ZCPlus LED Strip Light Plant Grow Lights 16.4ft 5050 SMD Waterproof Full Spectrum Red Blue 4:1 Growing Lamp for Aquarium Greenhouse Hydroponic Plant Garden Flowers (5 M)

I had trouble finding web info about how to use these lights, so I experimented and improvised, and I'm doing my part by sharing what I learned (so far) here.Purchased these last December for growing seedlings. Lights were high quality and work well. The resin was clear and all was robust except, as others have said, the adhesive. The adhesive is just a double sided tape, so you can remove it.First 3-week experiment with tomatoes and spinach was disappointing - Four 1/2-meter strips lengthwise, evenly divided across a flat, was not enough to grow tomato seedlings even close to the size and robustness of my old Sylvania Gro-Lux fluorescent setup. The plants were small and the leaves seemed thin. Spinach was stunted and never developed secondary leaves (fluorescent spinach was halfway to salad). Turns out (from later research) spinach needs some white light, and tomatoes are unusually light hungry.Based on that experience, I made single-flat fixtures from 1/2 meter lengthwise strips: 3 strips for shade tolerant plants like impatiens and begonias, and 5 strips for everything else. Both types of fixtures have 2 supplemental warm white strips. All fixtures are made out of aluminum window screen framing, so sunlight can come through the fixtures. The red and blue lights run for 14 hours a day. The white lights come on for about 6-7 hours, split between early morning and afternoon/evening. For the rest of the time the plants have to glean their supplemental white light from whatever comes through the window. I hang the fixtures 2-3" above the canopy. I hung up some foam board behind the setup to reflect sunlight, and short strips of white boards beside the last flats in line to corral the grow lights.Impatiens and begonias have been under the 3-strip lights for 6 weeks. The impatiens are healthy, stocky and well branched, with good color. They are beginning to form flower buds - next year I won't start them so early. The begonias got a slow start (too cold I think) - when I added a daytime heat mat with a low thermostat setting they started to surge. I can practically see them grow. Experiments with spinach are definitely better than last time - they are forming secondary leaves at 15 days. I've had reasonable success with alyssum, cabbage, and echinacea.I just turned on the fluorescent light a week ago, so no comparisons with that yet - I think the spinach is a little slow but we'll see. The Sylvania Gro-Lux fluorescent bulbs are very well tuned for plants, and the gentle heat they give off helps my plants in the very cold spare bedroom I use, so it's a high bar. I chose LEDs for my expansion, hoping for an energy savings (not so much in money but for the environment). The 3-strip fixtures average 22 watts over the day, the 5-strip fixtures average 32. (5 watts per grow light strip, and 7 watts per white strip, but the white strips aren't on all day. Measured them with a watt meter.) That's a very modest savings over my 40-watt/flat T12 fluorescent. I could have saved nearly that by changing to T8 bulbs. The cost of materials for building the fixtures is very reasonable for LED plant lights, but compared to an old shop fixture it's - not. Especially if you find an old but hardly used shop light looking new and shiny in your own basement, as I did last week (*sigh*). And the fixtures were a lot of work to research and make.On the up side, the fixtures are very lightweight and low profile and can be hung anywhere. I have a couple of extra 2-strip fixtures - I can change their spacing by swapping out end bars, or I can use them singly. Between these and the other fixtures I can do anything from 1 tiny strip of plants to 1/4 or 1/2 flat, to 7 full flats, without any waste. The big fluorescents take 0 flats or 2 or 4, nothing in between. And the LED fixtures are kind of cool in a nerdy, DIY sort of way. During the research to design them, I learned a little about a lot - botany, electronics, even a little physics (light wave spectrums, etc.) Speaking of which, Lumens are for Humans. Don't use them to judge these lights - the Lumens unit is weighted for white light, specifically the green part of the spectrum that plants need less of. According to one worksheet I saw, the warm white strips I am using have half the value to plants (called PAR value) that the red/blue lights have. But some plants need a little of the other parts of the spectrum too.If I had it to do over, I might research the 120 volt lights. I read that about 20% is lost in the power supply for 12V.Some construction notes in case they are helpful: First I drilled 2 holes in each of the plastic corners for the aluminum window screen frames, for cord management later. Then I made the frames, by putting them together with the plastic corners. The interior bars are spliced in with a t-shaped piece of aluminum flashing, held in place with aluminum foil tape. I stripped the waterproof coating off the light strip ends by working a fingernail under it, peeling it back, and cutting if off with sharp scissors. I glued the lights on with dots of caulk (more forgiving than gorilla glue or double sided tape if you need a do-over), leaving an inch and a half or so unglued at the end. Cut and stripped some scrap wire for jumpers or plugs. Made the connections, mostly with solder (my husband did that), and covered with electrical tape. Put double sided tape under each connection. Threaded plug wires through holes in plastic corners, and wrapped jumpers around the end bars. Added plugs, tested all connections. Secured endbars, connections, and all wires with gorilla tape. In some cases, where I couldn't thread the wires through because there was an integral plug, I tied them up with scrap wire, threaded through. After all was done, I noticed the lights seemed cloudy. This turned out to be dirt from handling them. It wiped right off with alcohol. It was pretty thick - I think it would have cut down on the light considerably.The finished fixtures do get moved around as I add or remove plants, etc. They will have to be packed up at the end of the seedling season, and be taken out next winter. I found the solderless connectors difficult to secure well enough for this kind of manhandling. Also, where I wanted to put two strips on one aluminum bar the solderless connectors are too wide. So my husband volunteered to make a lot of solder joints. I think the connectors might work if there is only one strip on a bar, and if the wire end of the connection is secured such that any stress on it pulls the strip toward the bar rather than away from it (such as threading it through a hole or wrapping around the end bar). In the beginning I had a lot of trouble with some solderless connectors that didn't connect well. It was usually a tiny piece of waterproof coating left under the connector that was causing a flaky connection. This would lead to flickering, overheating, and light failure in time.About power supplies: I am trying to make sure that I put no more than 4 meters on a power supply. They will be more energy efficient that way, and there will be less stress on the components.That's all I can think of. Hope it helps if somebody is taking this "road less traveled". I'm putting in pictures, mine are labelled "L".

So far, these seem to be a good deal. They are indeed IP65 waterproof (that means dribbling water on them wont hurt at all) however keep in mind any splices you make breeches that silicone coating, and the joints themselves will not be waterproof at all.... so seal them good with something or avoid getting the joints wet. If you leave the roll on one piece, no worry.Some details not in the listing that might be important to someone... there are 304 LEDS per strip or, 19 emitters per foot. On a kill-o-watt meter they consume about 3.5W per foot. I cut mine into 33 inch bars and each one metered 10W. The whole roll metered at 56W. I looked up the specs on the 5050 chips, they emit a little over 6 lumens each. They are 12v 2 wire strips in case you are buying connectors you'll need to know that.At face value they seem to be very good quality LED strips. I will have to update this review once spring seedling and transplant season is over to find out how well they work at what distance and configuration. They are 4:1 R/B and I have been using 1:1 R/B LED lights so I'm interested in how well they perform.Also compared to standard T8 tubes, power wise the T8s pull 45W per 2 tube fixture 4ft long. 2 strips 4' long pulls about 28W so if they work as well as or better than T8 tubes.... thats about a 50% power savings. I don't know just yet how many 4' strips it will take to equal the growing quality of a set of T8s..... I will update that in a few months. We start all sorts of veggies from seed so it'll be a fun experiment. If we can replace 25+ T8 fixtures with these things that'll be an awesome savings.But we don't know that yet.... stay tuned.

First time user of these 5050 style strip lights. Got them to supplement my current light rack I use to get an early start on my veggies. They look great when installed in my setup, and the wavelengths of light produced seem to be right for the plants I am growing. My two knocks are that the adhesive backing on the strips are a joke. The manufacturer needs to charge a buck or two more and either supply some easy to use clips (not just the 3 or 4 included), OR BETTER YET A DECENT ADHESIVE BACKING! Additionally someone needs to include a video on this page showing beginners how to wire these lights in series using available connector strips. I know it is not rocket science figuring things out but step by step directions would still be a good thing.

Bought these lights to help out our indoor plants that weren't getting enough sunlight. They look nice, and the plants are doing much better now! It wasn't that hard to set up, although there were no instructions that I could find. Also, if you want to string 2 or more lines of these lights, you'll need to get adapters to connect them which are sold separately. One other comment is that I mounted the lights underneath the cabinets in my kitchen which were painted wood, and the adhesive was not strong enough to hold the lights up. Some double sided foam mounting tape did the trick. If you are mounting them on a less porous surface (i.e. glass or metal) it might adhere better. Otherwise they work well.

Update 4/2218:Seller contacted me after I posted and sent me a new power adapter that arrived yesterday. I had replaced it previously on my own so this will be a spare. Other than that the strip has been in operation 18 hours a day since installation. Works great plants sprouting and happy.I had replaceThe strip has been in operation since-------------Purchased 2 units of these led grow lights. The power adapter failed on one after less than 30 hours of use. The LED strip works fine; plugging in the other power adapter lights them up. Unfortunately for me this was post installation so I cant just repackage everything and return it. I was forced to beuy another power adapter, and am now left wondering when the other one will go.