1550 watts of cfl s
- Thread starter bobtokes
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ganjagoddess
Well-Known Member
Contest in the eyes of manufacturers...
But to be honest it really proves best for new people to the sport to get HID lamps and figure them out, to me it just seems that anyone and everyone thinks that they can get some CFL's and grow a pound.
In fact I have yet to see a pound come out of a CFL grow at all.
Even the envirolite HW CFL 250 watts cant come near that, and I have seen 4 of them above a sog grow.
Most of the time, I have seen average yeilds of .2 or .3 g a watt.
I dont know, I just think in alot of ways that what AL B is trying to do is save newbies from a embarrissing yeild.
Listen to me ramble, sorry I'll shut up now, not trying to put down CFL's just mention that I think they are better for home lighting that growing dope in any situation.
But to be honest it really proves best for new people to the sport to get HID lamps and figure them out, to me it just seems that anyone and everyone thinks that they can get some CFL's and grow a pound.
In fact I have yet to see a pound come out of a CFL grow at all.
Even the envirolite HW CFL 250 watts cant come near that, and I have seen 4 of them above a sog grow.
Most of the time, I have seen average yeilds of .2 or .3 g a watt.
I dont know, I just think in alot of ways that what AL B is trying to do is save newbies from a embarrissing yeild.
Listen to me ramble, sorry I'll shut up now, not trying to put down CFL's just mention that I think they are better for home lighting that growing dope in any situation.
ceestyle
Well-Known Member
Trying to yield a pound with CFLs is just stupid. Period.
People cry about the ventilation required for HIDs, but if you have enough light, even CFLs will require as much ventilation. Besides, your plants want the air turnover that you provide by properly ventilating anyway...
I'm not arguing that the message is wrong, by any means. Even from a strictly efficiency standpoint, if it takes 250W of CFL to get the same lumen output as 150WHPS (and HPS efficiency just gets better up to 600W), you're taking a huge yield hit right there! If you're getting 1g per watt, simply the lumen/watt hit would bring you down to 0.6 g/W.
superskunkxnl
Well-Known Member
dont get me wrong i loved my hps but after the last raid im confined to my fridge so in about 8 cu ft cfls are the way for me to go and can be pulled off very well with more than 1g/w i have seen it and believe in confined spaces there the way to go fair does if ya got a real room to play with get the HID but i'd suggest gettin a CMH bulb for your hps ballast those things are sick
ganjagoddess
Well-Known Member
CMH bulbs offer no improvement.
superskunkxnl
Well-Known Member
bullshit ive seen the results and there cooler too a foaf was runnin HPS for years and was adament they where the only way to grow (takin the piss cfls ect.) but since he got his CMH he vows never to use the sodium again
ganjagoddess
Well-Known Member
Cees your the local lighting expert can we get your opinion on CHM.
ceestyle
Well-Known Member
First, I'm going to be honest and say that I haven't done extensive research on CMH, and point number one below is why. Since your post, I've looked a bit more.
1. Lumen Output
The Philips Site lists the lumen output of a 400W CMH at 39,200 lumens
I have seen various quotes for 400W HPS, but your garden variety is rated at about 50,000 lumens.
Therefore, not even considering spectral differences, you're talking about 98 lumens/W vs. 138 for HPS. That's roughly 25% better for HPS, and you can get better HPS bulbs.
2. Spectral Quality
It is undebatable that bulbs putting out primarily red-spectrum light produce great bud.
I don't think that anybody would mind adding blue spectrum on top of that, and I don't think you could argue that it would hurt - unless you were toasting the plants. This is not likely to result from the blue, however, as it is the infrared at the tail end of the red spectrum that is the culprit for the "hotness" of HPS bulbs.
The problem is that it's not as if you're simply "adding" blue spectrum. If you have one bulb that's putting out 55k lumen of red/yellow, as HPS does, and another putting out 55k of combined blue/red, the bulb with the more complete spectrum has less red spectrum.
Lumen rating is based on the energy output (number of photons), taking into account the luminosity function . If you go back to the CMH thread and look at the two spectra, the lumen rating is more or less proportional to the area under the spectrum, but weighted for the sensitivity of our eyes. (If it were not weighted for sensitivity, the output - called radiant flux - would be directly proportional to this area).
If you take a look at that luminosity function plot, you'll also see that a larger portion of the CMH spectrum falls where our eyes are most sensitive. The luminosity function therefore has a higher value, and these wavelengths "count more" toward the lumen rating.
What this means is that by adding blue and staying at the same lumen output, you are sacrificing red, effectively putting yourself somewhere between a MH and a HPS. This is no surprise, as this is essentially what a CMH is. In addition, you're losing overall output due to the overlap of the CMH spectrum with our vision's sensitivity. Make sense?
3. Heat Output
I have not dug through the thread to determine if there are any actual data on heat output, as the two points above make them uninteresting to me.
As I have mentioned before, it's better to just get the right bulb and ventilate properly. If you are in a tiny space and they really provide that much heat savings, then perhaps they could fill a niche there. If someone can point me toward some of this data, perhaps I could offer an opinion on that.
4. Summary
Why get one bulb that does half the job of the correct ones? If you've put a couple hundred bucks into a decent 400W HPS, cough up the $50 for a conversion bulb and do 'er right!
FrostickZero
Well-Known Member
I found out that if you use 42w , 2,700 lumes , 2,700k bulbs they ''might '' have a chance but any thing less you won't have a chance unless you load up on the plants , even then they won't have a chance, the top part that had a 42 had a bit bigger buds but it weighed more , I took off about 2 to 3 inches off the top for the bud and got 2.0g dry (even) the bud that I got when wet weighed 7.7g
superskunkxnl
Well-Known Member
thanx.....
ceestyle
Well-Known Member
My ladies sure didn't mind those 42W jobs, but they loved the CFL/HPS tag team even better.
FrostickZero
Well-Known Member
rad your the very first person that has sayed they done that,u got n e pics?
%MiSTuRBoMbDiGgItty%
Well-Known Member
I've seen 1g to 2.5g a watt with cfl and plan to get better. I believe in a box with 3.5 sq ft I will yeild a qp a week once I'm dialed in just keep your eyes on us cfl growers we might shock ya...
ceestyle
Well-Known Member
I'll believe that when I see it. With that area you shouldn't expect more than a qp per eight weeks. Unless it's 15ft tall with shelves, that is....
I was ready to challenge Al B. Fuct's theory, until he proved it in some pics. thank you, I've been wondering about this for a long time. I think of it as like having 2 AA batteries hooked up next to each other in parallel. they're 1.5 volts each, but still only add up to 1.5 volts together, but with a higher amperage. light added up has more photon's pouring onto a surface, but still only the same intensity no matter how many bulbs there are.
I'm getting my setup ready to start my first grow. my plan was to use a set of 4 26 watt cfl's (100 watt each equivalent, 1600 lumens each) for my mother plant. is this a good idea? will it work well? I think for a mother plant to clone from, it wouldn't be so necessary to have a bushy plant, and longer stems might be ok to have. thoughts?
I'm getting my setup ready to start my first grow. my plan was to use a set of 4 26 watt cfl's (100 watt each equivalent, 1600 lumens each) for my mother plant. is this a good idea? will it work well? I think for a mother plant to clone from, it wouldn't be so necessary to have a bushy plant, and longer stems might be ok to have. thoughts?
BigBudBalls
Well-Known Member
Even at a qp per plant thats 8 plants in 3.5 sq feet? (for the qp per week)
ceestyle
Well-Known Member
You could probably get away with that for maintenance of a mother. You should keep her bushy, so you get better coverage with the CFLs.
ceestyle
Well-Known Member
eeeexaaaaaactly. i wanna know where he's going to get the magic hat to pull all those nugs out of.
dude this is simple............build two identicle boxes down to the ventilation and everything.
One gets 400 actual watts of CFL and one gets 400 actual watts of HID. EVERYTHING THE SAME
Use two clones off the same mother in each box (average the sizing) and grow them side by side.
Note any problems such as heat issues (to help explain the yeild differences) and keep the growing until each box is presenting the same thing.
If one takes longer to mature, you lose grams per watt used.
If one produces less bud due to heat, explain that youd need more energy consumption to control temps.
This is an easy and reasonably accurate while still simple experiment to do.
One gets 400 actual watts of CFL and one gets 400 actual watts of HID. EVERYTHING THE SAME
Use two clones off the same mother in each box (average the sizing) and grow them side by side.
Note any problems such as heat issues (to help explain the yeild differences) and keep the growing until each box is presenting the same thing.
If one takes longer to mature, you lose grams per watt used.
If one produces less bud due to heat, explain that youd need more energy consumption to control temps.
This is an easy and reasonably accurate while still simple experiment to do.