What is this new grow light, the Spider Farmer G3000? Yes, it is, let’s get it out of the box and take a look. Welcome to The Hippie Geeks, lets dig into this grow light unboxing and PAR level test.
I needed a new light for our upcoming grow in the Spider Farmer 28”x28” grow tent, and they were kind enough to send over their G3000 for us to use in the grow. Their lights are always very well packaged, and this one was no exception as it survived all the damage that UPS did to the box before it got to us. If you watched our earlier unboxing of the SE7000 that is going into the 4’x4’ tent, this light is going to look pretty familiar. It is a similar bar style grow light, just much smaller and at a more affordable price point.
Putting the light together was really simple, and you may have noticed that I rearranged my space between the last unboxing and this one. The bars clip into the cross bars just like they did on the SE7000, and it takes considerably less space as the light is only 24”x24”. Once all four bars were clicked into place, I just needed to flip it over and connect the power wired from the cross bar to the light bars. After that I attached the four feet to the driver with the provided thumb screws, though I am not sure yet if I am going to run this driver on the light or remotely on top of the tent. This is a lot of light for a 2×2 tent, and I think that I am probably going to end up running it remotely but we will see.
Now that it is all assembled, it is time to check out the par levels inside of the Spider Farmer 28”x28” tent with measurements taken every 7 ”. This is just about the largest light that you can fit into this size tent, which should give me really great light coverage. The driver has plenty of length on its cables so that you can mount the driver outside of the tent, and the amount of heat you need inside of the tent is going to determine if you want to run it inside the tent, or outside of the tent as I have before.
At a 12” height, the PAR reading in the center is 1099, falling off to between 870 and 930 PAR at the far corners. I do the best I can to hang the light level in the tent, but sometimes it is a little off kilter, and I am not able to notice it until I have pulled all of the PAR level readings. This light will pull 300 watts from the wall at full power, and it goes down from there as you dim the dial. At 80 it pulled 281 watts from the wall, at 60 is was pulling 161 watts, at 40 it went down to 101 watts, at 20 it was pulling 51 watts and finally at minimum it pulled 21 watts from the wall.
Moving up to an 18” height, the center reading is now at 967 PAR, and the incredible thing to look at with this light is how even the light levels are in the center, and how much more spread out the light is over the space. We also took PAR readings with the light dimmed and averaged what the results were, which give you the PAR x readings on the left. All of the readings shown on the screen are at full power, and to get the light levels at different dim settings just multiply the shown PAR value by that number. For an example the center reading at 18” is 967, but if we have the light set to 60, we would multiply it by .55 and get a result of 532, which will get you pretty close with all of the values shown.
At a 24” height, the center level is down to 865 PAR. again with an amazing spread from there out. We are still using the Apogee SQ-420 Smart Quantum Sensor to take all of these measurements, and it has been working great for the last several years. It is just the sensor itself and plugs into a PC to get the readings, so is a bit more affordable than their stand-alone units. Their more expensive standalone units are more expensive, but do not need to be plugged into a computer to get a reading. We will leave an Amazon Affiliates link to it down below if that is something you are interested in checking out.
Moving up to 30”, and the center reading is now at 775 PAR, and you may be wondering why we did not have 12” or 18” measurements for the SE7000 unboxing, but we do with this one. The main reason is that the SE7000 is so bright even at 24” that it isn’t worth it, for me at least, to risk having the light that close with the amount of heat that a light this size can put out. With a smaller light like this, you are much more likely to have it closer to the canopy so we included them here. If you watched the SE7000 unboxing and were really hoping for the PAR readings at those lower hanging heights, let me know in the comments and we will do an updated review in the future with those added in as well.
Getting up to 36”, the center level is down to 679, again with an amazing spread from there out. I love using the largest light inside of a tent that we can, just so that I know we have as much light across the canopy as possible, no matter where we have it hung in relation to the plants. I also prefer to keep the lights turned down a bit as well, as running any electronics at their maximum levels all the time will lead to more wear on the circuits than if you can leave it turned down a bit. This also helps to control the heat inside of the tent, as the light will run cooler at a lower power setting, while still being able to give you a ton of light when you need it.
Finally, I hung the light at 48” and the center reading is at 516 PAR which is still fantastic. Removable remote drivers are one of my favorite things about these bar style grow lights, and they give you a lot of flexibility with setting up the tent. The ability to place the driver outside of the tent when you need less heat in there is going to be amazing with this light for keeping the temps inside of the tent down to a manageable level, but it is also nice to have the choice to mount it inside of the tent like we are here initially as I want the extra heat to keep the plants happy since I am sprouting them in the winter.
This is the first 300 watt light that we have ever checked out, and it will be the largest light that we have ever tried growing with inside of a smaller grow tent, so I am really excited to see how the plants do in here over the course of this grow. This light would also work out really well inside of a 3’x3’ tent, and in the future we will be measuring its light levels inside of a tent that size as well. For now though we will just have to see how it works in here, and check back in tomorrow to see how we are going to set up the tent for the next grow using this light.
A big thank you to Spider Farmer for sending this light over for us to take a look at. If you would like to try this light out for yourself, I will leave a link to it on their website in the description down below. Make sure to use code GEEKS at checkout to get an eight percent discount on your order.
Another big shoutout goes to our Channel Members here on YouTube and Patrons over at Patreon that have pledged at the Trimmer level. While all of our members and patrons help keep the channel going, you folks have gone above and beyond, and we really appreciate it.
Check out this light on the Spider Farmer website here:
https://www.spider-farmer.com/products/spider-farmer-g300w-cost-effective-full-spectrum-led-grow-light/
Use code GEEKS at checkout to get 8% off of your entire order!
Check out the rest of the gear that will be going into the upcoming grow series here:
Spider Farmer 28″x28″ grow tent:
https://www.spider-farmer.com/products/sf-2-x2-indoor-grow-tent-hydroponic-home-plant-reflective-aluminum-oxford-cloth/
Spider Farmer 4″ smart ventilation kit:
https://www.spider-farmer.com/products/spider-farmer-ventilation-kit-4-inch-205-cfm-inline-duct-fan-with-temperature-humidity-controller-carbon-filter-32-feet-ducting-combo-set-ventilation-system-for-grow-tents-hydroponics/
AC Infinity Cloudray S6 oscillating fan:
https://acinfinity.com/grow-ventilation/clip-on-fans/cloudray-s6-grow-tent-clip-fan-6-with-10-speeds-ec-motor-auto-oscillation/
Use code GEEKS at checkout to get 10% off of your entire order!
Check out this gear on Amazon:
Spider Farmer G3000: https://amzn.to/3XirphC
Spider Farmer 28″x28″ grow tent: https://amzn.to/3irGUoP
Spider Farmer 4″ smart ventilation kit: https://amzn.to/3Qo4rDu
Apogee SQ-420x PAR Sensor: https://amzn.to/3ZjfnX7
As an Amazon Associate I earn a small percent of the cost from qualifying purchases.
A big thank you to our Channel Members and Patrons at the Trimmer level this month, you are going above and beyond to support the channel
Nick Hatfield
Daniel Wright
John Bourke
John Lewandowski
Tom Hitchcock
Will Ellerton
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