Spider Farmer SF-1000 Review

Find out whether Spider Farmer SF-1000 is the grow light for you! Here is our Spider Farmer SF-1000 review from its design to performance.

There are many choices for LED grow lights on the market.

You might have a hard time choosing the best one for your indoor plants. Your indecision will gnaw at you even more if you are still new to indoor gardening.

Let us save you the trouble. Here, we will review one of the best LED grow lights, Spider Farmer SF-1000.

Spider Farmer SF-1000 is one of the most popular LED grow lights on the market today. It has received some of the most positive reviews too.

Many professional gardening forums praise this LED grow light. The same goes for blogs written by professional indoor growers.

So, how well does this light perform? Does it perform well compared to other LED grow lights on the market? Let’s find out!

To learn more about Spider Farmer SF 1000, we decided to do our own investigation. We included the full results in this in-depth Spider Farmer SF-1000 grow light review.

Let’s get started with the review!

Table of ContentsShow

Spider Farmer SF-1000 Design Review

We are going to review Spider Farmer SF-1000’s performance in this article. But let us first discuss the design for a minute.

The Package

My Spider Farmer SF-1000 arrived well-packaged.

The LED grow light needs some extra protection to prevent damage during shipping. The company does a beautiful job in this regard.

When you open the package, you’ll find the LED grow light. You’ll also find the hanging equipment, a few plant labels, a measuring tape, and a user manual.

Structure And Design

The LED grow light feels relatively heavy on the hand. It holds a good chunk of aluminum, which accounts for most of its weight.

Spider Farmer SF 1000 Design

Attached to the aluminum plate is the light panel. Its 208 LM301B LEDs are insulated with waterproof material—and so is the board itself. The device’s power cords are also well-protected.

Samsung makes its diodes, so they are among the highest-quality LEDs found on the market.

MEAN WELL manufactures the device’s drivers, which are fixed to the lamp. Those in the industry know MEAN WELL is an excellent brand of power supplies.

Unlike most LED grow lights, Spider Farmer SF-1000 is flat-shaped. The shape is due to having no added built-in equipment, such as cooling fans.

Spider Farmer SF-1000 Performance Review

Spider Farmer SF-1000 has a light output of around 16500 lumens. Most of its LEDs emit light in the 3000K and 5000K spectrum range. The rest generate deep red and infrared light.

The above ratings show the device’s generated light includes almost the full spectrum.

But we need more accurate measurements. Lumens and kelvins are not enough to determine if the generated light intensity is helpful for photosynthesis.

We have to test the Spider Farmer SF-1000’s Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) output. That will help us learn more about its usefulness to plants.

Here is one way of assessing the PAR of a grow light: Measure its PPFD values at a certain distance using a PPFD light meter. (Learn more about growing plants with lights.)

Here are our PPFD measurements of the Spider Farmer SF-1000 at a 12″ (30 cm) difference. (That is the manufacturer’s recommended hanging height for indoor flowering plants.)

Spider Farmer SF 1000 PPFD Values

Those values show that Spider Farmer SF-1000 generates high intensity of useful light.

Let’s appreciate these PPFD measurements even more. We will use them to calculate the Daily Light Integral (DLI) values. The DLI is the cumulative amount of PAR reaching your plants every day.

Let’s assume you’ll turn on the light for an average of 16 hours daily. Then the DLI values of Spider Farmer SF-1000 at a distance of 12″ from your plants will be as follows:

Spider Farmer SF 1000 DLI Values

We should mention that plants with the highest demand for light can grow very well with a DLI of around 20 to 30 mol/m²/d.

So, long story short, you can grow anything under Spider Farmer SF-1000. That includes fruits and vegetables.

It is important to note that the flowering footprint of the Spider Farmer SF-1000 is 2′ × 2′ (0.6m × 0.6m). Outside that coverage area, it’s challenging to grow heavy-flowering and fruiting plants.

But the vegetative footprint of the Spider Farmer SF-1000 is 3′ x 3′ (0.9m × 0.9m). This size of the area is because the plants need less light intensity in their vegetative phase.

Power Consumption And Efficiency

Spider Farmer SF-1000 draws around 96 watts of power. This grow light packs loads of energy efficiency. You will hardly notice an increase in your electric bill when running it.

Spider Farmer SF 1000 Power Consumption

But the question is, how efficiently is this device turning watts into light energy?

The average PPFD of the light at a hanging distance of 12″ is around 531 μmol/m²/s, so its PAR (PPF) output is close to 240 μmol/s.

That means the PPF efficacy of Spider Farmer SF-1000 is approximately 2.45 μmol/J. Compared to other models, this is a phenomenal value.

For example, Spider Farmer’s popular competitor is the VIPARSPECTRA Pro Series P1000. It has a PPF efficacy of around 2.1 μmol/s/Watt.

Upgraded: ON/OFF Switch + Dimming And Daisy Chain Function

Old Spider Farmer models did not have ON/OFF switches. The company finally upgraded its LED lights to include that basic feature.

The old lights had a dimming function, but the dimmer was hard to reach because it was inside the driver.

The newest models have dimmer knobs on the outside. That way, you can easily decrease the light intensity of your grow light.

Spider Farmer SF 1000 Switch Function

Finally, the newest Spider Farmer SF-1000 has a daisy chain function. The daisy chain feature allows you to connect multiple SF LED lights. That gives you more control over your grow light setup and can support a wide area on your grow tent.

Heat Dissipation

The Spider Farmer SF-1000 does not have cooling fans attached to its grow light body.

You might wonder how it remains cool with all the heat generated by its LED light. Here is where the aluminum body comes into play.

The aluminum’s excellent surface area and high thermal conductivity enable it to act as a heat sink. It collects all the heat from around the LEDs. Then it disperses that heat into the atmosphere, away from the plants.

The aluminum heat sink has several unique advantages compared to grow lights with cooling fans attached.

Spider Farmer SF 1000 Heat and Noise

The Spider Farm LED light does not have a fan. So it produces less noise during operation and saves you a great deal of space. It also requires less power to keep this grow light running.

This is contrary to LED grow lights with fans, which produce more noise during operation. They also need that extra juice to keep the fans running.

Spider Farmer SF-1000 is not the only grow light that uses aluminum to remove heat though.

In our opinion, this heat-dissipation method proved to be the most effective. This is because the majority of grow lights nowadays rely on it.

Many gardeners still believe the heat sink of Spider Farmer SF-1000 is not as powerful as other grow lights—such as Mars Hydro TS 1000.

Note: The aluminum of the Spider Farmer will get hot as soon as the device starts running. You don’t have to worry about it because that’s the heat sink doing its job.

Yield

Now to the question most of you are wondering about. Will this grow light help produce a higher yield for your plants?

For indoor cannabis cultivation, yield in grams per watt is likely the most critical measurement.

Medical legal cannabis plant under lamp. Marijuana garden indoor

The manufacturer claims that the greatest yield of Spider Farmer SF-1000 is around 2.5 grams/watt.

We advise you not to pay much attention to that measurement. It’s irrelevant and a bit exaggerated.

As reported by many growers, the average yield you can pull from the SF LED light is around 1.2 grams/watt. That is also very good.

Spider SF-1000D Overview

The SF LED grow lights released a slightly altered version of SF-1000, called SF-1000D.

This SF light is more affordable than the SF-1000. But this price advantage comes at the expense of other features.

For instance, the SF-1000D does not use a MEAN WELL driver, which is a significant downgrade.

Also, the LED light uses a different type of Samsung diode (LM301D). They are less efficient and dimmer than the LM301B diodes.

The PPF efficacy of SF-1000D is around 1.9 to 2 μmol/J, about 80% of that of Spider Farmer SF-1000.

Because of the less expensive price tag, we recommend the SF-1000D for first-timers. It’s also suitable for indoor-gardening beginners still learning to grow plants indoors or even those on a tight budget.

Conclusion

Spider Farmer SF-1000 is a powerful grow light. You can grow the most light-demanding plants under it.

We can confirm it is one of the best LED grow lights on the market with its quality components and bang-for-one’s-buck features.

One of the top features of this SF LED light is its low power consumption. That’s all thanks to its LEDs and Aluminum as a heat sink. The light only consumes around 96 watts with a PPF efficacy rate of around 2.45 μmol/s/Watt.

Spider Farmer SF-1000 puts out a mixed light that covers most of the spectrum. And its PAR output is adequate for most plants, including the heavy-flowering ones.

The device has no cooling fans; instead, it uses an aluminum board to dissipate heat.

As for the design, the Spider Farmer has a simple, flat shape. It is pretty much a lighting board attached to an aluminum plate and a driver.

Samsung and MEAN WELL manufactured the LEDs and the driver, respectively. Both companies are two of the leading brands in the LED industry.

Spider Farmer SF-1000 retails at an affordable price (you check the price here on Amazon).

Considering everything we mentioned above, we highly recommend this light. It will work for any type of plant you want to grow inside.

What do you think of the Spider Farmer SF-1000? Do you think this LED grow light is one of the best LED grow lights on the market?

Please, let us know what you think by pouring your thoughts in the comments below!

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Jad Daou

Jad has always been passionate about growing plants. When he finished high school, he majored in biology, which makes him very knowledgeable about agriculture.