300 watt CFL

So i was at my local lowes today and i found a "bright effects", 300 hundred watt cfl, self ballasted. all i have to do do is plug and play.
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LUMENS: 3900

WATTS: 65

HOURS: 6000
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Now that i have it home i was wondering if anyone has ever used or heard of this brand? google has nothing for it................. i just like to hear personal opinions before i add something to my grow setup.

Bright Effects is actually a brand owned by Lowe's. Only 3900 lumens? The Bright Effects 40 watt cfl's put out 2700 lumens. How much did the 300w cfl cost you? Hopefully not a lot because even the 40 watt 2700 lumen CFLs that cost $8.00 each are a rip off for lumens per dollar.

Guyz.

Stop talking about equivalents.
Equivalents are not exact measurements anyways.
All you do is add confusion.

A 65 watts bulb uses 65 watts.
Therefore, it would be called a 65w bulb.
How can it be called a 300 watt if it is not using that wattage?

There is actual 300w CFL's being produced ( and soon 400 watters I am sure).
I own a 250 watt, 16,000 lumen CFL.
And a 200 watt 14,300 lumen CFL.

snaggy said:

Guyz.

Stop talking about equivalents.
Equivalents are not exact measurements anyways.
All you do is add confusion.

A 65 watts bulb uses 65 watts.
Therefore, it would be called a 65w bulb.
How can it be called a 300 watt if it is not using that wattage?

There is actual 300w CFL's being produced ( and soon 400 watters I am sure).
I own a 250 watt, 16,000 lumen CFL.
And a 200 watt 14,300 lumen CFL.

Click to expand...

What he said... its a 65w = 300wEquivalent.

not a 300w bulb.


Otherwise we would all be using a billion watts lol.

yea i bought the same 300 watt cfl light from lowes, i bought 2 of them just to get my seedlings on their way before i switch em under the 400 watt MH, but they guys at lowes also told me that even though it is a 65 watt bulb, it gives out 300 watts of light or some shit, but yea it is only 3,900 lumens. I dont really know what to think of it, is an awful big CFL twist light lol

herbalessence said:

yea i bought the same 300 watt cfl light from lowes, i bought 2 of them just to get my seedlings on their way before i switch em under the 400 watt MH, but they guys at lowes also told me that even though it is a 65 watt bulb, it gives out 300 watts of light or some shit, but yea it is only 3,900 lumens. I dont really know what to think of it, is an awful big CFL twist light lol

Click to expand...

The guy at Lowe's should probably stick to operating forklifts and selling ceiling fans. Bulbs don't give out watts, they draw watts from the outlet, watts being a measure of electricity. The reason they get confused about it is because CFL's are marketed almost always as a such and such true wattage bulb which is equivalent to a much higher wattage incandescant bulb. The fact of the matter is even the true wattage of a bulb can be deceptive as well. It's all about the lumens. When you're standing in the light bulb aisle trying to decide which bulb is going to suit your needs, read to see how many lumens it's pumping out. The rule of thumb I practice for a good value for a cfl is try not to pay more than $0.0014 per lumen (that's 14/1000 of a cent per lumen.) Something else I've observed is that the watt to lumen relationship is not a linear one. If a 40 watt cfl gives out 2600 lumens, that's not to say that an 80 watt bulb will give out 5200. It would probably be like 4700-4900. And the price for higher wattage cfl's also increases unproportionally. I've found that 26 watt bulbs seem to be the sweet spot, giving you 1700 lumens each at around $2.50 each. If you ask me, the best idea is to buy a bunch of those because not only do you get a better lumen to dollar ratio, but you get a larger number of sources of light which means you get to illuminate a wider degree of angles ensuring that a larger percentage of your plant is receiving direct light.

Anybody feel free to paraphrase that, I know it's a huge chunk of text, sorry.

well that certaintly clears up a lot for me in regards to purchasing CFL's, i wish i would have known this couple weeks ago lol. Great post though krygor!

Lumens are important and what I check first... the real deviation comes at picking up the righ Kelvin bulbs.

Bulbs range from about 1000k-9000k of the visual spectrum that runs from Infrared to UltraViolet, either, respectively, not visible by the human eye. Plant absorption at photsynthetic efficiency of light is not a linear model either, absorption peaking at 2700k and 6400k (this one may be off) . Anyways, these two ranges are red and blue respectively. Green light wont work, as chlorophyll reflects green light.

Light at the plant it sell should appear to land on the plant not radiate off it. Who uses green lights though anyways?


The Lights at the store will be rated 90% of the time to their K value... most cheap "plant" lights are around 3000k ironically, this is why they suggest it can be better to get normal bulbs then grow bulbs.

U should look for cfl's on ebay. I got 50 x 24w=100 warm white 1680 Lumens for $40 after shipping and handling. Thats 80 cents a bulb. Thats why I use cfl's. If you look out there, you can find them cheap.

rivers2gates said:

So i was at my local lowes today and i found a "bright effects", 300 hundred watt cfl, self ballasted. all i have to do do is plug and play.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
LUMENS: 3900

WATTS: 65

HOURS: 6000
___________________________________________________________________

Now that i have it home i was wondering if anyone has ever used or heard of this brand? google has nothing for it................. i just like to hear personal opinions before i add something to my grow setup.

Click to expand...

I just bought one, then got home and did the same thing... Googled it and found this post... haha. I posted a pic too, just wondering if anyone actually used it. It may help my setup a little. I have a 400w hps and 2 other ott-lite 23watters I think, so maybe I'll replace one with this, don't know though.. THE THING IS HUGE.

I just purchased two of these bulbs yesterday at $16.98/each from Lowes. As everyone else indicates they are massive, but will fit nicely in a y-socket splitter, giving 7800 lumens for about $35. If the name of the game is getting the most lumens for the least COST, then these puppies are top notch. I also have two 2'-sunblaze t5 ho strips--these cost ~$30/each and put out a total of 4000 lumens. While the t5's are very thin and easy to install, $30 is a lot for 2000 lumens. It's all personal preference I guess, but if you can fit the 65watt cfl's thats prob the way to go.

On a side note, these bulbs do broadcast in the 2700k spectrum, though you wouldn't know this unless you carefully read the alternate languages listed on the packaging. I'm unsure if Bright Effects make a 6500K or comparable bulb, but who cares, because flowering is where you want to spend most of your resources.

"The guy at Lowe's should probably stick to operating forklifts and selling ceiling fans. Bulbs don't give out watts, they draw watts from the outlet, watts being a measure of electricity"

haha, glad i read this post i was about to unleash hell about that guy!

so is this a good bulb to use or not?

I got one today, even bigger than the ones ive seen on here.

Jerry Garcia said:

I just purchased two of these bulbs yesterday at $16.98/each from Lowes. As everyone else indicates they are massive, but will fit nicely in a y-socket splitter, giving 7800 lumens for about $35. If the name of the game is getting the most lumens for the least COST, then these puppies are top notch.

Click to expand...

I bought 2 4-packs of 23W Great Value brand CFL's from Wal-Mart. They cost me $14 and all 8 put out 12,800 lumens combined. The name of the game is getting the most lumens for the least cost, and this is the way to do it. Anything larger than 23 or 26W is going to cost a lot more, and lumens per watt of energy goes down.

home depot has ones that are 65 watts with 4600 lumens 15 bucks a picece and are sold next to hps light bulbs so i imagine they must crank it out

bubblefunk said:

home depot has ones that are 65 watts with 4600 lumens 15 bucks a picece and are sold next to hps light bulbs so i imagine they must crank it out

Click to expand...

I dropped by the Home-De-Pot today to grab some perlite and a few cfl's to setup my first super small personal use setup.

Now, I went there with an awesome list that I've compiled from all of the helpful folks here on rollitup and thought I knew exactly what I wanted. That is until I saw this beast of a light. It was so freakishly huge and it was on sale for $12.99. This bulb is made by a company called TCP the specs are:

4200 Lumens
10,000hrs
68watts/300watts

I have a super small setup and thought maybe I'd simplify my home made macgyverd hood i designed to hold 4 lower watt cfls with this enormous bulb. As soon as I got home I thought... Should I have just stuck with my original plan with the smaller bulbs. Or will this one handle the job for one plant I plan on growing? Has anybody used these before with good results? I'm not looking for crazy yields just something to compensate me between buying schedules, times are tough, gotta save money somewhere! Thanks in advance, and I can't get enough of this site, everybody is so helpful. Woah 1st post! and... enuff with all the kiss-ass I'm dont babbling.

amazing comment!... i have 4 26 watt 6500k bulbs on 1 plant..... is that ok for 1 plant the whole growth period?? oh and yea change to 4 2700k in flower.. so is 4 26watt bulbs decent?? thanks

I plan on using 4 42 watt2700k and 4 26 watt 6500. Is this a decent light set up?

haha, this is crazy. my local lowes recently got these in stock but only in 2700k, perfect cause i just start 12/12. only got one. intend to get at least 3 more. there massive and give off a lot of light. i put this one in the middle of my hood and alligned all my plants around it in a circle and then put lights on the back side of them.