Cfl equivalents good or no?

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Adrien11

Member
hey everybody. It has been brought to my attention that CFL wattage equivalents might not be good. As in a CFL bulb that only uses 14 watts but is equivalent. To 60. Can someone please ellaborate on this? Thanks 4 any responses.
 
mr sunshine

mr sunshine

Well-Known Member
Equivalent means same but they obviously are not talking about watts because the equivalents have much less it states so right on the box.. they are talking about the brightness.......just use more of them if you're going to use them.. A t5 is much better.....
 
mr sunshine

mr sunshine

Well-Known Member
I bought a t something I think it's a t10. I got it at Walmart for ten bucks...A few of those should work.. it really depends on what stage you're planning on using it for....I use it to clone. ...to veg and flower I I've only used hps and mh...I really want to try an expensive led...I know I didn't help much I'm sure someone will be around shortly with more insight....any assholes that read this thread and don't contribute can eat an aids infested asshole.
 
A

az2000

Well-Known Member
Adrien11 said:
hey everybody. It has been brought to my attention that CFL wattage equivalents might not be good. As in a CFL bulb that only uses 14 watts but is equivalent. To 60.
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The equivalency is in lumens, a measure of light emitted. (Lumens aren't necessarily what a plant sees. PAR is more accurate for that. It's what we see.). Lux (lumens falling on a location) is a better measurement to compare, say, a CFL in a reflector to a CFL floodlight with built-in reflector. Their packaging would indicate different lumens because one reflects and one doesn't. The only way you could compare them is measuring lux using a free smartphone app like BeeCam Light Meter.

I'm not sure why anyone would use CFL today when Cree LED screw-in lightbulbs are sold at Home Depot. A 60w equivalent uses 9.5w, has a 10-year warranty and costs $8. See this journal page (<<link) for more information and a link to CaptainMorgan's thread where I believe they began to be used.
 
Ace Yonder

Ace Yonder

Well-Known Member
The "Equivalent" means that it puts out roughly the same amount of light as an Incandescent of the same wattage. But it's not "Equivalent" to the kind of lights we use for this kind of thing, Incandescent lights have a terrible wattage-lux ratio.
 
Ace Yonder

Ace Yonder

Well-Known Member
az2000 said:
The equivalency is in lumens, a measure of light emitted. (Lumens aren't necessarily what a plant sees. PAR is more accurate for that. It's what we see.). Lux (lumens falling on a location) is a better measurement to compare, say, a CFL in a reflector to a CFL floodlight with built-in reflector. Their packaging would indicate different lumens because one reflects and one doesn't. The only way you could compare them is measuring lux using a free smartphone app like BeeCam Light Meter.

I'm not sure why anyone would use CFL today when Cree LED screw-in lightbulbs are sold at Home Depot. A 60w equivalent uses 9.5w, has a 10-year warranty and costs $8. See this journal page (<<link) for more information and a link to CaptainMorgan's thread where I believe they began to be used.
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My only defense of CFLs (And I feel obligated to defend them slightly since my first grow was using them and was remarkably successful for a first grow) is that even at $8 a pop those Cree bulbs are still pretty pricey compared to CFL, just in the sense that a 9.5w Cree bulb puts out about 650 Lumens (As listed by them, and yes I know Lumens aren't everything, but just bear with me) putting those Cree bulbs at $0.0123/Lumen. Whereas with CFL, for $7 you can get a 40w ("150w Equivalent") CFL which puts out 2600 Lumens, putting it at $0.0027/Lumen. To put it another way, with Cree LED bulbs, $1 gets you 81 Lumens, and with CFL $1 gets you 370 Lumens. Granted, the Cree bulbs will last longer, and give slightly better Lumens per Watt (68.4 for Cree LED vs 65 for CFL), but as it stands they don't really put the nail in the coffin of that particular debate just yet, IMO.
 
Smoken-n-Token

Smoken-n-Token

Member
Damn, you guys answer the question Before I got a chance to hore in on the thread. hehe :wall:

sry for the pun.

Keep Smoken-n-Token
 
ExileOnMainStreet

ExileOnMainStreet

Well-Known Member
I ignore 'equivalent wattage' and just go for the highest wattage and lowest color temperature...then keep adding more as time and space permit. I've used both HPS and CFL for flower, and tubes and MH for veg. (still use tubes for clones).
Were I still on the shoestring budget I was when I started, I would recommend to myself that I upgrade to MH for the veg phase first and keep the CFLs for flowering until money permits the shift the HPS.

Ace beat me to it on the lumens :)
 
bullwinkle60

bullwinkle60

Well-Known Member
I first started growing with CFL's using the equivalent of 700 watts. I had bulbs hanging everywhere. I got 3 4 good grows then I switched to a 400 watt MH/HPS and to tell you the truth they work just about the same. I may get a bit more bud but it's all good. CFL's work just fine if you use enough.
 
MattDash

MattDash

Member
bullwinkle60 said:
I first started growing with CFL's using the equivalent of 700 watts. I had bulbs hanging everywhere. I got 3 4 good grows then I switched to a 400 watt MH/HPS and to tell you the truth they work just about the same. I may get a bit more bud but it's all good. CFL's work just fine if you use enough.
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+1
First hand exp. wins in my book.
 
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