LOW wattage CFL's VS HIGH wattage CFL's

HookdOnChronics said:

No problem man, Glad I could help if I did! You've got some good lumen output for the size of space your growin. I bet your gonna have a pretty lookin plant(s) You might consider LST if you haven't heard of it. LST is glorious, it's the ONLY way I grow!



Went to your journal and posted some shit there. lol



I just went to your journal and checked out your shit. Ya know I would suggest getting maybe gettin a few more lights if possible. Maybe like 4 more of the smaller CFL's and put them on the sides of the buckets that don't have lights on the ATM. So it would kind of be a square of smaller CFL's around the plants, and then the larger one up top. And if you got a couple bucks, go to a hardware store and get some of these 'sun reflectors' that you put in the front windshield of your car. And try to surround your plants and lights with that. It'll help to reflect ALOT of that light that is NOT getting used because it's lighting up nothing. Does this make sense to you? So instead of the light going to the brown wall and getting wasted, it would REFLECT off the 'sun reflector' thingy BACK TOWARDS your plants thus getting them more light, and increasing your yield, and making for better, happier plants.

Just a suggestion though. It's really up to you. You can come check out my journal if you want to see some more CFL growing.



I would have to say I think your probably right sir! And because of having more built in ballasts because of the more bulbs ect...

EDIT: Everyone in here, or everyone who reads this and grows with CFL's should SERIOUSLY CONSIDER LST for growing! I honestly thing that LST and CFL's go hand in hand together! I would be willing to bet money, that my yield would decrease exponentially if I did NOT LST my plants! So if you ARE A CFL grower. I would strongly suggest looking into LST!

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rombomb420 said:

Preach on buddy Jesus!

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SmokesLikeBob said:

if you have stationary cfl's make a box around it with fine mesh, so that the plants can literally grow into the light w/o burning!!! Really useful, for unlit areas in the middle of your growspace!

SLB

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HookdOnChronics said:

Dude I NEED to do this! I'm goin lookin! lol

and *!AMEN!*

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SmokesLikeBob said:

I couldn't find the thread, but I'll post a pic of mine as soon as I get my camera back...


SLB

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HookdOnChronics said:

On my veg room and BOTH flower rooms I spent around $60 bucks for all 28 bulbs I'm currently using. It's like $6 for the 3 pack of bulbs that I use, and I have 12 bulbs in 1 flower room, 8 bulbs in another flower room, and 8 bulbs in my veg room. So that makes for like $56 bucks. BUT add the tax and I'd say bout $60 give or take a couple bucks. And they were extremely easy to pick up and find as I jsut ran to my local walmart. How about you MC? How much was your massive 200w CFL?

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mcpurple said:

the only reason i dont use a bunch of smaller cfls is i dont really want to have all those bulbs plugged in and its just a bit more work to setup i guess. i am lazy to.for my next veg light after this one is done with though will be a t5 flouro setup all i hear is good about them

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mcpurple said:

just read that my light puts out 10000 lumens

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mcpurple said:

ya they are pretty even on watts and lumens, and 14000 lumens would be 4000 more lumens then my light so those lil bulbs are pretty efficient. im sure alot of people will like this thread cuz im always seeing questions like what is better to use a lot of smaller cfls or one bigger one, and this thread will let people decide for them selfs witch one they want to use. but i got to say yes the lil ones are more cost effective and have more lumens per watt. great thread, and i would plus rep if i could but it still wont let me.

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mcpurple said:

i linked some one to your grow journal earlier cuz they were askin for growin with cfl help, so i sent him your way. hope you dont mind

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mcpurple said:

just read that my light puts out 10000 lumens

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HookdOnChronics said:

Alright guys so I made this a while ago when a buddie of mine started asking me "Why not use the big, 150W CFL's instead of all these smaller ones" So I did some research! lol, Here's what I found out, just tryin to spread the love to any other CFLers out there!

Hookd’s info on CFL’s.

Just a little FYI here. But CFL's start to loose their lumen per watt output after about the 30W cfl's. So if it's possible for you, I'd go with an abundance of smaller CFL's, (mathamatically the 26W bulbs are the most efficient lumen/watt wise) rather than 1 HUGE CFL. Because the ONE MASSIVE CFL doesn't put out as many lumens as if you we're to use the same amount of watts, just with more, smaller light's. Does what I'm saying make sense?



Here, this may be better:

I looked at the 150W CFL's, and the one that puts out the MOST lumest/watt that I could find is the "150 Watt CFL Light Bulb - 650 W Equal – Soft White 2700K - 9,200 lumens"
So the best lumen/watt for a large, 150W CFL that I found was 9,200lumens/150watts which calculates to about 61.333 lumens per individual watt.

Now I looked at the kind of light's I use which are the "26 Watt CFL Light Bulb - 105 W Equal - Soft White 2700K - 1800 lumens"
So the best lumen/watt for the smaller, 26W CFL that I found was 1800lumens/26watts which calculates to about 69.231 lumens per individual watt.




Ok so let me break this down for you, straight G style! Hahaha:


A single, 150W CFL, puts out 9200 lumens total. 61.333 lumens per watt.
Now let's see here, 150W/26W=5.796. So it would take about 5.796 of these 26w cfl's to have the same amount of watts being used as the 150w. So let's round that down (just to make a point) to 5 of the 26watt CFL's, that would be a total of 130watts, and you would be putting out 9000 lumens. So for 20 less watts, you would have only 200 less lumens. (Don't forget I rounded down to 5 instead of 5.796 just to make my point.)
If you were to round up instead of down, from 5.796 to 6 which is what logic would tell us to do. That would give you 156watts (Only 6 watts more than the 150w CFL) and 10800 lumens (which is 1600 MORE lumens {almost an entire 26W CFL worth} that the 150W CFL)

So 1600 MORE lumens for only 6 more watts.

Again, just sharing some info. This is what I do instead of using the HUGE CFL's. It's also a LOT cheaper to replace these smaller bulbs for whenever the time comes. Because it's said that CFL's start to lose intensity after about 3 grows. Just some food for thought.

Don't FUCK with me and my CFL's! lol
Hope this helps with your decision. And if not, at least I was able to spread the knowledge. PEACE

-Hookd

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