Apogee Instruments MQ-500 - PAR/PPFD meter

MQ-500 from the American manufacturing company Apogee Instrumentsis a handheld light meter with a connected cable that displays and saves measurement results. The main use includes measuring direct and reflected PPFD above plant canopies or within canopies at various heights in outdoor greenhouses or indoor growth chambers. Quantum sensors can also measure PAR/PPFD in aquarium environments, including saltwater aquariums where corals grow.

The meter has a manual and protocol mode and records an integrated daily sum in mol × m^(-2) × d^(-1). Sample mode stores up to 99 measurements. Protocol mode turns the instrument on and off every 30 minutes to take a reading. Every 30 minutes, the instrument averages 60 thirty-second measurements and stores this value in memory. Up to 99 of these values can be stored, and once the memory capacity is filled, the oldest records are automatically overwritten by newly acquired ones. The integrated daily sum is derived from 48 averaged measurements (which equals a 24-hour period). Both manual and protocol measurements can be displayed on the LCD or downloaded to a computer, however, the integrated daily sum can only be viewed by downloading the data to a computer. For this, you will need to purchase an AC-100 communication cable (a standard USB cable will not work) and ApogeeAMS software.

• measuring incoming PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density = amount of PAR received by a plant from lighting). Unlike traditional LUX meters, it can be used for measuring LED lighting, where PAR and PPFD quantities are crucial!

• calibration deviation: ± 5 %
• measurement range: 0 - 4000 µmol × m^(-2) × s^(-1
  
• measurement repeatability: