Idiots guide to grow lights

For the last few years I've used fluorescent lights to grow pepper seedlings. At the time of year I start them off, there just isn't enough light on the windowsills to make them grow well. Each light is a 2 ft 24 W T5 tube in a reflector. Hung about 6 inches from the canopy, each light can cover a ~2x1 ft area. Under each light I can fit about 18 plants in 500 ml yoghurt pots. Lower initial cost but higher energy usage than LED and the bulbs won't last as long.

Now I'm growing micro tomatoes over the winter, I needed something stronger to provide the high light intensity required to make them fruit, so I got a 'quantum board' style LED light from Invisible Sun (https://invisiblesunled.co.uk/collection...amsung-led). That one covers about 2x2 ft, probably more if you're only using it for seedlings. Using the dimmer you can vary the power draw between 7 and 100 W. Currently mine is set to 40 W, on for 16 hours a day, and the plants are fruiting very well. Higher initial cost but the LEDs are rated to last for 50,000 hours which at my current usage rate for 6 months of the year would be 17 years

New style grow LED lights use much more efficient and higher quality LED chips which put out more light at lower power, and the old style 'blurples' (blue + purple) are being phased out for full spectrum lighting. Most newer lights don't come with a fan but instead use a heatsink to dissipate the heat.

If it's just for growing seedlings you don't really need such high light intensity, so you can use standard LED tubes/battens/bulbs, preferably 'high/ultra output' ones which put out close to 150 lumens per Watt. If you have an old fluorescent fixture you can find 'substitubes' which are LED tubes made to replace the fluorescent tubes.