oh no buddy i work at home depot got everything at a discount. the 42 watters were $4 apiece, the 26 watters were $1 apiece, the hanging sockets were $3 apiece, the splitters was $2 apiece, and the fans were $7 apiece,which gives us a total of $114 for a kick ass setup! please find me a 600w hps for $114 thats gonna give me such a good spectrum and keep my temps at 78 in a closet...cant find one huh? oh yea this is a cfl forum fUCK HID's[/quote]
So you are using 648 watts producing so for every 23 watts you produce 1600 lumens, so you are putting out roughly 45,078 lumens. My 400watt HPS puts out 55,000 lumens. In order to match my lumen output then you need 143 more watts of cfl's. So you would need to use twice the amount of watts or 800 watts of cfl's to match my 400 watt HPS. Yeah cfl's might be cheaper initially but you end up paying more in electricity, so they really don't pay off in the longrun. I spent roughly twice as much on my light as you did with your cfl's but I pay half as much in electricity bills. Sorry to burst your bubble buddy but CFL's are really not worth the trouble!
A 600 watt HPS put's out 95,00 lumens it is more efficient then the 400 watt...