A Very Important Fact About Lighting For Your Plants

King Cobra

King Cobra

Active Member
I did post this on another thread but i thought this also would be a good place for it.


Hello all, even though iam not a grower but iam a smoker of the wonderful herb from time to time, i like to see what goes into my weed. So i decided to some research on this whole lumen thing. The results i found were very interesting-- i see a lot of you on here have the notion that if for example say you had 10 x 26watt cfl, and 1 of the cfls =1700 lumen, then 10 of the cfls would be 17000 lumen-- Well this is NOT the case at all, that is not the way lumens are measured. Lumens are measured in intensity not amount. So basically having 10 cfls at 1700 lumen, means that you have 10 cfls that give off 1700 lumens per bulb and thats it, the intensity stays at 1700 lumen and does not reach any higher than that no matter how many bulbs you put into your room/ tent/ closet etc. This is a very interesting fact if you want the best grow possible and thinking that your getting more lumens than you think!!
This also applys to watts, but its a little different!! Say you have 2X 600 watt hps bulbs in your grow room, then yes it would be using 1200 watts of power per hour, but the intensity would stay the same which would be 600 watts per bulb per hour, NOT 1,200 watts combined. So the next time you go to buy your bulbs, cfls, hps,or mh and the guys in the shop or online say "well combined these 2x 600 watt hps will give you 1,200 watts of light" then their either in the wrong buisness or leading you down the wrong path for more cash!!
 
King Cobra

King Cobra

Active Member
scroglodyte said:
lumens measure how bright light appears to the human eye. my plants don't have eyes.
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Yes of course!! My post just stated that " brightness" intensity of the light!! Therefore say the brightness as you put it, of a 26watt is 1700 lumen that "brightness", intensity stays the same no matter how many of then you have, as we all plants dont have eyes but they are drawn to light so the brighter the better- but its the quaility of light NOT the quantity of light bulbs!!
 
Kayotick

Kayotick

Active Member
yea the intensity will be the same but there will be 180000 lumens under 2 600w. and 1200w would still produce less than 170000... there is not really a such thing as quality of a light the brighter the better and the more lumens the brighter. 3 600w will always beat 2 1000w. so i guess it all just matters what ur lumen to plant ratio is
 
King Cobra

King Cobra

Active Member
Sorry i do not agree with that!! As i said before this an important FACT about lighting!! You have already made the same mistake that a lot of growers have being doing- 2x 600 watt bulbs will only give out the amount of lumens stated around 90000 lumens per bulb- as i have stated the intensity of the light produced by each blub will not increase in any way at all, as it is stated that the bulb is around 90000 lumens output. So the intensity of your rooms light is 90000 lumens, it does not matter how many 600 watt bulbs you put in that room, the light intensity will still be 90000 lumens just in different parts of your grow room. FACT.
 
IslandDelight

IslandDelight

Active Member
why don't you get a couple of grows going, test out your theories. and in 4 or 5 months when you've harvested all your crop you can post up 100's of pictures. and explain to us "why growing with one bulb is the same as growing with two or 10 bulbs"

FACT:
....I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbert~capt. o'hagen
 
unohu69

unohu69

Well-Known Member
This is growing 101, anybody that has done any research all ready knows this stuff. and we laugh at those that dont grow and try to tell us how it should be done...

grow a couple pulls, then you can try to teach growers something.... And by growers I mean people that grow more than one plant, with more than 3 CFLs....


the only real reason to grow with multiple smaller bulbs ie 2 600w vs 1 1ooo, is the average light spread will be overall more intense in a larger area than the 1 1k. the 1k might do great in a 4x4, but 2 600's will be better overall in a larger area.
 
King Cobra

King Cobra

Active Member
IslandDelight said:
why don't you get a couple of grows going, test out your theories. and in 4 or 5 months when you've harvested all your crop you can post up 100's of pictures. and explain to us "why growing with one bulb is the same as growing with two or 10 bulbs"

FACT:
....I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbert~capt. o'hagen
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Theories' Hmmm! NOT!!! Just common sense! Like shit smells bad most of the time, birds sing most of the time and bees make honey!! Total common sense, only a fool would think otherwise.
If you had read the posts properly then you would know that i did not say that using one bulb is better than using two! That all depends on the size of your room. I was talking about lumens!!!
 
BlueBalls

BlueBalls

Well-Known Member
You are being a little simplistic and misleading.
The lumens produced by a bulb will not change by adding another bulb. The lumens of the grouped source will.
2 x 10,000 lumen bulbs placed over a 4' sq area will indeed put 20,000 lumens over a 4' sq area.
The amount of illumination at any specific point is measured in foot-candles or lux.

 
King Cobra

King Cobra

Active Member
BlueBalls said:
You are being a little simplistic and misleading.
The lumens produced by a bulb will not change by adding another bulb. The lumens of the grouped source will.
2 x 10,000 lumen bulbs placed over a 4' sq area will indeed put 20,000 lumens over a 4' sq area.
The amount of illumination at any specific point is measured in foot-candles or lux.
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Totally untrue- the 2 x 10,000 lumen bulbs will only give 10,000 watts per bulb and in that 4' square they will be 2 bulbs giving out 10,000 lumens each, thats their intensity no more or no less, it does not matter if the bulbs are right next to each other!! The areacthat the bulbs are shining on has a maximum intensity of 10,000 lumen. Common sense!! You just can't add up the lumens and say the amount they add up to thats just stupid -sorry-.
 
BlueBalls

BlueBalls

Well-Known Member
There is no need to be sorry, I understand your confusion.
You can prove it yourself with the equations for foot-candles and lux.
 
HighLowGrow

HighLowGrow

Well-Known Member
So if I'm sun tanning under 1 sun for 1/2 an hour and get slightly burned, will I get blistered under 2 suns for the same amount of time?
 
King Cobra

King Cobra

Active Member
HighLowGrow said:
So if I'm sun tanning under 1 sun for 1/2 an hour and get slightly burned, will I get blistered under 2 suns for the same amount of time?
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No you will get slightly burned on what ever side the other sun pointing at, that saying that both suns have the same intensity. Each sun is diffrent and has its own individual light output, just like a bulb they cannot be merged together, thats why we have bulbs with different lumen output!
 
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