CFL's (again)

[Pam]

The one thing I have noticed is that adding a single 120w CFL to my 400w HPS in the flower box caused a BIG difference in growth! I grow in soil, I'm not used to such rapid growth. I don't know why, but it works!

[Al B. Fuct]

Many thanks to you all, so far..

 

A special mention to Al B Fuct for his/her effort and time

 

I'm not so sure about comparing lights with batteries in parallel though..

 

It's a direct analogy. 2 batteries in parallel will present the same voltage as one but be able to deliver 2x the current one can source. 2 identical light sources in 'parallel' (lighting the same floorspace area) will deliver the same luminous intensity as one lamp but given proper location, can illuminate 2x the area as one at the lux level each one can deliver. 2 light sources organised to cover the same area will yield the same level of luminous intensity as one.

 

I guess a room full of 20watt cfl's would look brighter than a room with one or two.

 

That'd be due to illuminating a larger area- but the lights are no brighter, for all the previously stated reasons. Visual perception is not the same as measurement.

 

Am I right in gathering from all of this, that the reason Cfl's are inferior to

Hid's is because the light doesn't "reach" as far...??

 

For some reason the light intensity falls much more dramatically with distance

than it does with Mh or Hps's, even though it starts off the same...

 

No, the light intensity from a fluoro will not be the same as that produced by MH or HPS. I find specs on a 130W CFL at 8000 lumens. A 150W HPS does 16,000. The difference is the intensity of the light discharged from the respective lamp types.

[vertexx]

Many thanks for that, Mr Fuct . You are enjoyable to read

 

It certainly seems that my HPS will not fear substitution for a while yet !

 

However, the proof of the ..etc.. etc.. so I will personally see what happens with

 

these higher powered CFL's.

 

Maybe less heat and less consumption may be at the price of a poorer yield.

 

It will be interesting to see how poorer it will be and if the price is indeed worth it.

[Gazza2001au]

i have a 150w MH and a 130w CFL i find there simular on the light meter

[vertexx]

Oh No !!

[jimbojones5678]

The one thing I have noticed is that adding a single 120w CFL to my 400w HPS in the flower box caused a BIG difference in growth! I grow in soil, I'm not used to such rapid growth. I don't know why, but it works!

I will agree there, the buds that have had a 130W Spectrum in with them are rock hard and very tight compared to others that are flowering without the added blue.

I'll be incorporating it into all my grows from now on.

 

Jimbo

[freddie]

Some advantages of CFLs are that you have multiple light sources rather than a single light source. There is no waste of space as the bulbs can virtually touch the plants so you can grow in a much smaller area. Heat is less of an issue. For a personal grower they are worth a look.

 

I have seen pics of flouro grows that have produced 3ozs out of about 200 watts in a very small area. Thats pretty close to a HPS.

 

Due to global warming I think high intensity discharge lights will eventually be phased out. What are the alternatives?

 

If lumens are the main factor that determines the success of indoor grows how do you explain the success of CF grows?

[vertexx]

Thanks Freddie et al.

 

The proof of that pudding is in the pictures.

 

Successful yields seem to be there under CFL's.

 

I think Al b Fuct though has more or less proved that HID's are

more efficient than just about anything else including CFL's.

 

If a 150watt HID produces twice as many lumens than a 150watt CFL

then one must bow to the figures.

 

However, Gazza appears to have different figures that say a 130 watt CFL

emits more or less the same lumens as a 150watt HID !!

 

I guess that takes me back to the beginning..

 

Maybe the main difference is the heat produced.

 

CL's are certainly cooler...You would think therefore, more efficient ?

 

Can't wait to hear more from you Gazza about your measurements.

[Al B. Fuct]

Due to global warming I think high intensity discharge lights will eventually be phased out.

 

HPS is about twice as efficient (lumens/watt) as anything else. HPS will be around until there's some other lighting type available that beats the cheap setup cost and op cost per lumen. If you replaced HPS watt-for-watt with CFL (the only thing that matters in terms of global warming is the number of watts drawn from the generating station), you'd be very disappointed with the result. If you're going to draw "X" number of watts, you want as many lumens as possible for those watts.

 

Adding CFLs as fill lighting from below or from the sides may help if the foliage is too dense for HPS to penetrate the canopy.

 

However, a better solution is to grow shorter plants (flower immediately after setting root) and prune them, removing branching from the lower 1/3 of the plant. This eliminates poor-producing lower branches and improves air circ around the plants. This speeds manicuring and gets rid of 'popcorn' buds, improving avg bud size.

 

Adding CFLs from overhead, alongside HPS lighting, is of highly dubious benefit. Plants in flower don't need much blue and CFLs only produce a fraction of the intensity of HPS. Moreover, the spacing requirement of CFLs means they must be much closer (within a few inches) to the plants than the HPS (a foot or three away depending on HPS lamp size), effectively shading the light from the HPS. If you need more light, install a bigger HPS. As stated before, you can also reduce light power requirements by eliminating low-productivity foliage.

 

CFLs are new-ish and attractive to newbs because one can buy them cheaply at any grocery, but for all the aforementioned technical reasons, they're not the best tool for the job of flowering cannabis.

[dreamer1]

Hello, I'm new here.

 

I just began my first indoor grow in July. I'm using two flor fixtures, each fixture holds 4 T5-HO (high output) tubes. I had great results during the veg stage running the lights 24/0 and about 2" above the girls. At 8 weeks they were about 17 - 18" tall and bushy. I went 12/12 and switched from the grow spectrum tubes that put out 20K lumens per fixture and 6400K of blue spectrum to the bloom spectrum also putting out 20K lumens per fixture and 3000K of red spectrum light.

 

After 2 1/2 weeks, they are flowering nicely. I've heard the same about using flors for veg and switching to HPS for flowering. I was told the buds do not get as big nor as tight. I can't wait to see if my results are the same. If they are, I will use the flors for vegi and switch to HPS 400W for flowering.

 

I'll post my results.

 

Peace brothers!