What type of diode do we use?

Here at Black Dog LED, we pride ourselves in providing indoor growers with the highest quality spectrum and most intense footprint available. While things like fans and heatsinks play a crucial role in the longevity of any indoor plant grow light, spectral quality and intensity are determined by the type of light emitting diodes (LEDs) used in a panel. Our proprietary Phyto-Genesis Spectrum® makes use of a very specific and diverse combination of LEDs, each proven through scientific study to stimulate photosynthesis as well as many other desirable metabolic processes in plants. Additionally, we use only 5 watt rated chips to ensure that our lights provide the most uniformly intense footprints possible. In order to include each of the essential spectrums at such high intensities in our lights, we use diodes from several different sources because no one manufacturer provides the best-of-class of all of the LED colors required to create our full spectrum.

We are always evaluating LEDs from every major manufacturer and are using whichever LEDs are the most efficient (highest light output per watt) for each color of LEDs we use in our PhytoMAX LED grow lights; this means that the LED diode manufacturers we are using are changing from time to time.

Most LED manufacturers specialize in only one or two colors of LEDs- for example, Cree only makes 450nm blue LEDs (and "white" LEDs, which are 450nm blue diodes covered with a phosphor coating); they do sell other color LEDs, but these are actually made by different manufacturers- for example, the red LEDs Cree sells are made by Epistar. Osram makes other blue wavelengths and some reds; the other colors they sell are made by other companies.

We do use LEDs from Osram and Cree, as well as others. For some of the colors we use, it is very hard to find what the best manufacturer is, but we do not share this information with the public for one solid reason: it is not in our best interest. The Black Dog LED brand has become synonymous with quality, intensity, reliability, and performance, and we know that other companies would love to be able to copy our spectrum. We've spent too much time and money researching and developing the best indoor LED plant grow lights in the industry to simply give this information away.

Rather than throwing around diode brand names to distract people from the actual performance of the light, we give hard numbers on the actual performance of our lights: the total flux, total photosynthetic flux (PPF), total UV flux, and total IR flux are all specified in the light's product pages.