Roleadro is a Chinese brand that’s fabricated in Shenzhen, China. They’ve been around for a long time and have established themselves as one of the most popular go-to choices in the introductory market.
The 45w panel by Roleadro is certainly a quality LED light at a cheap price. It comes with a switch that enables a lower power consumption mode. This 45W panel offers a great solution for people with a very tight budget.
The continuous use of 6-18 hours may make the blast slightly warm. Mildly warm means 88-105 °F with an ambient temp of 74-88 °F. The panel is made up of aluminum, flat on the backside, and doesn’t get hot. After operating for straight 18 hrs, the surface temp probe reads 82 °F on the metal backside.
If you are in a hurry, then simply read below.
These panels are ideal for seedlings, microgreens, and houseplants. However, these are not appropriate for any large flowering or fruit-bearing plants. You can also not grow marijuana well under these lights at all.
Table of Contents
Roleadro LED Grow Light Review
Roleadro LED panels are manufactured very well. Here some of its specifications and features.
| Actual power: | 25.2 watts |
| LEDs: | Red: 117pcs 660nm Blue: 52pcs 450nm |
| Lumen: | 4546.2 Lux |
| Dimensions: | 276 x 276 x 14 mm 10.9 x 10.9 x 0.6 inches |
| Weight: | 0.95 kg/ 1.7 lbs |
| Input Voltage: | AC 85-265V |
| Working Frequency: | 50-60hz |
| Lifespan: | 50,000 hrs |
| Certificates: | CE, FCC, ROHS |
Before diving into a deep review and results of experiments with this panel. You just need to know about.
Before Moving on…
Humans use Lumens. Don’t measure the effectiveness of light by its luminosity. The 300w FEIT LED bulb is extremely bright to an extent that it can light up an entire 0.25-acre backyard. It is also marketed as “stadium lighting replacements” but it emits a lumen of 10µmol within 2″ of the bulb that can not yield anything.
Plants use PAR that stands for Photosynthetically Active Radiation. PAR is not a metric or measurement like inches, feet or kilos. Rather, it determines the kind of light required to support photosynthesis.
If you grow plants under artificial light, you should care about the following three factors:
PPF: Photosynthetic Photon Flux that indicates the total amount of PAR, a light produces each second.
PPFD: Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density that measures the PAR amount actually reaching the plants. In other words, it is the no. of photosynthetically active photons falling on a given surface each second.
Photon Efficiency: refers to the efficiency of a grow light system to convert electrical energy into photons of PAR. Many grow light manufacturers use wattage per square foot or total electrical watts as a metric to indicate the light intensity. However, these are not metrics of concern since watts are a measurement indicating electrical input, not light output.
Micromoles (µmol ): Light intensity is measured over a fixed area to assess the tendency of light to cover that area (coverage) with intensity. Micro-moles of photons per square meter per second (µmol/m²/s) measures the intensity at a scale of consistent 4 x 4 grid. The coverage of intensity is known as PPFD per 4 x 4 grid.
Rather than using a lux meter to determine light intensity in lumens/watt, growers measure the photons micromoles per square meter per second (µmol/m²/s) using a Quantum PAR meter at the canopy level.
The PAR light intensity coverage is best calculated at various heights using PAR mapping 4 x 4 grids. Spot readings (PPF) metrics are deceptive. Growers accurately measure the intensity and its coverage by using PPFD per square meter.
LED Spectrum
Out of all tested LED multi-spectrum panels in the 60 watts (or below) category, these 45w panels produced the 2nd best PPFD and overall visible plants growth results when hanged close to the micro greens.
The top light tested is the Taotronics 36w bulb which even beats out most of the 1200watt LED lights.
With the Quantum par meter, these panels put out 200-245μm (micromoles) at 3-5″. That’s impressive compared to the other cheap LED panels offered on Amazon which are putting out around 9-40μm and saying they are 4x the power.
Coverage Area
The ideal effective range for these is very close 3″ to 8″ (max) for proper coverage. and subsequently limits the effective angles of usable light. You can place them higher but the PAR drops significantly after 1.5 ft. Staying within scientific reasoning, you can not expect this one single panel to bloom 16 Costco sized strawberries. However, you can easily grow 2 entire 20×10 trays of flowers and a single 20×10 of Microgreens under this.
Since, you can’t grow marijuana under these lights
What marijuana needs to thrive? From a comparative perspective, marijuana seedlings thrive under 150-300µmol+ and the requirement increases to 500µmol+ for healthy marijuana strains with 2 weeks into veg or further. Recent research by NASA and Agriculture Department show that marijuana thrives best at around 4000µmol, something that most (singular LED lights) LED’s are not capable of for long periods of time without Peltier/water-cooled assistance. Most of the good LED lights kick out around 1200-2300 µmol and the ones that do it continuously RELIABLY and run cool to the touch will cost anywhere from $900-4000. You can determine the hourly PAR using the following calculations. Replace the ’55µmol’’ below with your actual instantaneous PAR measurement: Hourly PAR= (55µmol/m²s) (60min/1hr) ( 60s/1min) (1 mol / 1 x 10^6µmol) = 0.36 mol / m² hour Check our list of best grow light for growing marijuana
Final Verdict…
These LED grow panels are ideal for seedlings and microgreens, but not suitable for any large flowering or fruit applications. The marijuana cannot be yielded at all, but you can start its seedlings under these. This is reliable and perfect for sustaining Tissue Cultures. This is also a great Refugium Light for Aquarium Macro Algae.
Comparison with other lights
Roleadro vs Unifun
| Roleadro 45W | Unifun 45W |
|---|---|
| Uses carabiner style hooks to mount | Uses threaded screws to mount |
| Has external power supply which is bulky and gets hot | Has internal power supply |
| No power toggle switch | Has a power toggle switch |
| Has 13x13 LED bulbs | Has 15x15 LED bulbs |
| Runs slightly hotter than UNIFUN | Runs slightly cooler than Roleadro |
Roleadro vs Taotronics
The $26 Taotronics 36w light bulb emits enormous multispectrum of 1500µmol at 1.5 ft. You may require a couple of these lights per plant for large vegetables, fruits, or marijuana. Like Roleadro, the cost factor can’t be beaten. You can also easily hold the entire bulb/heatsink, unscrew it and it won’t be slightly warm even after keeping the lights on for 24/7.
