Do Led bulbs run cooler than CFLs

Does anyone know if Led bulbs run cooler than CFLs? I have a 10 bulb CFL fixture that I was going to use but the CFLs are very hot. I am considering switching to LED bulbs but I don't know if there is a difference in temperature.

LED's of comparable wattage are MUCH cooler

splift124 said:

Does anyone know if Led bulbs run cooler than CFLs? I have a 10 bulb CFL fixture that I was going to use but the CFLs are very hot. I am considering switching to LED bulbs but I don't know if there is a difference in temperature.

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Hii. Cfl shouldnt get hotter than your able to hold it in ur hand while lit. If they do some is wrong with it

Dahlins@gmail said:

Hii. Cfl shouldnt get hotter than your able to hold it in ur hand while lit. If they do some is wrong with it

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Also led doesnt emmit Any noticable heat

Dahlins@gmail said:

Also led doesnt emmit Any noticable heat

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Mine do

If you mean LED bulbs like these ones, they won't work for growing. I asked Philips (people who make the lights) and they said it's a no go :-/

WarMachine said:

If you mean LED bulbs like these ones, they won't work for growing. I asked Philips (people who make the lights) and they said it's a no go :-/

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Household led like those grow bud perfectly well, with more lumens per watt than cfl at a lot less heat. I have used both. Philips lied to you.
Downside is they point down, not horizontal like cfl should do, so they take up more room. Upside is that virtually all the light is aimed at the canopy, and even more light is available if you rip the globe off.
I used to use 30w cfl with 1800 lumens each. I now use 15w cfl at 1520 lumens with globe on. Add approx 10-20% more lumens with globe off, but you lose some of the spread.
My only problem is that I have a 32" high cab and the plants grow really close to the bulbs even with training. No real bleaching or burning same as a cfl, but light doesn't have chance to spread far when buds are nearly touching, which is why I am looking at mounting cobs outside the cab shining through a hole in the roof.
Pulled 3.5 oz dry on my last grow using 130w of store bought led bulbs

Dude... You kick ass... I can't believe those fucks told me you can't grow with those lights! I have a private message from them on Facebook after a few days from "their experts" if I can grow mint, basil, and tomatoes using their light system and they told me no. Here is their exact quote :

"Hello again *WarMachine* (my real name instead). Our colleagues would like you to know that there is very little UV and plant growing wavelengths in these LED lamps!"

I actually bought the lights and returned them after they answered me with that lie. How far would you recommend keeping the LED lights away from the plant? FYI, you are so far the only grower I saw rocking these lights and that's pretty damn cool. Expect a lot of questions from me at this point lol

I have only done 2 grows with the LEDs, one using autos and the last one photos, so I am not an expert on using them. To be honest I have only ever done 3 grows in total, so I am still a noob! I am also still changing my stealth cab about after each grow to try and make it more efficient, and also trying different strains, so I know I can get even better results than I am now, once I get dialled in with a strain that I know roughly how it will behave.

As mentioned earlier I once used 180w of cfl and struggled with high temps in a concrete garage in winter, so took a 30w bulb out and ended up running roughly 9,000 lumens with 150w of cfl.

I happened to see THIS thread on icmag about using store LEDs. Quite a big thread now, the first pages just compare results of various LEDs v cfl, after a while people start growing with them, then they show the results. People are getting over 1 gpw with them in small grow areas. Well worth a few hours reading.

I now use 130w of store bought 2700k led bulbs. Bought from various places, ended up with some 13w, some 14w and some 15w - 9 in total all giving 1520 lumens. That is 13,680 lumens with globes on, so 50% more lumens than the 150w cfl for 20w less. Rip the globes off and if you read the linked thread you will see that lumens goes up by 10-20%. Ran them through the uk summer and was only a couple of degrees above intake air temp.

At the end of the day, a cfl light at 2700k emits the same colour light as led at 2700k. Same with 6500k bulbs, so there is no real reason why they won't work the same.

I run the bulbs about 2-3 inches from canopy, and you can see they are spread out so the entire canopy is covered evenly. No real heat at that distance, you can put the back of your hand there all day long, but the light is very intense so you may need to raise slightly or put a globe back on if you notice a problem. Same with any light I suppose.

Good luck and ask anything you want!

Awesome info I'm actually may need to convert to led from CFLs from being in AU's in summer gets pretty hot so I'm gonna have to try led over cfl, be a while before I'll get into hps while this heat is kicking in.

Hopefully it might help someone out.

To be fair, all the credit should go to blynx, the guy who wrote the original thread I read and have linked in the reply above. Him and a guy called terpine have done several grows in that post now, and are killing it in smallish cabs with store LEDs. If I can get close to their results I will be very happy.

I'm trying to get this light :

http://www.homedepot.com/p/500W-Equivalent-Daylight-LED-Yard-Light-Bulb/300059562

But Home Depot is having "trouble" getting it to my location.. And I can't find it anywhere else but 10,000 lumins!

Only downside to that light is that looks like it will throw out light in a 360 degree circle from one spot, like a cfl. So half will beam away from the plant if mounted horizontally, and it will come out sideways and not down if vertically mounted. Your canopy might only get 25-50% direct light from it.

Six x 15w household LEDs will have light aiming straight at your canopy and nowhere else, from 6 different locations - more light on the plant and a more even spread for roughly 9,000 lumens globes on, 10-11,000 globes off for 90w. Six smaller bulbs will cost about the same to buy as that big one, especially if you can get a multipack deal.

General rule of thumb for led bulbs or cobs is to have multiple sources, spread evenly about the cabinet, rather than one massive light source in the middle.

That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the reply back! But what about if I'm running a speaker as my grow box? Currently that is the box i am using. I have right now a little over 4000 lumins, i have 2 23watt cfls (100 watt replacement) 1600 lumins each and 1 cfl 13 watt (i believe) and it is 900 lumins.

Reason I liked that 10,000 watt one was because of lack of space. I can't fit that many leds in such a small box. I think if i make a custom box and use 2 of the 4way splitters, it'll be more do-able. But what do you think of the small speaker situation?

Keep in mind, those plants are just to test the box. I have autos i wnt to use in that box but wanted to try it out on the firecracker strain i have (350+ seeds)

Hard to tell the exact height of the box, but it looks like you might struggle getting led bulbs going vertical in there. I see why you wanted the other bulb. My box is mid thigh height and I struggle when the plants get mature.

You mentioned building another box - why not use the speaker to get seedlings established then move them into a bigger box? Sort of a continual grow thing.

Instead of splitters, I am guessing you are from the US by the bulb link, I am sure I have seen something by an American / Canadian poster which was a power bar that lets you plug lights into it rather than having single bulb holders. Don't have them in the uk as far as I know, but something like that would mean the bulbs go straight down rather than angled. Fairly sure I didn't dream it!!

Only other things I can suggest are led striplights around the inside of the box as well as keeping the existing cfl's. There is a thread in the led section about them HERE I don't know how good they are or what they would cost but it is worth a look.

Sorry I can't help much, but hopefully one of the suggestions might give you an idea. As I mentioned previously I am still a noob myself so I am still learning how best to do things as well. I assume you have already had a good look through the Stealth / Micro / Growcab subsection on here. They might be able to give you a couple of other ideas or suggestions.

Yeah now you see my struggle hahaha! The height of the box is just under 2 ft, I figured it would be okay if I got an auto (which I did, I got the low ryder strain which is a very short plant) and I put it in lst, the space would be good. But now you see why I wanted the other bulb, my box is I would say a little higher than knee perhaps.

That would could work too, keep this box as the starter box and then move them to a bigger box.

I am from the US (Cali), I haven't seen something like that but it makes sense to have something of that sort. Perhaps I can go for a little stroll and look around!

I have thought of getting an LED strip ( I actually bought a grow light for ~$25) that maybe I should add to the box, it would be an extra ~2200 lumins. I took a look at the thread and honestly it just seems prettttyyyy confusing haha.

Thanks for all the help @It's not oregano !

Had a look because it was bugging me, and what I saw was a bulb holder that plugs directly into a power strip, spmething like THIS
Searching this forum it sounds as though most decent hardware stores sell them in the US. We don't have anything like it in the UK, dont have splitters either! They would make life soooo much easier at times, rather than having to spend hours wiring multiple individual sockets up in parallel.

The a16 led flood lights work the best out of the led bulbs. that is the general consensus here that I have gathered.

It's not oregano said:

Had a look because it was bugging me, and what I saw was a bulb holder that plugs directly into a power strip, spmething like THIS
Searching this forum it sounds as though most decent hardware stores sell them in the US. We don't have anything like it in the UK, dont have splitters either! They would make life soooo much easier at times, rather than having to spend hours wiring multiple individual sockets up in parallel.

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Ohhhh that's what you meant!! You guys don't have that in the UK?! I'm sorry to hear that :-/ I actually have those in my speaker as we speak haha (hard to tell in pic)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181746468772?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

I got 10 of them for ~$11 USD, I do like the one you listed because of the 90 degree bend. But I think your right, if I mount 1-2 power strips (on top) I can use those bulb plugs no problem!

Can you guys not use splitters or anything because of the voltage difference? They don't make any that would be UK worthy?


Thanks for the input @whitebb2727 ! I'll take a look at those lights as well!