Gavita Pro 1700e LED Review: Is This The Best Grow Light Yet?

Gavita Pro 1700e LED 120-277 Volt

• DLC Listed
• 8 passively cooled bars eliminate moving parts and provide full-spectrum,…
• High-output 1700 µmol s-1 PAR and an impressive efficacy of 2.6 µmol s-1…
• Dimmable to 50% when using the Gavita Master Controller and E-Series…
• FCC compliant, UL8800 and IP66 wet-rated for use in wet environments,…

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Gavita is an industry leader in the horticultural landscape, particularly for its premium grow lighting fixtures. The brand offers some of the best quality and most powerful grow lights for professional indoor gardeners and enthusiasts.

Gavita LED devices have only stepped into the market recently, but they’ve rapidly become quite popular in the indoor gardening community. The new Gavita 1700e LED comes with incredibly glowing ratings, as we’ve come to expect from the company. That said, we have put together an in-depth Gavita Pro 1700e LED review to give you a clearer and more reliable picture of what this outstanding grow light has to offer.

Design

Before walk through the performance of the Gavita Pro 1700e LED grow light, it’s important to look at its design and structure and see what sets it apart.

For starters, the package comes with the fixture, hanging equipment, a detailed installation manual and a power cord. The cord is approximately 8ft (2.4m) long, and you can choose the preferred voltage when buying the unit. You can also consider including an LED controller and adapter with the package, which come in handy if you want more controllability over the grow light.

The design itself is evidently sleek and clearly stands out from the rest of its competition. But, more so, it finds a nifty way of bringing out a meaningful function from the design. The LED bars are distributed in an effective configuration that prevents heat damage as well as unequal light distribution.

The Fixture

The Gavita 1700e LED fixture consists of 8 separate LED fixed to the main frame and covered with aluminum heat sinks at the top. This brings out a unique open-frame design that allows even light coverage and strong heat dissipation. The fixture measures 44.1 x 43.7 x 2.3 inches, translating to 112 x 110 x 5.8 cm, and weighs around 28.4 lbs (12.88kg).

The diodes are manufactured by Samsung and Osram, who- it goes without saying- are two of the leading lighting brands. Its diodes’ Philips drivers are housed at the center of the frame, plus they are shielded with plastic coverings.

Installing the fixture is quite straightforward. All you need to do for installation is fix the four hangers in their respective mounting holes, then simply connecting the power cord.

Performance

The Gavita Pro 1700e LED is not a particularly cheap unit. Like any other LED grow lights out there, it’s the performance that determines if the price is value for your money. Let’s look at what the Gavita Pro 1700e has to offer:

a). Power Consumption & Efficiency

The Gavita 1700e LED grow light consumes about 645 watts of power at full intensity. This is an arguably high electrical consumption by the numbers, but it still doesn’t paint the full picture. In fact, it tells more about the efficiency of the device than its quality.

The efficacy of grow lights is represented in μmol/J, the micromoles produced by the fixture joule. The Pro 1700e LED is rated at approximately 2.6 μmol/J. In other words, the light produces 2.6 μmol/J of PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) per second for every watt of power consumed.

Put into context, this rating presents one the highest efficiency rates that grow lights can achieve at present. According to the manufacturer, the 1700e LED grow light has an equivalent power consumption to a 1000W HPS lamp.

Furthermore, the light can be dimmed down to half the intensity without losing efficiency. This makes the Pro 1700e LED particularly ideal when you’re growing plants in the vegetative stage.

b). Light Intensity and Quality

The Samsung diodes produce a full-spectrum white light, including the whole PAR range, thus covering different plant light demands at different stages in their development cycle. The Osram diodes produce an additional deep red light to enhance the PAR during the flowering stage.

Gavita’s PAR output is about 1700 μmol/s, hence the name. This is a fairly high rating compared to other LED grow lights on the market. To better understand the performance (PAR efficacy) with plants, it’s important to look at the grow light’s PPFD at different distances. The results demonstrate just how powerful the Gavita Pro 1700e LED is, clearly designed to produce the highest yield in the most-light demanding plants.

The grow light’s PPFD values also bring out another useful element of the device, uniformity. There’s only a minor difference between the Pro 1700e’s PPFD values at the center and the edges or corners. This uniformity allows you to get similar results in your plants, regardless of their positions under the grow light.

c). Coverage Area and Hanging Height

The ideal coverage area and hanging height for the Gavita Pro 1700e LED grow light vary depending on the development stage of the plants. The manufacturer recommends:

• Flowering Phase – 4ft x 4 ft / 1.2 m x 1.2m to 5ft x 5 ft / 1.5m x 1.5 m hanging at a height of 18 inches (45 cm).
• Vegetative Phase – 6 ft x 6 ft / 1.8 m x 1.8 m to 7 ft x 7ft / 2.1m x 2.1m hanging at a height of 36-48 inches (90 to 120 cm).
• If you intend to dim the light during the vegetative phase, it would be best to work with the 4 ft x 4 ft at a hanging height of 18 inches.

It’s always advisable to use a grow tent with reflective walls, which allows you to maximize the intensity of the grow light.

d). Heat Dissipation

Heat dissipation is a critical factor when you’re buying a grow light. If a fixture produces too much heat, it runs the risk of damaging itself and the plants. Fortunately, the Gavita 1700e LED features a robust heat dissipation system made of aluminum with an open-frame design.

Aluminum is a great thermal conductor; thus it absorbs all the heat produced by the diodes. Consequently, the metal gets pretty hot, particularly at the center, so avoid touching it when the light is on. Additionally, the aluminum heat sink requires no electricity to operate and equally produces no noise, giving it a sizeable advantage over cooling fans.

e). Yield

The Gavita 1700e LED grow light has an incredibly high yield, going off reports from several reliable indoor gardeners. One particular cannabis grower reported obtaining 1.4 grams/watt without any additional CO2! Others have reported harvesting around 0.88 lbs (400g) from each plant.

f). External Control

Like any other grow light from the company, the Pro 1700e LED grow light is compatible with Gavita master controllers. Therefore, you can also consider getting a Gavita E Series LED adapter for better functionality. Pairing this with the Gavita EL1 or EL2 Gen 2 Controller gives you full automation, making the bulk of your work a light breeze.

You can also link up to 500 fixtures for each controller port with Gavita’s Repeater Bus Control Interface.

g). Wet Rating

The Gavita Pro 1700e LED grow light is specifically built for the horticultural scene. It comes with an IP66 wet rating and is also UL8800 compliant for use in wet environments. This allows for versatile placement in growing spaces while also ensuring that you get a long service life.

h). Warranty

The unit comes backed up by a 3-year warranty. This only goes to show that the company is certainly confident of the quality they produce. Furthermore, with all the relevant certifications and ratings, the Gavita Pro 1700e proves to be a durable grow light that will definitely stand the test of time and offer great value for money within its lifespan.

Why Should You Consider the Gavita Pro 1700e LED Grow Light?

The Gavita Pro 1700e LED is nothing short of a phenomenal grow light, one we highly recommend to both serious and leisure growers. It’s undeniably one of the best LED grow lights that you can currently find on the market. Here’s is why we think you should consider getting one of these:

1. Superb commercial specifications

As illustrated earlier, the Pro 1700e LED is an incredibly powerful grow light. It can be used in virtually any application, from home grows (rooms or tents) to greenhouses and commercial warehouses (vertical and horizontal). Furthermore, since it produces full-spectrum white light, you can use the Pro 1700e LED over the entire plant’s life.

Generally, we recommend dimming the light during the vegetative phase and operating at full intensity in the flowering stage.

2. Low heat, reducing cooling and energy costs

Another appealing factor to this grow light is the zero to no heat production, thanks to the open bar design that cools the system passively. The open design prevents heat from building up over the canopy. This lets you place the fixture closer to your canopy than most grow lights, hence cutting down on cooling costs and maintaining a perfect growing environment.

As mentioned earlier, the 1700 µmol s-1 fixture translates to a remarkable efficiency of 2.6 µmol s-1 per watt. The Pro 1700e LED grow light presents one of the best energy consumption rates to minimize the total energy costs.

3. Better efficiency than traditional HPS

Despite the power rating, the Gavita Pro 1700e LED grow light has a lower wattage than one might think, with a 645-watt power draw. This means it can replace a 1000w HP lamp with compromising light intensity and quality. Furthermore, the light can be dimmed up to 50% without any significant loss in efficiency.

As such, using the Pro 1700e means you can minimize HVAC costs by 30-40% compared to MH/HPS grow lights.

4. Built for multi-tier rack systems but equally effective in grow tents

Since this grow light produces no heat, it’s a perfect unit for a multi-tier rack system. Nevertheless, the Pro 1700e LED grow light performs just as impressively in grow tents measuring 4ft x 4ft or larger.

Pros

• Efficient power consumption translates to saving on electricity costs. The Pro 1700e consumes almost half the power used with HPS lights for similar size canopies.
• As much as the light heats up, it never radiates, hence it causes no heat damage to the fixture or fries the canopy. More so, this saves up on cooling costs.
• The unit is easy to control, especially using the Gavita master controller. The lights lower and raise fairly easily, even in a crowded room or in grow tents.
• The unit produces more output than other grow lights with substantially lower power draw.
• Zero heat production makes it ideal for multi-tier rack systems.
• The solid wet ratings make it suitable and reliable in wet environments.
• As far as aesthetics are concerned, the fixture and lights look pretty cool.
• Based on the yield output, plants definitely love the Gavita Pro 1700e LED grow lights.
• It’s supported by a 3-year warranty from the manufacturer, assuming you of longevity.

Cons

• The unit lacks an inbuilt way of mounting the adapter to the light fixture, so you might have to improvise to get going.
• The fixtures are low profile and quiet, meaning it’s quite easy to forget they’re just above your head. You might smack into them occasionally.
• The high-end price might put off some beginners and hobby gardeners.

Conclusion

The Gavita Pro 1700e LED is undoubtedly one of the most powerful LED grow lights you can get. It’s incredibly bright, remarkably efficient and pretty durable as well. In fact, it’s hard to pick out a meaningful drawback on the unit bar the price.

Typically, the higher price point implies the device is mostly targeted at professional growers. There’s an element of truth to that, but it’s still a gamechanger even for beginners as it offers real-life usability and effectiveness. More so, it’s equally a solid choice for experienced gardeners who plan on expanding their indoor gardens.

Overall, we hope this in-depth Gavita Pro 1700e LED review has shed enough light on what this excellent unit is capable of. Enjoy growing your plants and future harvests.

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