Many people expressed that LEDs made great vegetative grow lights but lacked the power to fruit a plant. This is because most LED Grow Lights use 120 degree lenses. This is considered a wide-angle lens, as it disperses the light over a broad area (even to the walls!). The use of 120 degree lenses is the reason why most companies list exaggerated coverage areas for their LED Grow Lights, however there is a definite trade-off between coverage area and light intensity. Just like a flashlight, when the beam is wide, the light is dim and vice versa, when the beam is narrow, the light is condensed to be more intense like a laser. In line with that concept, the Penetrator Series LED grow lights use a Patent Pending 60 degree lens to narrow down the beam of light, amplifying it to 4x the intensity of 120 degree lenses. The 60 degree lens also has much less fade over distance, giving it ample light intensity for top to bottom leaf penetration.

A myth that many companies use is that by placing LED's closely together, intensity and penetration can also be increased. To prove that focused light (Hydro Grow's lens technology) substantially increases light intensity, not LED spacing, we took at fully loaded 180W UFO with a custom 90 lens and tested it against our 205W Penetrator using our patent pending 60 lens technology. The 205W was chosen not only because it draws the approximate wattage as the 180W UFO, but also because the spacing between the Light Engines are the largest of all the grow light models. During the test, light intensity of each light was measured at various heights using the Li-Cor 250. The results were noteworthy: at 48" away, our 60 degree lens produced 3x the intensity of a fully-packed boared using 90 lenses! So even though our LED's are spaced out, our 60 degree lens gives our lights the ability to carry light energy over long distances.

Penetration is the key to success with any LED Grow Light, as it directly affects the rate of light absorption. For a plant to absorb light properly, light must pass through or "penetrate" the leaf. With insufficient light intensity, a plant will use only a small portion of the light they are given, as it's not being "delivered" to them. The light simply "rests" on the leaves. So even if the spectral outputs were perfect, insufficient light passing through the leaves will dramatically reduce light absorption. Our 60 degree lenses provide levels of penetration comparable to HID, and are fully capable of flowering any plant variety. Experience for yourself what the power of 60 degree lenses, and deep penetration can do for your plants!

Revolutionary Design

Heat is the leading cause of burned out (dead) LEDs. When a LED is overdriven or densely packed on a small board, heat is created causing rapid degradation of the LED chip. All Penetrator grow lights are clustered into Light Engines and spread out on a board rated for at least twice the LEDs. This allows any heat to dissipate quickly, running the panels at a cool 95-105 degrees Fahrenheit (in comparison to HID's with an operating temperature of 450-650 degrees). Cool panels mean the LEDs emit the maximum amount of light possible, and guarantees a longer LED lifespan than the normal 50,000-100,000hrs. Warm panels mean the exact opposite, with LED's emitting far lower than their maximum output, and lifespan being reduced far below 50,000 hours.