It Is Time to Maintain Your Grow Lights

Grow lights are widely used in greenhouses and vertical farms. Many growers concentrate on the cost, spectra, and efficiency of grow lights when they utilize them to improve plant growth. There is no doubt that these factors have significant effects on plant growth, production, and yields. But maintenance of grow lights is also important. Plants benefit from the right operation of grow lights. Just consider several questions.

Have you ever paid attention to grow lights themselves?

Have you noticed the dust on grow lights?

Have you ever thought about replacing traditional grow lights to more efficient LED grow lights?

Well, it is time to maintain your grow lights. Keeping grow lights in the best working performance is beneficial for your plants.

Why you should maintain grow lights

If you have a car, you will maintain the car regularly for longer lifespan and stable performance. It is the same as grow lights. In simple words, lighting maintenance is beneficial to growers, plants, and the growing environment. Maintaining grow lights frequently comes with long-term advantages, including saving cost, ensuring safety, increasing efficiency, and extending lifespan.

In contrast, if you do not maintain grow lights, it will speed up the lighting output depreciation, slow down plant growth, increase the possibility of accident, and damage the light quality. All grow light have a drop on light output after certain periods. If you do not maintain grow lights, decrease of efficiency will be accelerated, resulting negative effect on your plants and increasing the cost. Grow lights provide less light output while consuming the same amount of electricity. The reduced light output will also slow down the plant growth. Except for the effect on plant, grow light maintenance has impact on safety as well. The dirt and dust accumulated on grow lights may catch on fire. Moreover, the dirt on the reflector of the grow light can decline up to 20% of the light quality, which means the lighting efficiency is significantly cut down.

Warnings for lighting maintenance

We have known the importance of lighting maintenance, do you hardly wait to maintain your grow lights? Before the maintenance, there are some warnings you should keep in mind to ensure your safety.

• Turn off the power and disconnect the grow lights from power source before maintenance
• Allow a cool down period to touch the grow lights after powering off the lights
• Follow the instruction of manufacturer

How to maintain your grow lights

Now, let’s begin to maintain grow lights.

• Check the wiring

Wiring is critical for the effective and normal performance of grow lights. Not every electrician can wire grow lights in a right way every time. Check the wiring and connection carefully, or it may cause electrical shock or even product damage. Another problem with the wiring is the loose connection. The loose wires can also result dangers and faults. In simple words, without power supply, your grow light cannot work at all. With correct wiring, grow lights are provided with stable voltage. And the stable voltage contributes to stable light output and extended working time.

• Clean the grow lights

The dirt and dust can reduce up to 20 percent light output. It is a dreadful blow to the lighting efficiency. Furthermore, mod and mildew pathogens may hide in grow lights. These pathogens may even spread and infect plants, causing serious disease. Thus, cleaning grow lights is irreducible. The best time to maintain and clean your grow lights is the period after each harvest. Firstly, spray water or mild cleaner onto a non-abrasive towel. Then, use the towel to wipe away the dirt and dust one grow lights until clean. Please note that do not use the wet towel to rub the LEDs, base, and the socket. Similarly, do not spray liquids on or around them directly. Selecting the grow lights (such as Horti-Sky) that are dust-free and easy to clean can help you save efforts.

• Routine inspection

Routine inspection enables you to find the problems of grow lights as early as possible and reduce the fault rate. Another way of saying that is, you can save cost and prevent more serious consequence through routine inspection. Grow lights may work as usual with a minor problem. But is may develop to a tricky one over time. Routine inspection makes sense because it can nip potential issues in the bud before worse. However, routine inspection doesn’t mean you have to check grow lights all the time. You just need a regular inspection for grow lights to ensure they are working properly. The frequent inspection and maintenance include checking wiring, cleaning, adjusting the hang height, etc.

• Schedule replacement

Replacement includes changing the damaged grow lights and the inefficient grow lights. If there are distinct flaws on grow lights, replace the damaged part or purchase a new one. Otherwise, these flaws will obstruct efficiency. Every grow light has limited lifespan. What makes it worse is grow lights also have light output depreciation after certain serve time. Replacing the existing traditional grow lights is more economic than still using the inefficient traditional grow lights. If you find there is a significant decrease of light output, you had better replace them to more efficient one. LED grow lights are the optimal choice due to their longer lifespan, higher efficiency, and lower energy consumption compared to traditional grow lights.

Don’t know how to select the right one for your plants?

Atop provides tailored lighting solution for your specific needs. We also provide FREE lighting design. Please visit our website and feel free to contact us.