combination of LED grow methods, environmental quality, nutrients, and caring for their plants. When considering this, please know there are many variables in growing indoors and that lighting sets the “potential for yield” – it is up to you, and some very hard work, to reach the greatest yields.

You don’t have to, but you should, in order to maximize your yield and insure a quality crop. Our claims of 1gm/W depend upon this. Further, many techniques we recommend are common growing methods for most fibrous plants. They include “lolipopping”, “topping”, and maintaining an even plant canopy via aggressive gardening or use of restrictive netting/screens. Lolipopping rids the plant of leaves below the canopy, mostly those that are receiving little or no light. This foliage robs valuable resources while contributing nothing to photosynthesis. Many topping methods exist and are especially important for better yield in flowering plants. This involves trimming away top growth in order to make them branch out into multiples, greatly increasing flowering sites for greater yields. Trellis nets are commonly used to train plants to maintain an even canopy, insuring a more even distribution of light across the entire plant and keeping random foliage from blocking light going to the rest of the canopy.

To go a step further, most successful LED growers use the Sea-of-Green (SOG) growing method. This technique insures enough plant material is present to achieve desired yields, especially for plants with very short vegetative cycles.

Assuming you are already familiar with growing your crop of choice, the rest of the formula you would normally use remains the same, with one exception – if you live in a very cold climate, you must insure your crop has enough heat to survive – LEDs do not provide the excess heat of High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting.

Answering the last question first, yes, you can increase power to the LEDs if active (fan) cooling is used. However, fans are almost always the first component to break in an LED grow light. Over the past few years, we welcomed many new customers coming from competitors whose products experienced fan failures. We even had 4 or 5 customers call and ask us to repair their lights as they were tired of repeated failures of the same component and associated downtime for their crops (we could not help), but that is a different issue.

When we have units available, we will send you a replacement before asking for your back. This insures that your crop does not go without light, in the event the failure is an LED or two. If the light is totally dark, we will get a light to you as soon as possible and spares permitting. In some cases, you will keep the replacement, especially if the replacement unit is new or refurbished. You will never receive a lesser product from us.

This is a huge question, but I’ll try to summarize it. A 1000W HPS is based upon a bulb that emits light in almost 360 degrees around the bulb. Hoods and reflectors are used to redirect that light to your crop. These hoods increase the distance the light has to travel and various factors (cancellation and luminaire bounce) cause light loss, as well. In addition, the lack of containment (see graphic below) causes light to miss your crop completely. Estimates of total light loss due to these factors vary from 30-60%. Add the fact that HPS lighting gets HOT, up to 750°F, and must be mounted a good distance from the crop so as not to burn leaves. The Inverse Square Law in physics, as it applies to light, states that every time you double the distance from light source to target (crop), photon delivery is decreased by 75%!

LEDs are directional and when using good secondary lensing (a must), about 97% of all light goes where we want it to. Raising the light or lowering it insures there is no casting of light beyond our plants. The lighting output side of an LED does not get so hot that our crops burn, even if leaves touch the LEDs! The resulting light/photon delivery often meets or exceeds that of the HPS. LEDs are a tunable source, in terms of frequency, meaning, we can include LEDs important to a plant’s development without including spectrum detrimental to growth. An example of this is the 850nm emitted by HPS, which is infrared and is perceived as heat. Up to 95% of the power consumed by an HPS rig is pumped out in this band, a total waste, unless you live in very cold climates

In over 6500 lights fielded, we have lost approximately 28 power supplies and with exception of a bad run of red LEDs (which we caught most of during the QC phase of manufacturing), we have lost just 20 LEDs, out of almost one million LEDs sold. We attribute these stellar rates to our sources of supply, our manufacturing process, the fact that we burn-in test EACH AND EVERY light for 120 hours straight (5 days), and most of all, to our superior thermal management design and lack of fans for cooling.

This is a matter of preference. Some people choose to mount their LED grow lights with hooks, chains, string, etc. A popular solution is to use “yo-yo’s” made from rope or wire that will support the weight of the TTLEDs. As each of our “Mini” LED grow lights weighs in at about 5 pounds (2.26 kg), several may be hung from a single pair of yo-yo’s and some kind of wood or PVC frame used to mount each individual light. The”Harvest Ultra” weighs approximately 42 pounds and we regularly hang one of these per set of yo-yo’s.

To hang an array of four or more “Mini” units, some of our customers choose to build a very inexpensive frame from locally available PVC pipe, which can be found at your local home supply, DIY or plumbing store. They then hang the frame from the ceiling, and then hang the lights with bolts attached to holes drilled through the PVC. Most customers drill many holes in their frames so that they may move the TTLEDs around as the need arises. This is inexpensive and works very well.

The quick answer is about 2,000lm for the “Mini”, about 10,000 for the “Pro” and approximately 27,000 for the Harvest Ultra. However, this measure is highly misleading. Often, the grow light industry incorrectly advertises luminous intensity as the determining factor for effectiveness of grow lights, including High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting like Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium lamps. This couldn’t be further from the truth. For instance, blue LEDs, which are also the base frequency for most white LEDs, are not measured in lumens due to the high frequency and subsequently greater power. They are measured in radiometric power (in Watts) and converting this power to luminous intensity is subjective. In addition, light outside our vision (400-700nm) is not measured in most lab tests or by almost all handheld meters.

A simple analogy that should illustrate the uselessness of comparing lumens to effectiveness: Tape 100 X 300-lumen flashlights together and use them the same way you would any grow light. Even though they put out 30,000 lumens, they won’t grow a plant well!

We prefer to deal in scientific fact and we have been doing so for over 10 years. Going back to basic biology, plants have photoreceptors in their chloroplasts that receive and react to photons in specific frequencies. The chloroplasts then create food (for energy and mass) that is utilized by the plant for every function and growth, from seed-to-flower. The amount of food a plant can produce is dependent upon much more than just light, i.e., water quality, pH levels, CO2 and oxygen levels, nutrients, temperature, drainage, photoperiod, latitude, etc., but the photons (light) kick everything off.

Plants need light all the way across the spectrum, to include the chlorophyll absorption peaks, as well as the many “antenna” photoreceptors that assist the chlorophyll processes. Too often, manufacturers totally ignore these important frequencies, as well as other plant lighting requirements, such as that which serves the beta-Carotenes, luteins, and lycopenes.

Plants can use virtually ALL of the visible spectrum to aid them in development – to waste anything would be foolish.

There is more detail below, in the FAQ section “Are your LED grow lights “broad” or “full” spectrum?”.

Anything! Due to our full spectrum spread and efficient photon delivery, growing with our lights is highly effective for every plant we have come across. This includes roses, orchids, vegetables, herbs, spices, carnivorous plants – anything!

Our lights are truly full spectrum, meaning, we provide photons in absolutely every frequency across the visible spectrum – and even into the near-infrared range.

Some manufacturers and vendors use “broad” and “full” interchangeably, but beware – they are not the same.

While providing light in 5 – 11 different frequencies may be considered broad, there are a lot of holes between these frequencies.

You will see many claims that only a few frequencies corresponding to the Chlorophyll A and B absorption peaks are all that are necessary to grow plants. NOT TRUE. In over 10 years of grow light development, we have proven in our labs and for 1,000’s of customers that plants thrive in TRUE full spectrum grow lighting. It is scientifically well-documented that most plants can use the entire spectrum for photosynthesis. Some vendors rationalize their position (using only red and blue lights) by stating that plants are green because they don’t absorb ANY light in the green range. Again, NOT TRUE. The reason we see many plants as green is that plants do not absorb AS MUCH light in this frequency range, and that the difference between a plant’s ability to absorb (for example) red light and green light is as little as 3%-5%. The result – more green light is reflected than red, and we observe this reflected light (and plants) as green (550nm is pure green)

Tall Trees LED (TTL) warrants that this product shall be free of defects in material and workmanship for five (5) years from date of purchase. If there is such a defect, TTL will repair or replace the Product as appropriate and as determined by TTL. To obtain service under this warranty, the Purchaser must correctly fill out and file the appropriate warranty card within 30 days of receipt of purchase. You can find more information about the lights we sell on our Warranty link.

Absolutely! Many customers in colder climates choose to place a small HID lamp in with our LEDs in order to generate a bit of heat. Use of this small HID lamp usually saves a lot of money vs using a space heater, or heating a whole room – or even the whole house.

We use 45mil (not the cheap 39mil) chip and die sets from a very well-known and reputable manufacturer. We have these chips mounted in our own configuration for thermal and spectral performance. Our primary full spectrum LED is our own formula, built for us from our exacting specifications, based upon 10 years of functional and operational testing. We are able to do this based upon over a decade of relationship building with LED manufacturers, the LED design industry and LED luminaire manufacturers.

Our ties to the LED and manufacturing industries enable us to purchase select parts that others have no access to, or that they would have to pay a dear premium. Manufacturing an LED is not yet a perfect science and white LEDs are rarely exactly alike in frequency (color) and intensity, even those that come off of the same production line at the same time. The result is that LED providers “bin” their LEDs, meaning they test them and place them in virtual bins based upon their output color (frequency) and by power tolerance. For someone to draw from a specific bin to insure consistent performance from light to light is prohibitively expensive, yet that is exactly what we do. Our LEDs are on frequency every time.

The standard LED purchased by many of our competitors may deviate from the frequency required by plants. While their LED provides some output in this frequency range, it may not be very much. Our LED provides significantly more power in the ranges that count, allowing us to provide more growing power using less light.

Think about this when you see our competitors increase their power by 200-300%, but their coverage area remains the same. Many cite “penetration” as their reason for jacking up the power (and the cost), but there are gardening techniques to increase yield with less power. There is also significant scientific evidence that over-driving a specific frequency may interrupt a plant’s normal photobiological processes.

In repeated tests, our Tall Trees LED lights use less power and outperform the competition for all stages of growth.

Pictured is the “Mini” grow light (25W), beside our competition (36W), growing Ghost Chili plants within a reflective grow tent.

Both plants were given the same start in life, share genetics and are in the same stage of growth. In fact, the trial was slightly skewed to our competitor’s benefit – they received more reflected light as they were much closer to the tent’s inner surface. We moved the plants together to take the photo and so as not to directly target (name) our competition. Our plant is the one on the left!

We agree that measurement of PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) using a quantum meter is a better method of testing light output for growing plants than using a standard light meter, but it is not the best method. The BEST method is to try the product and determine that it actually works.

Current methods of determining PAR values are hindered by the technology itself. Quantum meters measure photon delivery in a range of frequencies, as shown in the graphic below, but they do not discriminate between frequencies, nor do they tell you if your plants are getting the lighting they need to thrive.

Furthermore, most quantum meters used in gardening only measure light from 400nm (blue) to less than 700nm (red). Quantum meter manufacturers weight the values of certain frequency ranges to accommodate the human eye. As such, these meters are far less sensitive to light produced at the blue end of the spectrum and give greater value to those frequencies in the yellow, green and red spectrum. So, PAR is not as telling as some would have you think. As in our previous example above, strap a bunch of high-powered flashlights together and the measured PAR value may be astronomical, but you would not grow healthy plants with it, making the claim useless.

We contacted a few of our customers that we knew to be die hard High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lighting fans, yet chose to try our lights because of potential electricity and air conditioning cost savings and increased yield-per-Watt. All of these customers chose to build a “hybrid” lighting system, using smaller-than-normal HPS lamps and our “Mini” LED grow lights to improve their results. Collectively, they found that the hybrid setup saved them money, beefed up the plants in their fringe areas, and provided much needed additional lighting spectrum to the plants not normally present with HPS lamps. Further, a very important by-product of using a combination of HPS and LED grow lights is that the HPS lamps provide just enough heat to the plants that would otherwise be missing in an LED-only grow operation.

We are very proud of our product. No other grow light is built to our specifications. This quality means that our prices are not the cheapest, except when you factor in TRUE longevity and of course, our proprietary true full spectrum delivery.

We have had a lot of success from our customers growing orchids with our full spectrum LED grow lights. The low electricity cost, low heat and excellent spectrum when compared to HID or CFL is perfect for the propagation and growth of even the rarest orchids.

Growing chilis indoors is a fantastic experience and something a lot of our growers enjoy doing. With our new breed of LED grow lights offering a full spectrum light source you can grow explosive tasting high power chilies ghost pepper or even Trinidad Moruga Scorpion chilies.

One of the more recent developments for us has been an insurgence in the use of our lighting for cultivation of carnivorous plants.