Fires caused by light panels

[dilvish]

I have been using a BESTVA 1000W LED panel for my grow. I bought it from Amazon online. I was curious about whether or not it had passed any sort of electrical safety testing. After all, these grow panels can get quite hot (regardless of cooling)and are left on in a fairly unattended room or tent for a dozen or more hours per day. There was no certification listed in the owner's manual or on the LED panel itself.
I sent 2 personal emails to the company and a request through Amazon (Ask a Question) regarding electrical safety testing. In North America, any consumer device that plugs into a source of electricity has to pass electrical safety testing in order for it to be legally sold. The three common certifications are UL (USA), CSA (Canada) and ETL (Europe, Asia et al)

Needless to say this company hasn't responded to any of my queries. I can therefore assume it has not passed electrical safety testing.

The bigger surprise was that Amazon has dozens of sellers and hundreds of models that also appear to have had no safety testing done on them either. Amazon has a rule that it is up to the seller to comply with local and federal laws.

I have asked the same question about safety certification and have asked for proof, to at least 40 different sellers of LED grow panels on Amazon. The first round was 20 sellers. They are required to respond within 2 business days. Those questions went out on Wednesday afternoon and as of today (Saturday) not one of them has responded.

Any growers on this forum have an LED grow Panel that shows a safety certification? Anyone at all? Note: this certification is supposed to be in plain view, not inside the unit.

How many fires have been caused by these things if the majority of them are not safety tested?

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Meizhi r90 led (marketed as r450 watt)
has an ETL label on it

315w CMH also has the ETL mark

[SoOrbudgal]

Same with my vipers both have the ETL label in place, never tampered with.

[dilvish]

Have you tried looking up the certification number on the ETL sticker to see if it's valid? Apparently a lot of them are forgeries!!

[Rwise]

And its not just on amazon, I see new starts (popup companies) selling what I consider home built LED panels. You can bet they have not been tested for safety, they look nice though,,,,!

[dilvish]

Of course this is becoming a bigger problem now that countries like Canada have legalized both home growing and use and possession/purchasing of cannabis

[dilvish]

Same with my vipers both have the ETL label in place, never tampered with.

can you send a picture? who makes vipers?

[SoOrbudgal]

viparspectra

[dilvish]

Meizhi r90 led (marketed as r450 watt)
has an ETL label on it

315w CMH also has the ETL mark

Yup that's what I am looking for but so far not one single seller has responded. I have now poised the question to 40 different sellers and none of them appear to have the safety certification. Curious though I wonder if you can look that certification up on the internet to verify the validity. I've seen some pretty convincing fakes in my time....

[LurkingInTheGrass]

So, I jumped into the intertek rabbit hole

I cant verify the actual sticker with its #

I could verify information behind the sticker
Lg-led solutions (Shenzhen, Guangdong China)
Has submitted products for testing/qualification

It was a list of models they submitted, and my model was in the list (also included Mars, UFO lites, I assume submitted in the same batch)

[dilvish]

LurkingIn TheGrass... applied for or submitted doesn't mean it's approved. I am kind of shocked that so many of these sellers (on Amazon) have on the "self" certified seal, which is marked "CE". This certification means nothing in North America. I have also made direct contact with ViparSpectra and they too are dancing around the issue. I did find some of there models listed on the UL website (they are under a different company name) but not all. Additionally their certification is over a year old and there appears to be no more applications pending for them.

Apparently this issue is about cost. This is likely the reason ViparSpectra's units are considereably more expensive than some of equal design...they have to make up for the cost of certification.

I also contacted Mars Hydro direct and they won't give me a straight answer either. They all seem to avoid the question like the plague.