Best Cfl Fixture for 68 watt

Does anybody use those 68watt TCP CFL from home depot? What do you people use to light em up? I tried a 300 watt clamp light fixture but it didn't work. Do you need a special socket for these who uses them?

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

hey bro,

locdawg here, I happen to have used exactly those on my first grow see here.


and to answer your question yes they can be used on the regular clamp light, you dont even need one rated that high as they only draw 68w like the package states. The supposed 300w part is only that they are comparable to the light output of a 300w incandescent light not necessarily their real output. either way they do put out quite a few lumen's nearly 4000 if im not mistaken so they're are well worth the 12 bucks they cost at lowes.

what im willing to bte is that you either bought or had a broken light socket and tried to put the bulb in. or you left the reflector on the clamp light. if so these have too thick of a ballast(big white part near end of bulb) and do not fit the profile of the inside of the reflector they come with. never you worry though if you bought one of the 7-9 dollar clamp lights they actually have removable reflectors as the lamp holding that 68watter in the above picture is none other then your garden variety medium based socket(medium base/just the name for the standard light bulb end) try those things and you will see that it works. good luck hope you can get it sorted out.

Locdawg,

"Stay Faded"

Mort Fink said:

Does anybody use those 68watt TCP CFL from home depot? What do you people use to light em up? I tried a 300 watt clamp light fixture but it didn't work. Do you need a special socket for these who uses them?
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Click to expand...

I just picked a few up today @ $14.97 and was 2700K so perfect for my flowering light I need. They also had( made by TCP)a 27watt 5500K for $7.97, I picked a few of those also. All worked perfect in my set up so no "special" light socket needed.

Glad to finally read what a "medium base" really is. I've been looking all over the internet for bulbs and I see that most of the larger wattage CFL's use the medium base. I'm sitting here asking myself WFT is a medium base? Now I know thats just a standard light bulb socket.

+rep locdawg

Thanks!!

Thanks for the replies, I went back to home depot and figured everything out, I got an extender cuz the base on the bulb was too big. Screwed it in and boom it lit up fine. then I just bought extension cords and power socket to bulb socket converters. Super cheap a few bucks for the extension cords and 1 or 2 for the converter sockets. Only around 5 bucks. Ready to fire up two 68 watt if you have a dual/tri plug extension cord. I added another one in a snake light side lamp. This is perfect for side-lighting, Im really happy with my setup now. I got the 400wat HPS up top and the 3 tcp 68 watts for 204 watts of cfl. For the amount of watts I probably should have just got 150/250 watt HPS or MH but, the heat is a no can do, Im struggling to keep down just the 400watt and CFLS. Plus CFLS are so versatile you can stick em anywhere and put them so close. Im pretty darn happy.