CFL's (again)

[jimbojones5678]

CFLs are new-ish and attractive to newbs because one can buy them cheaply at any grocery,

I don't think anyone is referring to the grocery store kind, I thought we were talking about the Spectrum bulbs or the Enviro lights.

[vertexx]

Hi Dreamer1,

 

You mentioned that your fluro's emit 20k lumens per fixture.

 

Can you please give me more details on these...Wattage..size of fixtures

and where one purchases such lights? Price as well, maybe?

 

One other thing, are you flowering with fluro's as well?

Have you flowered with fluro's before?

 

At the moment I'm sticking with Hps's, mainly due to AL B Fuct's figures.

 

Because I harvest more or less continuously, I don't really want to

sacrifice time experimenting with either Fluro tubes or Cfl's unless

the figures work out.

 

20,000 lumens for a tube (?) sounds pretty good tho

[Pam]

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!

That's exactly what I do, except that I've added a 120w CFL flood lamp in the flower box as well.

You will be pleasantly surprised.

Also, there are many fluros made for greenhous use and can be had in either medium base or mogul base from most greenhouse suppliers. These are not your household type lamps.

Edited September 28, 2007 by Granny

[vertexx]

At the risk of continuing this thread ad infinitum....may I ask, what is the difference between the Cfl's lamps that "Granny" mentions and "ordinary made for home" Cfl's?

 

Is it just "brightness and temperature" or something else ?

 

Would a "household type lamp" have anything on it to identify it as such..?

[WantDaChronic]

At the risk of continuing this thread ad infinitum....may I ask, what is the difference between the Cfl's lamps that "Granny" mentions and "ordinary made for home" Cfl's?

 

Is it just "brightness and temperature" or something else ?

 

Would a "household type lamp" have anything on it to identify it as such..?

the globes give off different spectrums of light, house hold ones are made for brightness, greenhouse ones are made to give the plants as much usuable energy as possible

[Al B. Fuct]

At the risk of continuing this thread ad infinitum....may I ask, what is the difference between the Cfl's lamps that "Granny" mentions and "ordinary made for home" Cfl's?

 

Is it just "brightness and temperature" or something else ?

 

Would a "household type lamp" have anything on it to identify it as such..?

 

Yes, we are risking beating this one to death.

 

'Household' means those CFLs intended to replace std incandescent lamps, usually available at grocery stores, etc. If it has a std bayonet or screw base and is ~20W or less, it's 'household.'

[Al B. Fuct]

20K lumens per fixture

 

'lumens per fixture' is meaningless. Lumens don't 'add.' The luminous output of a multiple tube fixture is equal to the highest lumen figure of ONE lamp. If you have one 1500 lumen lamp in a fixture, the luminous output is 1500 lumens. If you have a fixture with 10 x 1500 lumen lamps, the output is still 1500 lumens, not 15,000. Just because there's more than one lamp tube does not make any of the tubes brighter, which is what 'lumens' measures.

 

Read back through this thread for a lengthy explanation of why this is so.

[Al B. Fuct]

the globes give off different spectrums of light, house hold ones are made for brightness, greenhouse ones are made to give the plants as much usuable energy as possible

 

Not really. Household and 'horticultural' CFLs are both available in a number of different spectra, normally 2700K 'warm white,' and 6300-6500K 'cool white.' It's the same colour band for either application. The big 125W CFLs are much, much brighter than typical sub-20W household type CFLs- about 8000 lumens for the big mothers v. 1500-1800 lumens for ~20W CFLs.

 

You can also get a 14000K 125W CFL from Hygrow (ignore what Hygrow say about these being a 'perfect partner for HPS'- mixing CFL & HPS won't work well due to the vastly different intensity and thus spacing requirements for the two different types of lamps). These deep blue CFLs might have applications in aquariums or in terrariums for reptiles. I'm not sure what horticultural uses there would be for a very blue (might cover some longer wavelength UV, for what it's worth), 14000K colour lamp, being that 14000K is far outside chlorophyll's reactive spectrum... but you can certainly buy them. I can sell you some magnets to put on your car's fuel line to 'align the fuel molecules' too...

[vertexx]

Thanks Al. B.,

 

You certainly have studied this through and provided valuable info.

 

Not just what people want to believe, but the hard cold facts.

 

Yep, I'm sticking with HID lights for now both because of their proven

efficency over CFL and, most importantly because of the yield provided.

 

Good on ya Al. B. Fuct and thanks again to everyone else as well

[Pam]

At the risk of continuing this thread ad infinitum....may I ask, what is the difference between the Cfl's lamps that "Granny" mentions and "ordinary made for home" Cfl's?

 

Is it just "brightness and temperature" or something else ?

 

Would a "household type lamp" have anything on it to identify it as such..?

Well, first off you would not be able to buy them except for a greenhouse supplier, and household bulbs do not come with a mogul base.

And then there is the size of the bulb itsself, one brand comes in 13 1/2" 125w bulb with a CRI of 93 (100=sunlight) and that has a medium base.

The next size is 15" 200 w with a CFI of 90 and a balanced Kelvin of 5,500k it is 120v and is a mogul base requireing a special fixture.

The greenhouse lamps are full spectrum, {CRI color rendering index} and claim to be closest to natural sunlight, there is also a lamp that simulates springtime light.

HPS isn't recommended as a primary light source, but rather functions as as supplemmentary source as it does not provide the full spectrum. That explains why the plants have reacted so well to the addition of an ordinary CFL to the 400w HPS. the CFL is adding the missing color spectrum.

It seems to me that if commercial growers of all kinds of plants can use these with good results while consuming far less electricity, and they have been doing this for a few years now, then they must work.