Let's just talk about BULBS!

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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
So what's the consensus here on rollitup regarding the designer bulbs? A friend of mine has grown dank with a basic HPS bulb from htgsupply...nothing special. Now I see a lot of people using these $100 eye hortilux bulbs and dual spectrum bulbs and all sorts of fancy shit in between. My question is: Is ANY bulb worth $100?

My girls are baking under a 600W MH at the moment and I'm switching to 12/12 in 1 week so I'm considering purchasing a new bulb and am debating on what might be the best choice.

Anybody that has experience with the dual arc, hortilux, or agromax bulbs.....what's the verdict on quality? Are they worth it?
 
S

Sampras1489

Active Member
There's an old saying, you get what you pay for. I believe that to be true in this case as well. I think hortilux are best for magnetic and ushio are best for digital.
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
This question is going to bring in all sorts of answers and opinions. I hope it stays clean and civil. My opinion? I veg and flower with an Ushio 600W HPS. I've never had a problem with internodal length, MH does not supply UV-b unless pretty microscopic, and a group of oldtimers that I trust have concluded that HPS all the way is what they themselves do. I did a little inquiry here on ROI and on ICMag and after several threads of discussion, I was really comfortable with just HPS, no blue hort. My last bulb was a blue hort. The only difference is the Ushio is very bright. As I was told it would be. I'd but the Ushio again.

My opinion only.
 
J

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
I'm a firm believer in that saying as well. My wife just bitche's a fucking river every time I go to the shop....$80 today on perlite, dirt, buckets, and flower nutes. If I had brought home a $90 hortilux bulb, jonny would be sleeping in his car tonight :)
 
J

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Rrog said:
This question is going to bring in all sorts of answers and opinions. I hope it stays clean and civil. My opinion? I veg and flower with an Ushio 600W HPS. I've never had a problem with internodal length, MH does not supply UV-b unless pretty microscopic, and a group of oldtimers that I trust have concluded that HPS all the way is what they themselves do. I did a little inquiry here on ROI and on ICMag and after several threads of discussion, I was really comfortable with just HPS, no blue hort. My last bulb was a blue hort. The only difference is the Ushio is very bright. As I was told it would be. I'd but the Ushio again.

My opinion only.
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Never heard of Ushio...very interested in learning more about this manufacturer. Will have to do some reading. Thanks for the lead fellas. Can't wait to hear some contrasting opinions here
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
People who have tried them really seem to like Ushio. I'll be getting them for my new room. Good price. I'm running a digital ballast, also. Micromole.
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
Sampras had a good point about some bulbs working better with digital ballasts. Ushio was initially recommended to be as having been designed with the digital ballast in mind. Not sure what you're running.
 
J

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Rrog said:
Sampras had a good point about some bulbs working better with digital ballasts. Ushio was initially recommended to be as having been designed with the digital ballast in mind. Not sure what you're running.
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600w Digital ballast from HTGsupply
 
J

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
jesus of Cannabis said:
i use the cheap htg supply in my 400, change them with every harvest/cycle. I have hortiluix for my 600 but it came with it.
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cool beans joc...good to hear b/c I'm debating between the htg bulb and a hortilux bulb. htg is half the price so I'm leaning toward that. like you said, if ya just replace it every cycle, it should be solid.
 
Timmahh

Timmahh

Well-Known Member
I too believe you get what you pay for, but not totally. I believe you get what you pay for when you research why you should pay for particular items.

Some things are worth paying top dollar, others are great marketing, which is often WAY overpriced.

Im using the Philips CMH bulbs they run about 55.00 each. Quite a few people i know using these and getting excellent results with them. So far im quite happy with them.
 
stumpjumper

stumpjumper

Well-Known Member
I'm using Ushio right now and to be honest, other that the actual quality of the bulb itself, I am not seeing a difference in plant growth between the Ushio and the Chinese HPS that came with my kit. If you weed through all the fanboy reviews you will find a lot of people have made this same claim. I won't be spending $80 on another bulb..
 
cannabineer

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
stumpjumper said:
I'm using Ushio right now and to be honest, other that the actual quality of the bulb itself, I am not seeing a difference in plant growth between the Ushio and the Chinese HPS that came with my kit. If you weed through all the fanboy reviews you will find a lot of people have made this same claim. I won't be spending $80 on another bulb..
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I love my Ushios but haven't done a comparison. If they're even 10% better than generic, the markup is worth it to me, as electric for one run far is several times the cost of the bulb and an even larger multiple more than the difference.

But I haven't done any hands-on comparing.
cn
 
mrbungle79

mrbungle79

Well-Known Member
using digilux myself. read some articles and watched a few tube vids doing comps with them against hortilux and the digis faired better but i've got nothing to compare against myself yet. gonna try the cheap digipulse from htg next go i think in one setup and a digilux in the other.
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgb_Khtqa1Q

The winner in this broad test was the Hortilux super

bulbscomparisondiagram.png

Just a quick observation, the two important light zones for plant photosynthesis are the areas from 400 to 530 nm (red), and from 620 to 720 nm (blue). The yellow in the middle throws off the readings, which can increase the lamps PAR score, but does not necessarily look at those two important red and blue bands.

If you compare the output of just those two spectrums and factored out the unnecessary yellow, the Ushio wins, even compared to the Hortilux

This was a quick look and there's bound to be more data out there.
 
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