Good deal on led bulbs at Lowe's

Speaking of Lowes CFL's, I bought 3 of these bad boys to augment my blurple led panel. They are big (4"x 9.5"). I'm sure it helped when my plants started flowering. They helped me produce some good crop. I'm not that into bulb type cfls. When I bought them they were on sale for about $12 each. Spiral type cfl's like these are becoming less easy to find at stores now, they've all gone to spherical light bulb looking cfl bulbs. I much prefer this spiral type. 3900 lumens!

They say they are for outdoor use only, but that's only if someone wants to place them in a covered light fixture. They do fine just hanging down by themselves in a tent.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-300-W-Equivalent-Soft-White-Spiral-CFL-Light-Fixture-Bulb/3197521

NoTillPhil said:

Reflectors mostly seem unnecessary with these bulbs Imo. The light is already highly directional and I like what overlap happens throughout the grow area. In fact I'd argue it's one of the main benefits of multiple light sources. There is a lot less shade in the lower half of the garden with the increased angles of the light cone.

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See, im looking at it like theres no plants on the wall. They are mostly directional but if you put a bulb with no reflector in ablack box, turned it on and took a piece of whote paper starting above the bulb and panned it down you would see that theres a considerable amount of light at almost 180°. I dont think theyre necessary, but they will make use of a decent amount of otherwise rogue photons. If you look at my reflectors, youll see that they are pretty short and wide angled. Im only trying to redirect that small amount of light shooting straight out the sides. These bulbs can and will torch your plants if too close so i tend to run them pretty high above the canopy, allowing for plenty of overlap. Going back to the overall topic of conversation, That setup is almost exactly 100w, covering a 2x3, giving 16.66w sq/ft. An hlg65 covers a 2x2@65w=16.25w sq/ft. I dont have exact data but it could be argued that a similar setup is comparable to 1.5 hlg65s at half the cost. I dont want this to be taken as me speaking poorly of hlg or their products. Their stuff is killer. Super simple, high output and efficiency. Just saying, if youre on a tight budget, similar results and efficiency are achievable. On top of that, should an issue arise, it will probably be isolated to 1 cheap and easily replacable bulb. I always have these bulbs kicking around. I get 4 packs of cree bulbs for about $5 at home depot. Happy growing all!

Humple said:

Most of the COB builds I see here don't use reflectors or lenses, so that's why I ask.

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Right. Some do, some dont. You dont need to, but there is benefit to it. There is a great led tech talk on green genes channel that a majority of the video is about reflectors and optics. Robin (Robyn?) owner of hlg is on it as well, dropping his knowledge. Some great info, inspired me to add reflectors to my cob setups as well!

grassy007 said:

Speaking of Lowes CFL's, I bought 3 of these bad boys to augment my blurple led panel. They are big (4"x 9.5"). I'm sure it helped when my plants started flowering. They helped me produce some good crop. I'm not that into bulb type cfls. When I bought them they were on sale for about $12 each. Spiral type cfl's like these are becoming less easy to find at stores now, they've all gone to spherical light bulb looking cfl bulbs. I much prefer this spiral type. 3900 lumens!

They say they are for outdoor use only, but that's only if someone wants to place them in a covered light fixture. They do fine just hanging down by themselves in a tent.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-300-W-Equivalent-Soft-White-Spiral-CFL-Light-Fixture-Bulb/3197521

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Join the bright side! 2 “100w equivelent” led bulbs with modified/removed diffusers will produce more light of a fuller spectrum using half the wattage. Theyre becoming harder to find because theyre obsolete. The only fluorescent lighting that i would make a case for these days is t5s for clones and seedlings. Nice evenly spread light, perfect intensity, low profile, cheap enough and forgiving. Probably the only thing id be able to use in my clone/seedling area. Only about 12” of head room! Work with what you got, but when it comes time to replace, fear not the led.this area is for freshly planted rooted clones, seedlings and smaller girls that i dont have space to up can. The 2 that are stripped are cuts i need to hold on to for a wile so ill do my best to keep them small. My cloning tray sits in front of that. I prefer the indirect light wile they are rooting. Under that is my 2’x3’x4’ veg area. I get the most i can out of my limited space. I have about 10 strains, some have multiple cuts im still going through. I pop new seeds as often as i can. Figured id back up my testimony.