WHY do CFL's suck?

fdd2blk said:
CFL's do not produce the same intensity at the same distance. buy a light meter, it will answer all these questions. :)
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Yeah that's pretty much it. Your CFL's have to moved constantly being they have to stay much closer to the foliage of your plants.
 
GrowTech said:
Nah, I read it... but it just didn't spark enough interest for me to actually think about it, so I left my opinion... I mean, how could I take a threat titled "WHY DO -----'s suck?" seriously?


and since we're putting words in other people mouths... I might be wrong, but I think fdd2blk is saying that you're a jerk :bigjoint: ;)
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I had no intention of being a jerk and I have no intention of arguing the validity of my thread title. My growing skills speak for themselves and thus I can't bring myself to use CFL's for a full grow.

I personally grow using a T-5, then MH, then using multiple HPS's because it works optimally from my EXPERIENCE. What I am trying to figure out is why the CFL's are inferior, but if it's simply that no one knows, I can accept that no one here has the answer and that "CFL's suck" is going to continue to be the answer around here.

I'm not stating that CFL's suck, that was the entire point of this thread. That is the COMMONLY used statment, but I want to know WHY.
 
laserbrn said:
I'm not stating that CFL's suck, that was the entire point of this thread. That is the COMMONLY used statment, but I want to know WHY.
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Because people are not educated and they don't know how to use them properly. So generally people who don't know what they're doing don't know what they're saying either...

Can I see some of your plants please...?
 
I have to say that both are good. The CFL's do a wonderful job of vegging if you keep the light close. They keep your electric bill down and really just do the job if done right. The HID's are awesome for flowering, the flowers need a strong penetrating light on a 12/12 schedule. Also if the light is still having a problem getting to lower branches you can always take a couple of your vegging CFL's and place them accordingly with the same light schedule. You really can't go wrong using both.

Cindi
 
laserbrn said:
I had no intention of being a jerk and I have no intention of arguing the validity of my thread title. My growing skills speak for themselves and thus I can't bring myself to use CFL's for a full grow.

I personally grow using a T-5, then MH, then using multiple HPS's because it works optimally from my EXPERIENCE. What I am trying to figure out is why the CFL's are inferior, but if it's simply that no one knows, I can accept that no one here has the answer and that "CFL's suck" is going to continue to be the answer around here.

I'm not stating that CFL's suck, that was the entire point of this thread. That is the COMMONLY used statment, but I want to know WHY.
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I also would not use CFLs for a full grow, but that doesn't mean that they suck for the flowering stage. I've seen killer plants harvested with CFLs. Also, by saying "Why do CFLs suck?" you are basically saying "CFLs suck, but why?"
 
MrNotorious said:
Because people are not educated and they don't know how to use them properly. So generally people who don't know what they're doing don't know what they're saying either...

Can I see some of your plants please...?
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See, but I haven't seen ayone that "CAN" use CFL's to the same extent and I'm trying to figure out if it's possible or plausible at all.

The main problem that I see is that with HID I can cover an entire area approximately 12" deep into my canopy. If a CFL can't produce light intensity 12" away, how is it going to have a prayer at 12" deep?

Is there a way to combat this besides growing fewer plants and taking longer to do it? I've always grown small/medium plants in larger quantities because it seems to work out the most efficiently.

When I say always, I don't mean always, I did grow 2 big MONSTER plants once for the fun of it and I certainly would've yeilded better the other way, there's just something about monsters that makes me say "yum".



Check out my grow logs...I grew the 8 week one in a small space with a 250w HPS. Got 4.5 oz's out of a 250w light in 8 weeks total. 6 days veg, 7 weeks flower.

The grow I'm doing this time I'm using 2 400w HPS lights and they are well on their way to greatness.
 
laserbrn said:
See, but I haven't seen ayone that "CAN" use CFL's to the same extent and I'm trying to figure out if it's possible or plausible at all.

The main problem that I see is that with HID I can cover an entire area approximately 12" deep into my canopy. If a CFL can't produce light intensity 12" away, how is it going to have a prayer at 12" deep?

Is there a way to combat this besides growing fewer plants and taking longer to do it? I've always grown small/medium plants in larger quantities because it seems to work out the most efficiently.

When I say always, I don't mean always, I did grow 2 big MONSTER plants once for the fun of it and I certainly would've yeilded better the other way, there's just something about monsters that makes me say "yum".



Check out my grow logs...I grew the 8 week one in a small space with a 250w HPS. Got 4.5 oz's out of a 250w light in 8 weeks total. 6 days veg, 7 weeks flower.

The grow I'm doing this time I'm using 2 400w HPS lights and they are well on their way to greatness.
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There are many ways to counter act this. You just have to be creative and think before you jump into things. If your CFL's can not reach all areas of the plant and do so efficiently then your obviously doing something wrong.

You also can not JUST consider CFL's suck because you have not seen a good productive setup. I can name many things I have not seen that I know they are out there.

Watch a few grow videos and read a few books. This is where you will find all the info your looking for.

Like FDD said and I have previously said, placement is key with CFL's.
 
i "THINK" know why HPS are better than CFL's even though the CFL's have better PAR over the HPS. plants use all colors of the light spectrum you can grow plants under LPS- halogen- incandescent's the plants grow tall and stretch, but they still grow even though the PAR in thouse bulbs is next to nothing. The one thing that is true under all the above lights is the more lumens you give the plant the bigger and faster it will grow no matter what color of the light spectrum. I think every color plays a part in growing of plants if you add more blue then you get short bushy plants if you add more red then you get taller plants, but every other color also does somthing to the growth pattern. The color of the light only makes a plant grow in a certain way it does not stop growing even if the color is narrow yellow if par was true then it would not grow at all under yellow so that puts the PAR red and blue spectrum myth to bed before we start.

The HPS does so well because of the raw power "lumens" in all the light spectrum it as a fair bit of red to help the rest of the colors that also play a part in the growth pattern of plants.

look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq63d6tZQNQ plants grown under 500w halogen light. The plant looks very healthy even though it is tall and lanky. The HPS puts alot of the same color as the halogen wich can grow big plants as you can see from the video.

The HPS also has other colors that will make the plants grow in other patterns not just tall if you put all the colors together and you get somthing that works to grow cannabis and grows it very well.
 
TeaTreeOil said:
Light is additive. Take a mirror out, reflect some light on the wall. It gets brighter. No, you did not just create a miracle. You've experienced that light is additive. This is a physical law and has been known since before you were born.
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But where is the science? How do we calculate HOW additive light is? Clearly it's not perfectly additive as if you put 4 250w CFL's together that produce 20,000 lumens each you're light meter ain't gonna read 80,000 lumens. Of course this I am assuming based upon FDD's argument.

Which is the truth...will 5 250w lights put out 100,000 lumens if grouped together tightly?. Will those 100,000 lumens penetrate 12" into the canopy as well as as 100,000 lumens from say a 750w HID?

At 2 feet would the 750w HID and the CFL register simlarly?

Is this the road to the overall problem? do we just need to wait until we have much larger more powerful CFL's like 600w CFL grow lights?
 
laserbrn said:
See this is the argument that I've also seen, but I've seen charts supposedly proving that light is "additive" meaning that if you were to put together 4 250w CFL's you would be able to produce 80,000 lumens and the fact that you could get them so close would offset the loss of 12,000 lumens. It seems to me like the real answer is that light IS NOT additive and just doesn't work that way.
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light may well be additive as far as our eyes can see, it may not be, i don't have the answer to that question, but from each source the intensity is still the same, so while you may well total 80,000 lumens by using 100 lights, because of how fast the light diminishes from them because of their low output, it means that those 80,000 are not focused in any one part, they are spread out all around the plant, and thus the intensity on anyone spot can never be the same,

with a hps its a single fixed sourced that puts out 90,0000 lumens wherever is in range, once it gets beyond a foot then it starts to reduce, but the intensity is still great on those areas than if you were using cfl's
 
Addition. Lux is what matters.

They'd put out 100,000 lm regardless of placement; however, placing them within each others 'throw' would increase the lux measurement. Placing them outside the 'reach' of one another would not give you an increase in lux.

For instance, you can use a parabolic reflector to increase lux in a given direction.

If light is not additive, why do you even bother using a reflector? According to your reasoning, a reflector is absolutely worthless. Which we all know is not true.
 
have you all stared into that HID yet? lolololol


do not go into this room then walk outside at night time. you will run into shit, it is BLINDING. i have bruises all over me now. big dent in the side of my wifes truck. that wasn't there a minute ago. :wall:

IMG_1854.jpg
 
i didn't say it was and i didn't say it wasn't,

fact is though cfl's can not match intensity over the plant as a whole, that is fact,

Now i'm in no denial that cfl's work for guys, they get reasonable looking plants with lots of buds, but that bud is never anywhere near as dense as what i produce using hid lighting.

Don't take offense to what i'm saying, as i'm not saying cfl's suck, for some peoples circumstances they are better to grow with than a hps.

All i'm saying is that you do 100% true get buds that are more dense with hid lighting than you do with cfl lighting and that is from my experience and experimentations.


Plus by time you stick all those cfl's your not saving a whole lot of electricity, the only benefit is reduced heat.

if you have 10 23w cfls in place of a 400w then your still using 230watts

if electricity costs 10 cents per kilowatt hour then it costs you 2.5 cents an hour for your cfls instead of 4 cents, thats a whole saving of 1.5 cents an hour.

again please don't take this as a bash as its not. they do have their place and its not just in hallways or bedrooms, they can be very useful for growing, just don't try and oversell it for more than it is.
 
fdd2blk said:
have you all stared into that HID yet? lolololol


do not go into this room then walk outside at night time. you will run into shit, it is BLINDING. i have bruises all over me now. big dent in the side of my wifes truck. that wasn't there a minute ago. :wall:

View attachment 357730
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What are your plants sitting on? Looks like bleacher seating.
I drooled on your pic. You can have it back now.
:)
 
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